Germany
The battalion was attached to Combat Command B of the 11th Armored Division, part of Third Army, on 24 February, and committed to action on 1 March, when the commanding officer was killed in action. He was succeeded by Major John Dibble.
The battalion crossed the Kyll River on 6 March, and pushed towards the Rhine with the 11th Armored, fighting all through March. The 705th crossed the Rhine at Oppenheim on 29 March, and continued to advance across southern Germany in April, seeing action in a number of small engagements. The battalion liberated two prisoner-of-war hospitals and a large forced-labour camp, and late in the month arrived at the Flossenbürg and Buchenwald concentration camps.
The battalion crossed the border into Austria on 1 May, and linked up with Soviet Army troops on 8 May, the day that the German surrender was announced.
Read more about this topic: 705th Tank Destroyer Battalion
Famous quotes containing the word germany:
“How does Nature deify us with a few and cheap elements! Give me health and a day, and I will make the pomp of emperors ridiculous. The dawn is my Assyria; the sun-set and moon-rise my Paphos, and unimaginable realms of faerie; broad noon shall be my England of the senses and the understanding; the night shall be my Germany of mystic philosophy and dreams.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)