222^nd Infantry Regiment

The 222nd Infantry Regiment was activated at Camp Gruber, Oklahoma, on July 14, 1943, as part of the 42nd Infantry Division. After training in the United States it staged at Camp Kilmer, sailed from New York on November 25, 1944, and reached France on December 8. Because the division arrived in increments, its forward regiments entered combat as Task Force Linden. The 222nd was drawn into the Rhine and Maginot Line sector near Strasbourg and Wissembourg during the German January offensive, helping hold a wide defensive front while the Seventh Army absorbed the blows of Operation Nordwind.

When the 42nd Division entered combat as a complete formation in February 1945, the regiment served in the Haguenau-Hardt Mountains sector, then joined the March attack on the West Wall at Baerenthal. The division crossed into Germany on March 18 and advanced through Dahn as German resistance along the frontier collapsed. Its most prominent regimental action came at Wuerzburg. After securing Marienburg opposite the city, the 222nd crossed the Main at dawn on April 3 in a frontal assault. On April 4, operating with Combat Command A of the 12th Armored Division, it pushed south and east through Wuerzburg and cleared a large part of the city before the remaining defense was overcome on April 5.

The 222nd next formed the right portion of the Schweinfurt operation, holding the Volkach bridgehead and positions west of the Main before moving north toward Bergrheinfeld as the division converged on the city. In mid-April it advanced with the 232nd to the Aisch River near Neustadt, fought into Fuerth, and helped the 42nd and neighboring divisions close Nuremberg. The regiment then drove south to the Danube, through Donauwoerth, Munich, and into Austria before hostilities ended.