The 11th Armored Division landed in France in December 1944 and was committed almost immediately during the Ardennes counteroffensive. Deployed initially along the Meuse to block German exploitation, it was soon engaged in the fighting around Houffalize as Allied forces began compressing the salient from south and north. On January 16, 1945, elements of the division linked with First Army forces at Houffalize — the junction that marked the formal closing of the Bulge and the restoration of a continuous Allied front.

Campaign map image

World War II Campaign Map of the 11th Armored Division. Map courtesy of HistoryShots.

Purchase at HistoryShots →

The division then moved to the German frontier, crossing the Prüm and Kyll rivers and advancing to the Rhine before crossing near Oppenheim in late March. It drove rapidly southeast through Bavaria, taking Coburg and pushing through Bayreuth as German resistance disintegrated. The pace of advance in April was measured in tens of miles per day as town after town fell without organized defense.

In the war's final days the division crossed the Danube and entered Austria. On May 5, 1945, its units reached the Mauthausen concentration camp near Linz — one of the largest and most brutal in the Nazi system — liberating its surviving prisoners two days before Germany's formal surrender. Its combat record extended from the Ardennes to Austria in a campaign of barely five months.