The Thirteenth armored division: a history of the Black Cats from Texas to France, Germany and Austria and back to California

Authors

United States Army

Files

Description

Book is divided into two parts.

From the introduction:

"This is the history of the 13th Armored Division, a story of three long years in training and battle -- a story written not in the bone-dry dust of the historian, but rather with the sweat and blood and honest fear of the infantryman, the tanker, and the cannoneer. These men worked together, lived together, and some of them died together -- died in the filth and rubble of the war-ravaged Ruhr or in the rivers and forests of Bavaria. But, most of the men lived -- and fought, and captured towns, liberated prisoners of war, killed Germans -- and helped win the war. This, then, is the story of these men, living and dead.

The war was young, andnot going at all to our liking, when we descended upon Camp Beale, California in 1942 to begin the long training grind that was to lead us to the battlefields of Germany. And we were young, too, and cocky -- "Get that cap on the left side of your head, soldier. You're in the Armored Force now' we barked. We trained and learned the arts of battle the hard way -- toughening up with basic training, and problems staged with the realism of combat. "California's Own" they called us -- and the Governor of the state christened our tanks. That was in the summer of 1943. For two years we toughened up at Beale and Camp Bowie, Texas, and we were plenty rugged when they put us on that boat for the ETO."

Publication Date

1945

Keywords

United States Army, 13th Armored Divison, Regimental histories, World War 1939-1945, 496th Armored Field Artillery Battalion, 497th Armored Field Artillery Battalion, 498th Armored Field Artillery Battalion, 24th Tank Battalion, 45th Tank Battalion, 46th Tank Battalion, 16th Armored Infantry Battalion, 59th Armored Infantry Battalion, 67th Armored Infantry Battalion, 93rd Cavalry Reconnaissance Squadron, 83rd Armored Medical Battalion, 124th Armored Engineer Battalion, 135th Ordnance Maintenance Battalion, 153rd Armored Signal Company

Comments

Part I covers the 496th Armored Field Artillery Battalion, 497th Armored Field Artillery Battalion, 498th Armored Field Artillery Battalion, 24th Tank Battalion, and the 45th Tank Battalion.

Part II covers the 46th Tank Battalion, 16th Armored Infantry Battalion, 59th Armored Infantry Battalion, 67th Armored Infantry Battalion, 93rd Cavalry Reconnaissance Squadron, 83rd Armored Medical Battalion, 124th Armored Engineer Battalion, 135th Ordnance Maintenance Battalion, and the153rd Armored Signal Company.

The page numbering is odd. Up to page 104 of Part I is the opening part of each mini-book devoted to the various battalions. This explains why a reader will go from page 120, for example, and a few pages later be back to page 105.

Recommended Citation

United States Army, "The Thirteenth armored division: a history of the Black Cats from Texas to France, Germany and Austria and back to California" (1945). Regimental Histories. 185.
https://digicom.bpl.lib.me.us/ww_reg_his/185