66^th Infantry Division

The 66th Infantry Division arrived in Europe under tragic circumstances when the troopship Leopoldville was torpedoed in the English Channel on Christmas Eve, 1944, with the loss of 14 officers and 748 enlisted men before the survivors reached France.

Arriving at Cherbourg on December 25, the division was assigned to contain German garrison forces along the Brittany and Loire coasts. Relieving the 94th Infantry Division on December 29, its regiments took responsibility for investing the fortified pockets at Lorient and Saint-Nazaire — a mission combining daily reconnaissance patrols, limited objective attacks, and sustained harassing and interdictory fires on German positions. A series of French infantry regiments were attached to extend the division's line and share the containment burden across a front that stretched through much of western France.

These operations continued throughout the winter and spring, with a heavy German counterattack near La Croix repulsed on April 16, 1945, and several German strongpoints reduced in late April. On May 8, 1945, the garrisons at both Lorient and Saint-Nazaire surrendered to the division, bringing to a close a campaign defined less by the offensive sweep of operations elsewhere in Europe than by the strategically necessary work of fixing powerful enemy forces in place during the final months of the war. The division subsequently moved to the Koblenz area for occupation duty.