The unit comprised approximately fifteen hundred men and was given various typical mechanized cavalry missions later recognized by the French nation with the award of two Croix de Guerre.

Captain Benecke, the commander of B Troop of the 121st Squadron, led some cavalrymen of his unit, including those who spoke German, on a rescue party.

Whenever enemy forces were found, the cavalry was designed to determine opposing size and positions using reconnaissance-by-fire tactics, and report this information to higher command.

The group was too lightly armed to engage in sustained combat, and regular infantry or armor was utilized if the opposition proved beyond cavalry-group capabilities.

Another routine aspect of its reconnaissance duties involved employment of the cavalry group to fill measurable gaps separating frontline Allied units.

The cavalry group was also assigned missions requiring rapid movement to bypass enemy forces, if opportune weaknesses or uncovered terrain was discovered by mechanized reconnaissance methods.

[11] The three reconnaissance troops were each equipped with Bantam jeeps with a bracket-mounted .30 caliber machine gun, manned by a soldier sitting in the front passenger seat.

[12]: 80 The third vehicle used was the six-wheeled, light-weight M8 Greyhound armored car, mounted with a 37 mm gun in a movable turret that could swing a full 360 degrees.

In this capacity, the cavalrymen would go into combat with M1 rifles and carbines, hand grenades, Thompson machine guns, and newly developed bazookas.

[1] The headquarters, maintenance, mess, supply and medical units were equipped with a variety of military trucks, M8 Armored cars, halftracks, and Bantam jeeps.

The U.S. James A. Ferrell, the Liberty ship carrying Troop A of the 121st Squadron, was struck by a torpedo from German U-boat 984 shortly after leaving England killing four American soldiers below deck and wounding another 45 men.

Fortunately, a Red Cross LST came quickly alongside and the rest of the men were safely evacuated back to England for another 19 days before new transportation to France could be found.

The German front in the Battle of Normandy had collapsed, and the XV Corps turned north to help close the Falaise Pocket and the 106th provided flank screening security.

[1][17] The 106th's commanding officer, Colonel Vennard Wilson, later described the unit's action: We used five of our six troops to contain those Germans, slipped around to their north, delivered our infantry on their objective at five in the afternoon after a fifty-mile advance.

[1][17] When the XV Corps' infantry attacked the German defensive line, the 106th, once again supported by the 813th Tank Destroyer Battalion,[18] preceded the 2nd French Armored Division in maneuvering through the Vosges Mountains to within 1-mile (1.6 km) of the Rhine River.

Once through the Gap, the 106th guarded the northwest flank near Sarrebourg as the rest of the Corps advanced east another 33 miles (53 km) to capture Strasbourg.

[17] On the American's Thanksgiving Day, 23 November 1944, one of the most élite units in the entire German army, the well-rested and refitted Panzer-Lehr-Division counterattacked, trying to recapture the Saverne Gap and cut off the XV Corps from its supply lines.

The 106th was forced back (militarily credited with the usual propaganda of "completing a brilliant delaying action") but the retreat gave XV Corps Commander Major General Wade H. Haislip enough time to reinforce and the counter German advance.

[17] From 1 to 5 April, the regiment assisted the 2nd Cavalry Group, advancing north to Bad Orb, Germany, and secured an Allied Prisoner of War camp.

In the next eight days, the group moved northeast into Germany, rapidly cleared the towns of Alsberg, Siedensroth, Steinau, Schlüchtern and Flieden.

The German self-propelled guns, tanks, and small arms fire left four dead and destroyed four armored M8 vehicles and four Bantams.

En route, they captured the remnants of the Hungarian 9th Infantry Brigade, about 8,800 men, who were retreating eastward, fighting the advancing Soviet Marshal Rodion Malinovsky's 2nd Ukrainian Front.

Travelling in a six-wheeled Mercedes previously owned by Germany's Foreign Minister Von Ribbentrop,[22] the troopers located the villa.

[15] General Juin, Chief of the Free French General Staff, later Marshall of France, wrote the citation, awarding the Croix de Guerre, with palm (order countersigned by Charles de Gaulle) which praised the 106th Cavalry Group's action fighting alongside the 2nd French Division into the Vosges Mountains: A magnificent Regiment, whose brilliant achievements, during the time in which it fought with and in support of the 2nd French Armored Division, from 20 August 1944 to 10 February 1945, command the highest admiration.This Regiment conducted aggressive and extended reconnaissance form east of the Mouldre towards Crespierres as far as the Moselle at Charmes, where it established and held a bridgehead without reinforcements; then near Luneville and Baccarat engaged in protective and advanced guard missions, first at Andelot, then from the Marne to the Moselle.

In the Mortagne sector, the Regiment seized the town of Mont, overran Voucourt, and reached the line Emmersviller-Geislautern-Wadgassen, where it held stubbornly in the face of the strong German counter-attacks of 31 December 1944 and of 1 January 1945.

[12] Fifty years later, he began to produce large format prints of selected images and donated copies to the United States Cavalry Museum at Ft. Riley, Kansas, and other collections.

Kappelman and fellow 106th veteran Art Barkis narrated a largely self-financed video documentary titled Through My Sights: A Gunner's View of WWII of the photographic collection in 1999.

In 2003 he followed that with a book of the same name featuring a large number of the photos interspersed with his personal recollections 50 years later, along with excerpts from his wartime letters and diaries.

The King was at the time a controversial figure because of his stand during the war and refusal to flee and set up a government in exile, but surrendered to the Germans.

[29] Crest That for the regiments and separate battalions of the Illinois Army National Guard: On a wreath of the colors Or and Gules upon a grassy field the blockhouse of old Fort Dearborn, Proper.