5^th Infantry Regiment

The 5th Infantry Regiment entered World War II from a Regular Army background, serving in the Panama Canal Zone before returning to the United States in January 1943. After attachments to the 99th Infantry Division and Third Army, it joined the 71st Light Division at Camp Carson and remained with the formation when it became the 71st Infantry Division. The regiment staged at Camp Kilmer, sailed from New York on January 26, 1945, arrived in France on February 6, and entered Germany on March 23.

The 5th's combat service was concentrated in the final Rhineland and Central Europe campaigns. The division relieved the 100th Infantry Division near Ratzwiller on March 11, pushed through the West Wall, and captured Pirmasens on March 21. After crossing the Rhine at Oppenheim, it helped eliminate a bypassed German force north of Hanau. German troops overran Waldensberg on April 2; the 5th and 14th Infantry Regiments then pressed them eastward into Budingen Wald while the 66th blocked the exits. By April 4 the pocket had been destroyed.

The regiment then moved rapidly through central and southern Germany. The division cleared toward Meiningen, followed the 11th Armored Division toward Coburg, cut the Munich-Berlin highway, and fought at Bayreuth. In late April the 5th overran Sulzbach-Rosenberg, reached Regen as the advance turned south, and pushed to the Danube at Frengkofen. On April 26 it crossed there, reinforced by a battalion of the 66th Infantry. After Regensburg surrendered, the regiment followed the drive into Austria, seized the Inn River dam at Ering on May 2, advanced unopposed to Steyr on the Enns by May 5, and secured the Ernsthofen dam across the Enns on May 6, near the final American-Soviet contact zone east of Linz.