The 3rd Armored Division landed in Normandy in late June 1944 and entered the hedgerow fighting north of Saint-Lô. When Operation COBRA opened the American front in late July, its combat commands drove through the breach near Marigny and helped rupture the German line, enabling the exploitation that swept across France. The division helped close the Falaise-Argentan pocket in August, then advanced rapidly through Belgium before reaching the German frontier near Roetgen — among the first American formations to penetrate the West Wall — in September.

Campaign map image

World War II Campaign Map of the 3rd Armored Division. Map courtesy of HistoryShots.

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Fighting then shifted to the Stolberg corridor and the industrial approaches to Aachen, where the terrain, fortifications, and German determination made progress slow and costly. During the Ardennes counteroffensive, the division moved south into the fighting to contain German advances near Manhay and along the northern shoulder before turning back to the offensive.

In early 1945 the division advanced through Cologne, crossed the Rhine, and drove east toward Paderborn, where commanding general Maurice Rose was killed by German tank fire on March 30. The division secured Paderborn and swept east through the Harz region, discovering the Nordhausen V-weapon facility and the Dora-Mittelbau concentration camp complex in early April before pushing to the Saale and reaching the Elbe south of Magdeburg as the Reich collapsed. Its campaign combined the fastest armored exploitation of the Western Front with some of its costliest attritional fighting.