Tag Archives: 4th Infantry Division

What’s a little tinnitus among friends?

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Or, “Pardon, I didn’t catch that…” for the rest of your life.

Official period caption: “American howitzers shell German forces retreating near Carentan, France. 11 July 1944.”

Note the shoulder patch has been obscured by the censors. Photographer: Franklin. U.S. Signal Corps Archive SC 191933

The above was taken among the attached artillery train of the U.S. 4th “Ivy” Division, either of the 29th, 42nd, or 44th Field Artillery Battalions, all of which fielded 105mm M1 howitzers at the time.

The Ivy Division first came ashore at Utah Beach on D-Day, and the above image was snapped as it was inching its way towards Paris, which it would help liberate in August. They went on to keep fighting across Northern France and into Germany, slugging through the Hürtgen Forest and clocking in during the Battle of the Bulge.

Recognized as a Liberator unit, they marched into the Dachau subcamp near Haunstetten in late April 1945 and were the most welcome thing anyone could set their eyes on.

Logging 299 days of combat, Ivy accumulated 22,660 casualties, 155 percent of the division’s authorized strength.

One of its members was 25-year-old budding author Jerome David “J. D.” Salinger, who finished the war as a staff sergeant in the MI section of the 4th’s 12th Infantry Regiment. Fluent in French and German, he interrogated captured Wehrmacht and SS officers, including those taken around Dachau.

Salinger later remarked postwar, “You never really get the smell of burning flesh out of your nose entirely, no matter how long you live.”

SSG Salinger, 4th Infantry Division, ETO

32 Fighting Eagles

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Thirty-two original members of Company A, 8th Infantry Regiment “Fighting Eagles,” 4th “Ivy” Division, assembled for a group photo in Normandy. The company had hit Utah Beach on June 6, 1944, with 190 men.

By mid-July, the men shown were all who remained.

Photo via The Furious Fourth WWII Living History Association

As noted in the Combat Chronicle for the Division, “The 8th Infantry Regiment of the 4th Division was one of the first Allied units to hit the beaches at Normandy on D-day, 6 June 1944. Relieving the isolated 82d Airborne Division at Ste. Mere Eglise, cleared the Cotentin peninsula and took part in the capture of Cherbourg, on 25 June. After taking part in the fighting near Periers, 6-12 July, the Division broke through the left flank of the German Seventh Army, helped stem the German drive toward Avranches, and by the end of August had moved to Paris, assisting the French in the liberation of their capital.”

Troops of the 8th Infantry Regiment of the 4th Infantry Division move off the Utah Beachhead on D-Day. U.S. Navy Photo #: SC 190062

Suffering 35,545 total casualties in 299 days of combat from D-Day to VE-Day, the 4th ID saw 252.3 percent of its authorized strength logged as killed, wounded, or missing while in the ETO.

Formed in 1838, the 8th Infantry Rgt predates the 4th ID by 79 years, and their motto is “Patriae Fidelitas” (“Loyalty to Country”). Their 1st and 2nd battalions are still active and are still part of the 4th ID, based at Fort Carson, Colorado.