313^th Infantry Regiment

The 313th Infantry Regiment was organized at Camp Pickett on June 15, 1942, assigned to the 79th Infantry Division, and trained in Florida, Tennessee, California, Kansas, and Massachusetts before sailing from Boston on April 7, 1944. It arrived in England on April 16 and landed in France on June 12. In the Cherbourg campaign, the regiment attacked with the 315th Infantry on June 19 from the Golleville-Urville line, reached the Bois de la Brique, and shifted to the division right for the main assault. On June 22 it drove against La Mare a Canards as the division fought through the fortress city's defenses and closed on Cherbourg.

After Cherbourg the regiment shared the division's fighting on the Ollonde line, at La Haye-du-Puits, and down the Cotentin coast to the Ay River against mines, mortars, and machine guns. In the August pursuit, a task force built around the motorized 313th advanced on Laval, reduced roadblocks along the Fougeres-Laval highway, and entered the city after German demolition of the Mayenne River bridges. At Mantes-Gassicourt, men of the 313th crossed the Seine by a narrow dam footpath during the rainy night of August 19-20, opening the division bridgehead and bringing tanks and artillery eastward.

In Lorraine the 313th captured Poussay, crossed the Moselle, cleared Xermamenil, and fought at Moncel on the edge of the Foret de Mondon during the September drive toward Luneville and the Vezouse. It later fought through the Foret de Parroy, Haguenau, the Lauter-Wissembourg line, and the January 1945 Alsace fighting while attached to the 45th Infantry Division. On March 24 the 313th assaulted across the Rhine, reached the first railroad, and built the southern flank along the Walsum canal. It crossed the Emser and Rhine-Herne Canals in April and reached the Ruhr near Kettwig.