Battle of the Bulge

Once mop-up operations were complete in the Normandy region, the Division turned west and plunged headlong across France. From positions around St. Vith, Belgium, the Second was ordered on 11 December 1944 to attack and seize the Roer River dams. Having pierced the dreaded Siegfried Line, the Division was advancing when Nazi Field Marshal Gerd Von Rundstedt unleashed a powerful Geman offensive in the Ardennes. Throughout this Battle of the Bulge, the 2nd Infantry Division held fast, preventing the enemy from seizing key roads leading to the cities of Liege and Antwerp. Resuming the offensive on 6 February 1945, the Division joined the race to annihilate the fleeing Wehrmacht.

Word War II:

As part of the build up for operation Overlord, the Normandy invasion, the 2nd Infantry Division was transferred from Fort Sam Houston to Ireland in October, 1943. There it spent ten months undergoing extensive training. On 7 June 1944, D-Day, the Division stormed ashore at bloody Omaha Beach. While the determined German resistance to the west stalled other units, the Indianheads blasted through the hedgerows of Normandy. After a fierce 39-day battle, the 2nd Infantry Division, fighting in the streets and alleyways, finally liberated the vital port city of Brest on 18 September 1944.

Czechoslovakia

Transferred from the First Army to Patton's Third Amy, the Indianheads spent their last days of the European War in a dash across Czechoslovakia, finally halting in the town of Pilsen. This city became a meeting point between invading armies from the east and from the west.

It was in Pilsen that the soldiers of the 2nd Infantry Division first met Soviets who represented the forces of Communism that they would face so often in the future, as adversaries.