As of this writing, the award is still denied.
Here is the direct link to the article and the article itself has been posted here for you all to read.
Thank you to General Bell for telling it like it is.
Click here for direct link to article.
An Honor Denied
By Brig. Gen. Raymond E. Bell Jr., AUS retired
On September 15, 2003, President George W. Bush awarded the Presidential Unit
Citation (PUC) to the entire 3rd Infantry Division (Mechanized) for its valorous
service in toppling the regime of Saddam Hussein. For the gallant defense of the
key crossroads in Belgium at the town of Bastogne in the winter of 1944-45, the
whole 101st Airborne Division won the Distinguished Unit Citation. (DUC was the
predecessor of the PUC.) Perhaps most significant, on July 27, 2001, all the
units of the 96th Infantry Division, including its band, were awarded the PUC
for the division’s intrepid and arduous combat in the spring of 1945 on the
island of Okinawa.
The awarding of the prestigious Presidential/Distinguished Unit Citation to an
entire division is relatively unusual. In the past, smaller units, down to
battalion and lower level, have been cited for conspicuous action against
formidable odds and enemies which led to their receiving the special recognition
that the PUC brings.
Almost all of the awarding of the PUC has been done soon after the particular
combat has occurred. In the case of the 96th Infantry Division, however, its
valiant and heroic action was not recognized until more than 55 years after it
happened. Sadly, many of those soldiers who had performed so well and suffered
so grievously during that spring combat in 1945 had passed on by the time the
citation was approved.
Another World War II infantry division’s quest to be recognized for
extraordinary heroism in combat, however, has not been so successful. In the
recent past the veterans of the 90th Infantry Division hoped they could join the
select group of division members who earned the blue ribbon signifying the PUC.
True, it took a special effort for the 96th Infantry Division to gain its
rightful recognition as a fine combat organization and win the right to be
accorded the acclamation that comes with the PUC. A similar effort was made on
behalf of the 90th Infantry Division, which fought in northwest Europe, counting
more days in combat than any other division in Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower’s
command. The division suffered more casualties than any other of the former Army
Reserve formations of comparable size. But those grim statistics did not trigger
recommendation. Rather, it was the bitter and successful battle later in the
fall of 1944, when Patton’s soldiers were battering the defenses around the city
of Metz in the French province of Lorraine, that precipitated the initial
request for awarding the DUC to the entire division, not just to one of its
subordinate units.
Picture this. The Third Army had been slugging it out since the beginning of
September with the stubborn German defenders of Metz, a city fortress complex
that had not been taken by assault in nearly 1,900 years. The weather was
miserably cold with rain, fog and intermittent snow turning the ground to mud
and causing untold cases of trench foot, this in addition to numerous combat
casualties. An unusually cold winter was just about to descend when Patton’s
staff finalized plans to surround Metz, capture it and attack across the border
into Germany to the Saar River. Both of Patton’s corps were to participate in a
classic double envelopment, with the XX Corps under Maj. Gen. Walton H. Walker
to attack north of the city in the vicinity of Thionville and Maj. Gen. Manton
S. Eddy’s XII Corps attacking south of Metz. Two attacking divisions were to
meet well to the east of Metz and bottle up those German soldiers remaining in
the city. The attacking division in the north was to be the 90th Infantry
Division, which had already been engaged for a time just north of Metz.
There were two special complications in making this grand maneuver. The first
was that the Moselle River had to be crossed before the juncture could be
accomplished. The second was that there had been very heavy rains in the early
part of November when the river crossing was to be made. The two complications
joined to become a gigantic challenge to the 90th Infantry Division’s assault
across the river. By the night of November 8, the Moselle had risen
dramatically, flooding the area to be traversed by attack elements to the width
of more than a mile. Not only was the frigid water high, but the current of the
flood waters was very swift and treacherous.
If nature was not enough of an obstacle, the Germans had taken extensive
measures to make any crossing all the more hazardous. In the 90th Infantry
Division sector, the Germans had been ready since September and were well
positioned to interdict any river crossing. Where the 90th’s 358th Infantry
Regiment was to cross, for example, its 1st Battalion, once it was over the
swollen river, had to attack and neutralize Fort Koenigsmacher, an imposing
pre-World War I bastion. By 1944, the fort had been reconfigured to contest a
crossing of the Moselle from the west. Close by Koenigsmacher was the
reactivated French Maginot Line Metrich fort complex with its concrete shielded
guns now aimed by the Germans across the river into American lines.
Gen. Eddy, whose XII Corps was to kick off the cross-river assault on November
7, wanted to postpone the river crossing in the hope that the inclement weather
would improve. Gen. Patton said “no.”
Then, in the rainy darkness of November 8-9, assault elements of the 359th
Infantry Regiment on the left and the 358th Infantry Regiment on the right waded
across and stumbled over the marshy ground through clinging mud, sucking muck
and high water. Carrying and pulling their assault craft to where they could no
longer walk, the weary sodden soldiers struggled into their boats and paddled
stealthily across the swift running river. Two battalions of the 357th Infantry
Regiment followed their compatriots in engineer-crewed wooden assault boats in
the early morning hours.
What could easily have been a disaster—and for a few days later almost
was—turned out to be a spectacular success. Before dawn the 90th Infantry
Division had eight of its nine infantry battalions over the river with nary a
casualty. The German defenders were caught flat-footed. But they did not wait
long to react. They had already laid extensive mine fields in the area and there
was Fort Koenigsmacher to be taken and the Metrich fortification system to be
reduced. All probable river crossing sites had been zeroed in by German
artillery, which soon rose to the occasion. The only thing in favor of the
Americans was that the German foxholes along the river bank were evacuated
because of flooding. (The assault boats actually floated over the mines planted
close to the river bank, but when the water receded, the mines quickly became a
deadly menace, resulting in much loss of life.)
Daylight on November 9 brought all the horrors of war to bear. Companies A and B
of the 358th, followed eventually by Company C, got on top of Fort Koenigsmacher
and began throwing grenades and explosives down air vents. But the Germans
mortared the American soldiers clinging to the fort’s empty emplacements which
previously had been zeroed in. With dwindling supplies and taking heavy
casualties, the American attackers refused to give up, beating back three
counterattacks in the process. After several days of bitter and seesaw
fighting—gasoline and phosphorus grenades were poured down the air vents and
touched off with satchel charges—the fort’s defenders surrendered.
To the north, in the 359th Infantry Regiment’s sector, the infantry advanced
several kilometers inland before consolidating their gains. The Germans
counterattacked. The 25th Panzer Grenadier Division, aided by German
sympathizers in the town of Kerling, tried to force the Americans back across
the Moselle. Attacking out of Kerling and driving towards the crossroads of
Petite Hettange, German armor with infantry on either side was stopped and
turned back just 100 yards short of the crossroads. Lt. Col. Robert Booth, the
359th’s 2nd Battalion commander, personally directed the fire of an anti-tank
gun knocking out the lead German armored fighting vehicle. The timely arrival of
two American tank destroyers and the concentrated fire of 27 battalions of
artillery finally made a shambles of the German attack.
Gen. Patton arrived at the site later that day and commented that he had never
seen so many dead enemy in one place—bodies lined the road for almost a mile.
While the infantry regiments of the 90th Infantry Division were struggling in
the direct face of the enemy, all its other elements were also severely
stressed. The German artillery made it impossible to put a pontoon bridge across
the Moselle River. Army engineers, crewing assault boats to ferry casualties
forward, battled the swift and swirling current. Many boats were lost and
several days passed before a ferry could be constructed to transport heavy
vehicles across the swollen river.
But flooding persisted, as did the German artillery. Although the weather
continued to be overcast and rainy, small liaison aircraft ferried critical
items across to the slowly advancing American infantry.
The river crossing involved all elements of the division—including the band,
whose members served as stretcher bearers. Medics were constantly under fire as
they treated and evacuated wounded under horrifying conditions. Even German
prisoners were put to work in resupplying the Americans and evacuating wounded,
both German and American. While U.S. artillery fired from concealed positions in
the rear, forward observers moved with the infantry and suffered grievously
along with the foot soldiers. There was not a division soldier who did not pull
his full weight in making what, in Gen. Patton’s estimation, was a classic river
crossing. (For years the Command and General Staff College at Fort Leavenworth,
Kan., paid tribute to the planning and execution of the successful but extremely
arduous crossing, perhaps the most difficult combat operation to accomplish.)
Once the German counterattack had been thrown back, the 90th Infantry Division
struck out towards the Saar River. Ten days later, despite meeting determined
and desperate resistance, the reconnaissance troops of the 90th Infantry
Division met elements of the 5th Infantry Division, thus completing the
surrounding of Metz. It was many days later, however, before the German-occupied
forts around the city surrendered to the 5th Infantry Division. By that time,
however, the 90th Infantry Division was preparing to cross the Saar River and
attack into the strongest part of the Siegfried Line around the German city of
Dillingen.
Soon after the crossing, wheels were set in motion to award the entire 90th
Infantry Division the Distinguished Unit Citation which entitled all serving
members to wear the blue ribbon framed in gold. In a letter from Headquarters XX
Corps, dated January 23, 1945, just five weeks after the surrender of Metz, Gen.
Walker sent a recommendation for “Award of Unit Citation” through official
channels. With several endorsements, it reached European Theater, U.S. Forces,
several months later. In a seventh endorsement, Maj. Gen. H.R. Bull, Chief of
Staff of the theater command, forwarded the recommendation to the Adjutant
General in Washington, D.C.
Three paragraphs of the document, in recommending approval, are pertinent to the
award.