Tab US Spearhead 3 Arm Division

The 3rd Armored Division ("Spearhead") was an armored division of the United States Army. Unofficially nicknamed the "Third Herd", the division was first activated in 1941, and was active in the European Theater ofWorld War II. The division was stationed in West Germany for much of the Cold War, and participated in thePersian Gulf War. On 17 January 1992 in Germany, the division ceased operations; in October 1992 it was formally deactivated as part of a general drawing down of forces at the end of the Cold War.

The Third Armored Division was organized as a "heavy" armored division, as was its counterpart, the 2nd Armored Division ("Hell on Wheels"). Later, higher-numbered U.S. armored divisions of World War II were smaller, with a higher ratio of armored infantry to tanks, based on lessons of the fighting in North Africa.

As a "heavy" division, the 3rd Armored possessed two armored regiments totaling four medium tank battalionsand two of light tanks (18 companies) instead of three tank battalions containing both (12 companies), 232 medium tanks instead of the 168 allotted a light armored division, and with attached units numbered over 16,000 men, instead of the normal 12,000 found in the light armored divisions. Each division type had an infantry component of three mechanized infantrybattalions.

The division's core units were the 36th Armored Infantry Regiment, the 32nd Armored Regiment, the 33rd Armored Regiment, the 23rd Armored Engineer Battalion, the 83rd Armored Reconnaissance Battalion, and the 143rd Armored Signal Company. During World War II, these were organized operationally into task forces known as combat commands A, B and R (Reserve), as in the light divisions.

In addition to the core units, a number of other units of various kinds were attached to the division during various operations.

During 1944 and 1945, the units comprising the Third Armored Division included:

• Combat units:
  • 32nd Armored Regiment
  • 33rd Armored Regiment
  • 36th Armored Infantry Regiment
  • 54th Field Artillery Battalion
  • 67th Field Artillery Battalion
  • 391st Field Artillery Battalion
  • 143rd Signal Battalion
  • 23rd Armored Engineer Battalion
  • 83rd Armored Reconnaissance Battalion

• Headquarters units:
  • Headquarters Company, 3rd Armored Division
  • Service Company, 3rd Armored Division
  • Division Trains
  • Supply Battalion
  • 45th Armored Medical Battalion
  • 503rd Intelligence Corps

• Attached units:
  • 643rd Tank Destroyer Battalion (attached 22 December 1944 to 26 December 1944)
  • 703rd Tank Destroyer Battalion (attached 25 June 1944 to 17 December 1944, 2 January 1945 to 9 May 1945)
  • 803rd Tank Destroyer Battalion (attached 25 June 1944 to 2 July 1944)
  • 413th AAA Gun Battalion (attached 7 July 1944 to 16 July 1944)
  • 486th AAA Auto-Weapons Battalion (attached 25 June 1944 to 9 May 1945)

Training timeline

The division was activated on 15 April 1941 at Camp Beauregard, Louisiana. In June 1941, it moved to Camp Polk Louisiana (now Fort Polk). On 9 March 1942, it came under Army Ground Forces and was assigned to the II Armored Corps. In July 1942, it was transferred to Camp Young, CA and from August to October 1942, took part in maneuvers at the Desert Training Center. It left Camp Young in January 1943 and moved to the Indiantown Gap Military Reservation, Pennsylvania.

The 3rd AD arrived in the European Theatre on 15 September 1943, conducting pre-invasion training in the Liverpool and Bristol areas. It remained in Somerset, England until 24 June 1944, when it departed to partake in the Normandy operations.

According to the book 'Plain Soldiering' by N.D.G James which deals with the armed forces on Salisbury Plain the division's units, while in England from September 1943 until July 1944, mainly in Wiltshire. The HQ was probably at Warminster with units in 5 Wiltshire villages and 3 villages in Somerset. There is a small memorial at Mere in Wiltshire.

Into battle

The first elements of the 3rd Armored in France saw combat on 29 June, with the division as a whole beginning combat operations on 9 July 1944. During this time, it was under the command of VII Corps and XVIII Airborne Corps for some time, and assigned to the First Army and the 12th Army Group for the duration of its career.

The division "spearheaded" the US First Army through Normandy, taking part in a number of engagements, notably including the Battle of Saint Lô, where it suffered significant casualties. After facing heavy fighting in the hedgerows, and developing methods to overcome the vast thickets of brush and earth that constrained its mobility, the unit broke out at Marigny, alongside the 1st Infantry Division, and swung south to Mayenne. The engineers and maintenance crews took the large I-Beam Invasion barriers from the beaches at Normandy and used the beams to weld large crossing rams on the front of the Sherman tanks. They would then hit the hedgerows at high speed, bursting through them without exposing the vulnerable underbellies of the tanks. Until this happened, they could not get across the hedgerows.

Ordered to help close the Falaise Gap and Argentan pocket which contained the German Seventh Army, the division finished the job near Putanges by 18 August. Six days later the outfit had sped through Courville and Chartres and was located at the banks of the Seine River. On the night of 25 August 1944 the crossing of the Seine by the division started; once over, the 3rd slugged its way across France, reaching Belgium on 2 September 1944.

Liberated in the path of the division were Meaux, Soissons, Laon, Marle, Mons, Charleroi, Namur and Liege. It was at Mons that the division cut off 40,000 Wehrmacht troops and captured 8,000 prisoners. "Then the division began the first invasion of Germany since the days of Napoleon" is a claim often repeated and derives from 1947 U.S. Army literature that ignored earlier acts such as the 5th Armored Division's reconnaissance into Germany on 11 September 1944, French troops entering the Saarland in September 1939 during the Saar Offensive, and the entry into Germany by imperial Russian troops in 1914.

Hurtgen and the Bulge

On 10 September 1944 the Spearhead Division fired what it claimed was the first American field artillery shell of the war onto German soil. Two days later it passed the German border and soon breached the Siegfried Line, taking part in the Battle of Hurtgen Forest.

The 3rd Armored Division continued fighting during the Battle of Bulge, far north of the deepest German penetration. The Division fought south in an attack designed to help wipe out the bulge and bring First Army's line abreast of Patton’s Third Army fighting northward toward Houffalize. It severed a vital highway leading to St. Vith and later reached Lierneux, Belgium, where it halted to refit.

After a month of rest the division continued its offensive to the east, and on February 26, Spearhead rolled back inside Germany as both Combat Commands bolted across the Roer River and seized several towns, crossed the Erft Canal, and at last broke through to the Rhine River to capture Cologne by March 7. Two weeks later it crossed the Rhine south of Cologne at Honnef.

On 31 March, the commander of the division, Major General Maurice Rose, rounded a corner in his jeep and found himself face to face with a German tank. As he withdrew his pistol to surrender, a young German tank commander, apparently misunderstanding Rose's intentions, shot the general.

Beyond Cologne the division swept up Paderborn in its advance, to shut the back door to the Ruhr Pocket. In April, the division crossed the Saale River, north of Halle, and sped on toward the Elbe River.

On 11 April 1945, the 3rd Armored discovered the Dora-Mittelbau concentration camp. The division first arrived on the scene, reporting back to headquarters that it had uncovered a large concentration camp near the town of Nordhausen. Requesting help from the 104th Infantry Division, the 3rd immediately began transporting some 250 ill and starving prisoners to nearby hospital facilities.

The last major fighting in the war for the division was the Battle of Dessau, which the division captured on 23 April 1945 after three days of combat. Following the action at Dessau, the division moved into corps reserve at Sangerhausen.^[2] Occupational duty near Langen was given the division following V-E Day, a role it filled until inactivation on 10 November 1945.