45^th Infantry Division

The 45th Infantry Division entered combat in Sicily in July 1943, landing near Scoglitti and pushing inland to reach the north coastal highway before the advance was halted for rest. At Salerno in September, its regiments fought for key terrain around Ponte Sole and the Tobacco Factory before the division secured the heights east of Eboli and drove north. Crossing the Volturno in November, it battled through the Hitler Line and seized a succession of mountain heights through December, positions approaching the heights above Cassino by early 1944.

The division landed at Anzio in January 1944 and held the beachhead through four months of hard defensive fighting, including a major German counterattack in mid-February that pressed the line to its limit before being contained. Breaking out in late May, it secured crossings north of Rome before withdrawing in June to prepare for the invasion of southern France.

In August 1944, the division landed on the French Riviera and advanced up the Rhône Valley before entering the Vosges. After Bruyères fell in October, it fought through the Saverne Gap, took Mertzwiller, and pushed into Alsace. The winter battles proved punishing — the 157th Infantry Regiment suffered a battalion decimated northeast of Reipertsweiler in January 1945 — before the division was withdrawn and rehabilitated.

The division returned to the attack in March, broke through the West Wall in the Saareguemines sector, and crossed the Rhine in late March. It then joined the assault on Nuremberg alongside the 3rd and 42nd Infantry Divisions, the city falling on April 20, before driving south through Bavaria, passing through Munich, and advancing into Austria. Its campaign extended without interruption from the beaches of Sicily to the Austrian Alps — one of the most broadly traveled combat records in the European war.