| Book from Jim MacClay of 3AD.com staff | CLOSE |
THE FIRST ARMY IN EUROPE 1943-1945
U.S. Congressional Publication - May 21, 1969
(189-page Abridged History)
Below: Special Introduction (from book) by
U.S. Senator Strom Thurmond of South Carolina
(with special comment about General Hodges)
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From a Senate speech by Senator Strom Thurmond, March 9, 1961: A veterans' organization to which I belong is celebrating this year the 20th anniversary of the invasion of Normandy in which their unit took first place. I am proud to a have been a member of this organization -- the famous First U.S. Army of World War II. Too long the exploits of this great army, the most powerful military machine our country has ever forged, and of its quiet, reserved, but eminently able and successful commander, General Courtney H. Hodges, have gone unheralded. My purpose now is to remind you of some of the accomplishments of this tremendous military machine, and perhaps, in part, to make up for the lack of recognition -- due, in large part, to modesty -- which has characterized its past. Even the shoulder insignia of the First army was modest, a simple black, block letter "A." There has been so little shouting from the housetop about it that I seriously doubt if very many people in the United States, except the military historians, know that this Army, at times during its dash from the beaches of France to the Elbe River in Germany, had under its command more divisions than had ever been under the immediate command of a single army commander before or since. For instance, shortly before the breakthrough at St. Lo there were 18 divisions assigned or attached to the First Army. Few, if any, knows that there were more tanks in his First Army than in any other army in World War II, and that these tanks were employed equally as well as those of any other army. The First Army was the first army in Europe in more than name. The First Army was the first to arrive on the beaches of Normandy; it was the first to break out of Normandy; it was the first to get to Paris; it was the first to arrive in Germany; it was the first across the Rhine; and it was the first to meet up with the Russians. Strom Thurmond, Note: Senator Thurmond, as a member of the 82nd Airborne Division in World War II, arrived in France by glider in the early Normandy assault. |
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