Talk:94th Infantry

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This text had already been merged to U.S. 94th Infantry Division RainbowCrane | Talk 17:21, 26 August 2006 (UTC)

Following a brief stay in England, the 94th landed on Utah Beach on D plus 94, 8 September 1944, and moved into Brittany to assume responsibility for containing some 60,000 German troops besieged in the Channel ports of Lorient and St. Nazaire. The 94th inflicted over 2,700 casualties on the enemy and took 566 prisoners before being relieved on New Year's Day 1945. Moving west, the Division took positions in the Saar-Moselle Triangle, facing the Siegfried Switch Line, 7 January 1945, and shifted to the offensive, 14 January, seizing Tettingen and Butzdorf that day.

The following day, the NennigBerg-Wies area was wrested from the enemy, but severe counterattacks followed, and Butzdorf, Berg, and most of Nennig changed hands several times before being finally secured. On the 20th, an unsuccessful battalion attack against Orscholz, eastern terminus of the switch position, resulted in loss of most of two companies. In early February the Division took Campholz woods and seized Sinz. On 19 February 1945, the Division launched a full-scale attack, storming the heights of Munzigen Ridge, backbone of the Saar-Moselle Triangle, and took all objectives. Moving forward, the 10th Armored and 94th secured the area from Orscholz to the confluence of the Saar and Moselle Rivers by 21 February 1945. Then, launching an attack across the Saar, it established and expanded a bridgehead. By 2 March 1945, the Division stretched over a 10-mile front, from Hocker Hill on the Saar through Zerf, and Lampaden to Ollmuth. A heavy German attack near Lampaden achieved penetrations, but the line was shortly restored, and on 13 March, spearheading the XX Corps, the 94th broke out of the bridgehead and drove to the Rhine, reaching that river, 21 March. Ludwigshafen was taken, 24 March, in conjunction with CCA of the 12th Armored Division.

The Division then moved by rail and motor to the vicinity of Krefeld, Germany, assuming responsibility, 3 April, for containing the west side of the Ruhr pocket from positions along the Rhine. With the reduction of the pocket in mid-April, the Division was assigned military government duties, first in the Krefeld and later in the Dusseldorf areas.

Assignments in the ETO* 27 July 1944: XIII Corps, Ninth Army. 28 August 1944: XIII Corps, Ninth Army, 12th Army Group. 23 September 1944: Ninth Army, 12th Army Group. 9 October 1944: 12th Army Group. 5 January 1945: 12th Army Group, but attached to Oise Section, Communication Zone, for supply. 6 January 1945: XX Corps, Third Army, 12th Army Group. 29 March 1945: XXII Corps, Fifteenth Army, 12th Army Group.

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General Nickname: Neuf-cats. Shoulder patch: A circle divided diagonally into fields of gray and black; the Arabic number 9 in black superimposed in the field of gray and the Arabic number 4 in gray is on the field of black. Association: 94th Infantry Division Association, P. O. Building, Boston 9, Mass. (Mr. Francis P. Sears). Publication: History of the 94th Infantry Division; by unit members; The Infantry Journal, Washington 6, D. C.; 1948.

During the coldest winter on record (in the 1900's) near Tettingen (Germany), Co. L, 302reg., 94th Div., on the 19th and 20th of January, 1945 was in a battle against the 3rd Panzer division of the German army. A handful of the soldiers from L Company found themselves in a World War I bunker during the German counter attack in the late hours of January 19th, and the battle lasted into January 20th, 1945. L Company's position was overrun while inside the bunker, fox holes and in the apple orchard leaving the platoon trapped. Several hours went by while the Germans attempted to blast the G.I.'s from their position. The Germans started using dynamite on the bunker.

Stanley Potocki and Platoon Sgt. Chet Markowski were taking turns firing out of the small door hole at the German that were attempting to set off a bomb against the door of the bunker. Inside the bunker, Pvt. Vernon Leathers lay mortally wounded on a cot. Several others, including Clyde Statton, were inside that bunker. Sgt. Erich Gerloff, Pvts. Woodrow Lewis & Hjalmer Lindberg, along with many others, were in the foxholes and the heavily woods area (known to the US Army as Monkey Wrench Woods). During this attack, many men including both Lewis, Lindberg were both killed.

Eventually, the Germans captured the men in the bunker, along with many from the foxholes and apple orchard. Upon doing so, the group was immediately separated from one another, officers, nco's, and pfc's. and marched away. This was probably the first time this many men were separated since starting basic training back in 1942 at Camp Phillips. The new prisoners, many with injuries ranging from gunshot wounds to broken limbs where ordered by their captures to carry the German dead and wounded from the battlefield. They marched for approximately 5 days through the snow to a cold boxcar.