The 14th Armored Division landed in southern France in October 1944 and moved north into the Vosges and lower Alsace. In late January 1945, it was drawn into the most intense armored combat of the Alsace campaign at Hatten and Rittershoffen — two adjacent villages where American and German armored forces fought at close range through rubble, cellars, and burning streets for more than two weeks. The battle inflicted severe losses on both sides and ended with the division withdrawing to the Moder River line, where the front stabilized.
When the Allied offensive resumed in March 1945, the division crossed the Moder, punched through the Siegfried Line, and advanced to the Rhine, crossing at Worms in late March. Driving southeast through Bavaria with the 7th Army's exploitation, it crossed the Danube and then the Isar, its combat commands racing past successive river lines.
On April 29, 1945, elements of the division reached Moosburg and liberated Stalag VII-A — the largest prisoner-of-war camp in Germany, holding some 130,000 Allied prisoners of more than thirty nationalities. The liberation was among the most significant prisoner operations of the war. The division's campaign moved from the brutal defensive fighting of Alsace to that singular act of liberation in Bavaria.
Sources and notes can be found on the Sources page.