741st Tank Battalion (United States) - Breakout

Breakout

After its first few days with the 1st Infantry Division in Normandy, the battalion was detached and reattached to the 2nd Infantry Division. The 741st led the 2nd Infantry Division’s assault on Hill 192 in the breakout from Normandy at St. Lô during Operation Cobra and remained with the division until mid-August 1944. It was relieved from the 2nd Infantry Division on 16 August and reverted to 3rd Armored Group control, under whose direction the battalion raced across western France to the outskirts of Paris at Sceaux. On 27 August, it had the good fortune to be attached to the 28th Infantry Division in order to participate with the division in the Liberation day Parade through Paris on 29 August, a tumultuous procession around the Arc de Triomphe and down the Champs-Élysées just four days after the Germans had formally surrendered the city. After a brief two-day respite, the battalion again was on the march through Compiègne, the Aisne valley and Belgian Luxembourg and into the Duchy of Luxembourg, reaching the West Wall in Germany by 9 September in the vicinity of Sevenig and Roscheid. On 2 October, the 741st Tank Battalion was relieved from attachment to the 28th Infantry Division and again attached to the 2nd Infantry Division, with which it remained until the end of the war.