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to the Air Force and the Maquis, while all the might of the Corps was directed against the tottering
German defenses with an intensity and single-mindedness that disheartened the foe and gave him no
rest. Venerable military historians may have turned in their graves, but the Corps slashed through to the
enemy's rear and swept into the Nazi positions from every direction.
The 69th Signal Battalion performed Herculean tasks to keep pace with the flying combat
columns and Corps Headquarters. Corps artillery ran with the forward elements, setting up the guns at
ridiculously close range under the muzzles of hostile Canon. It had provided its own security and
country where the enemy had been bypassed but not eliminated. Every element of XX Corps
contributed its share to the success of the campaigns of Normandy and France. Coordination of the skill
and effort of the various arms and branches of the Corps into one gigantic striking force by Corps
Headquarters was a splendid achievement.
The XX Corps had performed an important role in the Third Army's amazing power drive across
France. At the time of the breakthrough from Normandy, the German Seventh Army was hard-pressed
for supplies and reinforcments. Since there were no major bridges intact over the Seine or the Loire, the
Nazi forces in the West were compelled to dispatch troops and matériel to Normandy through the level
land route between Paris and Orleans; but the Third Army's lightning advance blocked up this quarter
and the German Seventh Army was doomed. Even an escape route to the German armies in southern
France was denied the enemy forces trapped in Normandy.
High-level strategy had called for the use of airborne divisions to achieve this result, but the
amazing speed of the American advance made this unnecessary.
During the last week in August, the action of XX Corps was the most spectacular of its entire
campaign in France. It had driven in a few days through the fortified, historic seems of World War I,
the Marne, the Meuse, Argonne Forest, Château-Thierry, and Verdun. The racing armored columns of
the Corps chewed their way through the hallowed battlegrounds of World War I that had seen months
and years of bloody fighting in which gains were measured in hundreds of yards.
At Verdun, the machines of war of the XX Corps ground to a halt. Supplies, especially gasoline,
had become acutely short. The long, fast drive across the breadth of France placed the Corps too far
from the strained supply line that still stretched its way back to the beaches and Cherbourg over the torn
roads and hastily constructed bridges. Many of the vehicles of the combat commands were immobilized
on the roads because of worn treads. The infantry divisions had barely enough gas for their cooking
needs. The XX Corps was still eager to attack, still in control of the situation, but was still in control of
the situation, but was like a heart with no blood to pump through its arteries.
During the period of the great gas shortage, the caps Corps Command Post and some of the
Corps units were located in the woods at the junction of the Voie Sacree and the Route Nationald No. 3,
west of Verdun. Here, His Royal Highness, Prince Felix of Luxembourg joined the XX Corps
Headquarters. The distinguished visitor was attached to the Corps during the time it remained at this
location. Here too the Corps marked the second anniversary of its activities. There was already much to
be looked back upon with pardonable pride.
When partial replacement of the vital gasoline requirements had been received by airlift and the
"Read Ball Express", the Corps Headquarters, in order to approach as closely as possible to the great
bastion of Metz, moved east to Mars-La-Tour where another historic battle was fought in 1870. Here
the rains came. The early fall downpours softened the ground and made the movement of heavy
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