|
draftsman for all these maps taken with a few additions from the Third Army After Action Report,
which show the advance of the Army's front. In the Adjutant General's Reproduction plant, great
technical assistance and personal interest was given the project by M/Sgt C E Galton and Mr Raymond
G Goldsmith, the latter with the 90th Infantry Division when it was a part of XII Corps. Several girls in
the Adjutant General Editorial Section under Lieutenant Colonel J B Williams worked hard to proofread
the whole typescript before it went to the publisher.
Unquestionably, the names of many persons who made important contributions to this volume
have been left out for reasons of limitation of space or because they could not be obtained. Like the
faithful proofreaders in Colonel William's office, or the unsung hero who wrote the much-used
historical narrative of the Corps' first year, they must remain anonymous here. They will have to satisfy
themselves with the knowledge that several thousand ex-members of XII Corps have benefited from
their efforts, and with the certainty that the author, at least, as he completes the work of writing and
returns contentedly to civilian life at long last, is well aware that XII Corps, Spearhead of Patton's Third
Army is anything but a one-man book.
4. Character of XII Corps
The military entity known as the "Corps" or "US Army Corps" is not familiar to many
Americans. The "Army" or "Field Army," of which a corps is the largest single element, is far better
known. So is the Division, which is the largest single unit in a Corps. Even among men who were
members of XII Corps in combat it was often true that they thought of themselves as "belonging" to the
much more widely publicized Third Army, or to an equally famous infantry or armored division. It is
therefore perhaps worthwhile to give the reader a brief definition of what constitutes an American Army
Corps, and to indicate in what way it is the indispensable, adaptable but direct, link between the Field
Army and the Division.
"The (Field) Army," says Field Manual 101-10, "is a flexible combat force capable of
independent operations, consisting of two or more Corps and reinforcing combat and service troops."
Of the Corps the manual says: "The functions of the Corps in an army will be primarily tactical.... Other
units will be assigned to a Corps in accordance with its combat mission. These will be divisions, groups
or battalions of Field artillery, antiaircraft artillery, tank, tank destroyer, engineer, and cavalry
reconnaissance elements.... The organic elements of the Corps will consist of a headquarters and
headquarters company; and military police platoon; signal battalion; headquarters and headquarters
battery, corps artillery; and a field artillery observation battalion...."
Translated into specific terms, this means that throughout combat and occupation on the
Continent of Europe, XII U S Army Corps was always a part -- and a very considerable part -- of Third
US Army. Similarly, Third Army was always a very considerable fraction of 12th Army Group during
the fighting, and 12th Army Group in turn was at times the largest single subdivision of the Allied
Expeditionary Forces in the ETO. Turning from a higher chain of command to look in the other
direction, the reader will see that XII Corps' average total of about 90,000 men was made up in large
measure of the various divisions which were parts of the Corps, -- on occasion as many as six. The rest
were the "Corps Troops," -- combat and service units fighting shoulder to shoulder with the divisions.
Just where of the modern American Army in the field gets most of the flexibility credited to it in
the Field Manual may be inferred from the fact that while XII Corps was at all times on the Continent
assigned to Third Army, as Third Army was at all times a part of 12th Army Group, not one of the
divisions assigned to XII Corps remained in that organization for the entire period of combat. Divisions
|