80^th Infantry Division

The 80th Infantry Division landed at Utah Beach on August 3, 1944, and swept east with Third Army, helping close the Falaise Gap with the capture of Le Bourg-Saint-Léonard and Argentan before crossing the Meuse at Commercy. Driving to the Moselle, the 317th Infantry Regiment was repulsed at Toul on September 6 and the 318th Infantry spent five days reducing Fort de Villey-le-Sec before the division forced the river on September 12 and defended the bridgehead against repeated counterattacks. Lorraine fighting continued through autumn — contested river crossings, battles in the Bois de Ia Ramont, and village engagements along the Seille — before the division was withdrawn for rehabilitation in early December.

Campaign map image

World War II Campaign Map of the 80th Infantry Division. Map courtesy of HistoryShots.

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Rushed north for the Ardennes, the division fought through the Arlon area, blocking German thrusts at Ettelbruck and Heiderscheid over Christmas and into the new year. Turning the corner of the Bulge, it forced the Our and Sauer Rivers against West Wall fortifications on February 7, 1945, and pressed through the German frontier defenses before the drive resumed.

Crossing the Rhine simultaneously at Oppenheim and Mainz on March 27-28, the division raced through central Germany, taking Kassel in house-to-house fighting on April 2-4 and sweeping south through Erfurt before the 319th Infantry Regiment accepted Weimar's surrender on April 12 — its troops among the first Americans to reach the Buchenwald concentration camp on the city's edge. The division continued into Austria, crossing the Danube, the Isar, and the Inn to reach Braunau on May 3. It was at the Enns River near Kirchdorf when Germany surrendered on May 7, and was later recognized as a liberating unit at Ebensee, a subcamp of Mauthausen.