Outnumbered five to one, with its infantry rifle companies surrounded for most of the time, clerks, cooks, mechanics, drivers and others manned the 10,000 yards (9,100 m) final defensive line.

Supported by the outstandingly responsive and accurate fire of its artillery battalion, this widely dispersed force stopped every attack for six days until its surrounded infantry were ordered to fight their way back to them.

After over two years of training throughout the country, including Camp Ibis, the 9th Armored Division, now commanded by Major General John W. Leonard, reached the United Kingdom in September 1944.

The 9th was assigned to a camp on the British coastline opposite of the German defenses in Pas-de-Calais, ostensibly as part of the "First US Army Group" (FUSAG) under Major General John W. Leonard.

The 9th Armored Division landed in Normandy late in September 1944, and first went into line, 23 October 1944, on patrol duty in a quiet sector along the Luxembourg-German frontier.

Although its destruction was imminent, without hesitation and in face of heavy fire the infantrymen rushed across the structure, and with energy and skill seized the surrounding high ground.

The entire episode illustrates that high degree of initiative, leadership and gallantry toward which all armies strive but too rarely attain, and won for the Combat Command the Distinguished Unit Citation.

[4] The Division exploited the bridgehead, moving south and east across the Lahn River toward Limburg, where thousands of Allied prisoners were liberated from Stalag XIIA.

On 28 February, Combat Command B launched an attack from the vicinity of Soller and less than twenty-four hours later crossed the Erft River at Derkum, forcing the enemy into disorderly retreat, the unit headed south-east, reaching the heights west of Remagen on 7 March, where troops of the command could see the Ludendorff Bridge across the Rhine River with large numbers of German troops fleeing across it.

Although the destruction of the bridge was imminent, American troops unhesitatingly rushed across the structure in the face of intense enemy automatic weapons fire.

Engineers scrambled down the abutments, cutting wires leading to other demolition charges and disposing of hundreds of pounds of explosives by hurling them into the river.

The superb skill, daring and esprit de corps displayed by each officer and man of Combat Command B, 9th Armored Division, in the dash to the Rhine, the capture of the Ludendorff Bridge, and the successful exploitation of this first bridgehead across Germany's formidable river barrier made an outstanding contribution to the defeat of the enemy.