Why We Are NOT Goose-Stepping..to Death Camps!!..The Cross of Lorraine Division: The Story of the 79th is a small booklet covering the history of the 79th Infantry Division. This booklet is one of the series of G.I. Stories published by the Stars & Stripes in Paris in 1944-1945. This is one of a series of G.I. Stories of the Ground. Air and Service Forces in the European Theater of Operations, to be issued by the Stars and Stripes, a publication of the Information and Education Division, Special and Information Services, ETOUSA... Major General I.T. Wyche, commanding the 79th Infantry Division, lent his cooperation to the preparation of the pamphlet, and basic material was supplied to the editors by his staff. T HE story of the 79th Division is fact, not fiction. The accomplishments set forth here are sufficient evidence that the individuals of the division realized and accepted their several responsibilities. To our dear comrades who gave their all to bring about these great deeds let us do homage by renewing with even greater vigor our determination to close with the enemy and exterminate him. I.T. Wyche Major General, Commanding The Story Of The 79th Infantry Division THE GRENADIERS WERE WARNED O N Oct. 25, 1944, the G-2 report of the Nazi 361st Volksgrenadier Div. addressed the following warning note to its subordinate units: The 79th Division is said to have fought particularly well in Normandy, and is considered as one of the best attack divisions in the U.S. Army. That grudging compliment could not have been more timely. As of Oct. 25 the 79th Inf. Div. was well past its 125th day of consecutive combat in France. Behind it was a record replete with records in itself, certified for permanent military annals by the unanimous praise of the various headquarters under which the division has operated. This was the division of two outstanding firsts: first to enter Cherbourg, via Fort du Roule, enemy-styled impregnable fortress guarding approaches to this strategic port city; first across the Seine in the Allied drive on Paris. This was the division that swept through France like an avenging flame, from the Atlantic to the Seine, from the Belgian border to the Vosges foothills. This was the division with a combat itinerary like a railroad time table: Cherbourg, La Haye du Puits, Lessay, Fougeres, Laval, Le Mans, La Mele sur Sarthe, Avranches, Nogent le Roi, Mantes-Gassicourt, St. Amand, Howardries, Reims, Joinville, Neufchateau, Charmes, Luneville and way stations. This was the division that by sheer guts and a fighting devotion to duty had ousted a desperate foe from the hell that was Foret de Parroy. This was the famed Fighting 79th—the Cross of Lorraine Division—back at the task it had thought completed 26 years ago. T HE divisions advance party reached France on D plus 6 and two days later its combat and service units were landed at Utah Beach, where spasmodic enemy shelling and bombing dispelled the last, lingering doubt that the current action was anything more than another dry run. It was here that T/5 Harry Rybiski, of Hq. Co., 315th Inf. Regt., was struck a glancing blow by a stray shell fragment, and thus became the first 79th man to receive a Purple Heart in World War II. For the second time the Cross of Lorraine Division was on French soil—but there the comparison stopped. These soldiers had behind them a wealth of pre-combat experience, plus the last word in equipment. Some had been with the division since its activation at Camp Pickett, Va., on June 15, 1942. They had undergone the toughening of Tennessee maneuvers, a three-month hitch in the grueling California-Arizona Maneuver Area and a winters training at wind-swept Camp Phillips, Kan. They had arrived in England well before D-Day. Mentally and physically they were fit for combat in all possible ways.
Posted on: Sun, 09 Nov 2014 14:54:26 +0000