The 9th Armored Division arrived in France in October 1944 and initially occupied defensive positions along the Luxembourg and Belgian frontier. In December, it was committed to the Ardennes battle in scattered elements: Combat Command B fought in the St. Vith sector alongside the 7th Armored Division, while other elements supported the defense near Bastogne. Though committed piecemeal and under severe pressure, the division's units helped slow the German advance during the battle's critical early phase.

Campaign map image

World War II Campaign Map of the 9th Armored Division. Map courtesy of HistoryShots.

Purchase at HistoryShots →

Its defining action came on March 7, 1945. Combat Command B, advancing along the Rhine's west bank near Remagen, discovered that the Ludendorff railway bridge was still standing — the demolition charges had failed to destroy it — and immediately seized the crossing. The capture of the Remagen bridge gave Allied forces their first intact Rhine crossing and significantly accelerated the final campaign in Germany. Engineers and infantry poured across under continuous German air and artillery attack before the bridge finally collapsed nine days later; by then, pontoon bridges and additional crossings had made the bridgehead secure.

The division expanded the bridgehead south toward the Lahn, then drove east toward Frankfurt and into the Ruhr Pocket's reduction. It later pushed toward Leipzig and the Mulde River, where it halted near the Soviet line of advance when Germany surrendered on May 7. Its combat record was shaped above all by the Remagen seizure — one of the most consequential tactical actions of the European war.