Courtney Hodges - World War II

World War II

In May 1941, he was promoted to major general, and he was given various assignments, including that of Chief of Infantry until he finally received a frontline command, that of the X Corps, in 1942. In 1943, while commanding the X Corps and then the Third Army, he was sent to England, where he served under General Omar Bradley. During Operation Overlord in June and July 1944, Hodges under the command of Bradley as the Deputy Commander of the First Army. In August 1944, Hodges succeeded Bradley as the commander of the First Army, taking command when Bradley moved up to command the 12th Army Group. Hodges continued serve under the command of Bradley and General Dwight Eisenhower all the way through the Nazi German surrender in May 1945.

Hodges's troops were the first ones to reach and liberate the French capital of Paris in large numbers, and then he led them through France, Belgium, and Luxembourg on their way to Nazi Germany. Hodges's troops had a major role in blunting the Wehrmacht's major counteroffensive in the Ardennes: the Battle of the Bulge. When the German advance cut the 1st Army off from the 12th Army Group and Bradley, he was placed under the command, for several weeks, of the Allied 21st Army Group led by Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery. The 21st Army Group usually consisted of divisions from the British Army and the Canadian Army. The U.S. Ninth Army was also assigned to it termporarily because of the Battle of the Bulge.

After the Battle of the Bulge and the Allied reconquest of the Bulge, the First Army fought the Germans in the bloody Battle of Hurtgen Forest in westmost Germany.

Divisions of the First Army was the first ones to cross the Rhine into the middle of Nazi Germany by using the captured Ludendorff Bridge at Remagen. After this bridge collapsed, the rest of the First and Third Armies had to cross the Rhine on pontoon bridges under heavy fire from the Wehrmacht's artillery and rockets, including V-2s.

Months later, Lt. General Hodges's troops of the First First met the those of the Soviet Red Army near Torgau on the Elbe River. Hodges was promoted to the rank of four-star general on April 15, 1945 making him only the second soldier in the history of the U.S. Army to make his way from from private to four-star general. Hodges followed General Walter Krueger of the Pacific Theater, who fought under five-star General Douglas MacArthur.

After the end of World War II in Europe on May 7, 1945, Hodges and his troops were ordered to prepare to be sent all the way west to the War in the Pacific for the proposed invasion of Japan in late 1945 and March 1946. However, that move became unnecessary when two atomic bombs were dropped on Japanese cities and Emperor Hirohito ordered the defeated Japanese Empire to surrender immediately. The official surrender documents were signed in Tokyo Bay on September 2, 1945.

General Hodges was present at the surrenders of both Nazi Germany in Rheims, France and of the Japan Empire at Tokyo.