On 4 July, elements of the 33rd Division (Major General George Bell Jr.) took part in the Battle of Hamel, while attached to the Australian Corps.

(The Australian commander, General Sir John Monash, was said to have deliberately chosen the date as a gesture and motivator to the American infantry attached to his corps.)

This, however, occurred without official approval as there was controversy regarding the battlefield command of US troops by junior officers from other countries.

The battle was also historically significant for the use of innovative assault tactics devised by the Australian general John Monash.

This left just the 27th and 30th Divisions in II US Corps assigned to support the British Expeditionary Force if required.

With the British III Corps attack stalling on the Chipilly Spur feature the 131st Regiment of the 33rd Division was sent to assist on 9 August, which it did with distinction.

This was designed to hold the front from the Somme to the Bray-Sur-Somme-Corbie road to relieve the 4th Australian Division from the operation.

This allowed the Australian Corps to cross the Somme River on 31 August and break the German lines in the Battle of Mont St.

The II Corps headquarters was fully activated on 1 August 1940, less Reserve personnel, at Fort Jay, and assumed command and control of the 1st, 27th, and 44th Divisions for participation in the 1940 First Army maneuvers.

After the maneuver, the corps headquarters began to return to Wilmington and was en route to home stations on 7 December 1941.

In November, now under Major General Lloyd Fredendall, II Corps landed in Oran as part of Operation Torch, the Allied invasion of French North Africa.

II Corps was again decisively defeated in February 1943 during the Battle of Kasserine Pass by veteran troops under Generalfeldmarschall Erwin Rommel.

In March 1943, after a change of command to Major General George Patton, II Corps recovered its cohesion and fought for the rest of the Tunisia Campaign, with a stalemate at the Battle of El Guettar.

II Corps held the southern flank of the British First Army during the destruction of the remaining Axis forces in North Africa.

Now under Major General Geoffrey Keyes, II Corps was sent to the Italian Front, arriving in mid-November as part of the U.S. Fifth Army, where it was to serve for the rest of the conflict, participating in grueling mountain warfare and often experienced fighting in terrible weather conditions.

[10] It also assigned personnel to active duty during the Vietnam War when its headquarters was moved to Fort Wadsworth, New York.