[1] The 30th Infantry Division, involved in 282 days of intense combat over a period from June 1944 through April 1945, was regarded by a team of historians led by S.L.A.

Marshall as the American infantry division that had "performed the most efficient and consistent battle services" in the European Theater of Operations (ETO).

[2] In the present day, the division's lineage continues as 30th Armored Brigade Combat Team, part of the North Carolina National Guard.

The division headquarters was reorganized and federally recognized 24 August 1926 at 121 Capitol Square, Atlanta, Georgia.

The division staff, composed of personnel from all four states, came together to conduct joint training for several summers before World War II.

The next opportunity came in August 1938 when the division was assembled at the DeSoto National Forest in Mississippi for the Fourth Corps Area concentration of the Third Army maneuvers.

[11] Beginning on 25 July, the 30th Division spearheaded the Saint-Lô break-through of Operation Cobra, which was intended to break out of the Normandy beachhead, thus ending the stalemate that had occurred.

As part of the effort to break out of the Normandy hedgerows, US Army Air Forces (USAAF) bombers from England were sent to carpet bomb a one-by-three-mile corridor of the German defenses opposite the American line.

However, USAAF planners, in complete disregard or lack of understanding of their role in supporting the ground attack, loaded the heavy B-24 Liberator and B-17 Flying Fortress bombers with 500-pound bombs, destroying roads and bridges and complicating movement through the corridor, instead of lighter 100-pound bombs intended as antipersonnel devices against German defenders.

Start point confusion was further compounded by red smoke signals that suddenly blew in the wrong direction, and bombs began falling on the heads of the American soldiers.

There were over 100 friendly fire casualties over the two days, including Lieutenant General Lesley J. McNair, commander of Army Ground Forces under Malisau.

After the liberation of Paris, the division drove east through Belgium, crossing the Meuse River at Visé and Liège on 10 September.

On 17 December the division rushed south to the Malmedy-Stavelot area to help block the powerful enemy drive in the Battle of the Bulge—the Germans's last attempt to win a decisive victory over the Western Allies.

The end of World War II in Europe came soon afterwards and, after a short occupation period, the 30th Division began its return to the United States, arriving on 19 August 1945.

The surrender of Japan followed soon, which brought the war to an end, and the division was subsequently inactivated on 25 November 1945 at Fort Jackson, South Carolina.

By its disbandment, It had spent a cumulative 282 days in combat and had participated in the campaigns and battles of Normandy, Northern France, Rhineland, Ardennes-Alsace and Central Europe.

The insignia was redesignated effective 1 September 2004, with description updated, for the 30th Brigade Combat Team, North Carolina Army National Guard.