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USAREUR
Public Affairs |
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USAREUR
celebrates sixty years
of service Headquarters,
USAREUR release (Part one of
a two-part series)
HEIDELBERG, Germany -- It helped win a World War to end tyranny in Europe. It helped win a Cold War to halt aggression. It helped eject Iraqi invaders in a lightning ground war in the desert. Now, U.S. Army, Europe has come full circle, projecting forces from a continent it has fought and trained to keep free for six decades.
USAREUR marks the 60th anniversary of its establishment on June 8, an anniversary that finds the command maintaining peace in the Balkans while maintaining its readiness for whatever challenges lie ahead. And, says Gen. Montgomery C. Meigs, USAREUR and 7th Army commanding general, the 62,000 soldiers of USAREUR are as ready today as they have ever been – still on point for the nation after 60 years.
“The history of U.S. Army, Europe is a story of perseverance, vigilance, and sacrifice,” Meigs said. “We arrived 60 years ago with a mission of bringing freedom to an embattled Europe. We remained to preserve and guarantee Europe’s hard-won freedom. Today we conduct new missions in the Balkans, Southwest Asia, Africa and in countries hardly imagined just a decade ago.
“It’s an enormous undertaking. We’ve succeeded for 60 years, and we’re still successful today – ready to confront any challenge our nation might face.”
USAREUR began in January 1942 as American soldiers opened a command post in Belfast, Northern Ireland. Fittingly, those first arrivals were the advance party of Headquarters, V Corps, still the centerpiece of USAREUR’s combat forces. The War Department officially established European Theater of Operations, U.S. Army, or ETOUSA, on June 8, 1942. Its mission was to conduct planning for the eventual retaking of Europe and to exercise operational control over U.S. forces.
Headquartered in London, ETOUSA was first commanded by Maj. Gen. James E. Chaney, an Army Air Corps officer. Then-Maj. Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower replaced Chaney in late June, but the following month he departed England to assume new duties as the commander-in-chief of Operation Torch, the successful Allied invasion of North Africa. Eisenhower returned in January 1944 and the following month was officially designated as the Supreme Allied Commander Europe. He also maintained his leadership of ETOUSA, serving in a dual role until the end of hostilities in Europe in May 1945.
The command grew rapidly. At the end of January 1942 there were 4,000 American service members in the United Kingdom. That number swelled to 55,000 by the time ETOUSA was established in June, and by the end of the year 135,000 Americans were massed in Great Britain to train for the assault on the continent that would take place two years later on the beaches of Normandy. When the invasion was launched on June 6, 1944, more than 1.5 million U.S. Army personnel were on hand.
In addition to overseeing the buildup and training of combat forces, ETOUSA was also responsible for logistics and administrative services – functions that paralleled some of USAREUR’s functions today.
When the war ended in Europe on May 8, 1945, the ETOUSA headquarters was located in Versailles, France, just outside Paris. As Eisenhower and his staff began to prepare for the occupation of Germany, the ETOUSA headquarters staff moved to Frankfurt, Germany, and co-located with the Supreme Headquarters Allied Expeditionary Forces and the Office of Military Government, United States. ETOUSA was redesignated as U.S. Forces, European Theater on July 1, 1945, with its headquarters remaining at Frankfurt.
At the end of the war, the total U.S. Army strength in Europe was almost 1.9 million: two Army groups (6th and 12th), four field armies (First, Third, Seventh, and Ninth), 13 corps headquarters, and 62 combat divisions (43 infantry, 16 armor, and 3 airborne). Within a year rapid redeployments had brought the occupation forces down to fewer than 290,000 personnel, and many of the larger formations had departed or been inactivated. Seventh Army headquarters remained in control of the western portion of the American zone, and Third Army controlled the eastern portion. In November 1945, the two field army commanders organized district “constabularies” based on cavalry groups, and on May 1, 1946, the zone-wide U.S. Constabulary headquarters was activated at Bamberg. From then until the early 1950s, the structure of the American occupation forces consisted of the 1st Infantry Division, a separate infantry regiment, and the U.S. Constabulary of 10 cavalry regiments.
On March 15, 1947, USFET was redesignated as European Command (not to be confused with the present joint command, USEUCOM), and between February and June 1948 the headquarters relocated to the Campbell Barracks facility in Heidelberg, where it remains to this day.
From 1948 to 1950, the Cold War began to warm, and the outbreak of hostilities in Korea heightened East-West tensions in Europe. The Seventh Army was reactivated at Stuttgart in late November 1950, the V and VII Corps headquarters were organized, and four divisions were alerted to move back to Europe from the United States. The first to arrive was the 4th Infantry Division in May 1951, followed by the 2nd Armored Division and the 43rd and 28th Infantry Divisions during summer and fall of 1951.
A new joint United States European Command (USEUCOM) was established on Aug. 1, 1952. On that day, the Army headquarters at Heidelberg, formerly known as EUCOM, became Headquarters, United States Army, Europe.
In 1953, the Korean War Armistice was signed, and tensions began to ease in Europe. About 13,500 soldiers manned each of the USAREUR divisions. New equipment fielded at the time included the M-48 tank, the M-59 armored personnel carrier, and tactical nuclear weapons.
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