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| A
Distinguished Past |
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By
Ben Fenwick
Winter 2004 Print
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After nearly a century of
service, the 45th Infantry Brigade has taken part in its share of
U.S. military battles.
The Thunderbirds was organized during the early 1920s as a unit
comprised of the national guards from Arizona, Colorado, New Mexico,
and Oklahoma. The unit’s original symbol was a common ancient one
used by many cultures—a gold swastika. Once it became accepted as
the symbol of Germany’s Nazi Party, however, it was changed.
An Indian symbol took its place, from the Southwest, a gold phoenix
set against a red background. That image remains today, overlooking
the square at the 45th’s Camp Phoenix headquarters in Afghanistan
and staring out from the shoulder of every soldier in the unit.
By 1940 the unit mobilized as President Roosevelt and other leaders
of the country saw World War II sweep over Europe. Soon the war came
to the shores of the United States with Japan’s attack on Pearl
Harbor Dec. 7, 1941, and Germany and Italy’s subsequent declaration
of war against the United States. After some work guarding the
Panama Canal, the unit conducted amphibious training in North
Africa, then prepared for the first of the Allied assaults on the
shores of Europe: They landed in Sicily.
The 45th battled for Sicily from July through September 1943. Gen.
George S. Patton, who had commanded the 45th as part of his 7th
Army, heaped praise on the Thunderbirds at the end of the invasion,
saying: “Born at sea, baptized in blood, your fame shall never die.
The 45th Division is one of the best, if not the best infantry
divisions the Army has ever produced.”
The hard-fighting unit had yet to face one of its greatest tests in
the war. Following the capture of Sicily, the 45th landed at
Salerno, Italy, and the Allies fought the Axis powers to a stalemate
south of Rome.
A breakthrough finally occurred at Anzio, about 30 miles south of
Rome, the morning of Jan. 22, 1944. More than 40,000 American and
British troops landed ashore amid next-to-no opposition at first,
but the beachhead soon fell under a continuous rain of artillery
bombardment. The backbone of this assault was the 45th, which bore
the brunt of the casualties.
Columnist Ernie Pyle, whose Scripps-Howard missives throughout the
war earned him two Pulitzer prizes, waded out of the sea with the
45th to record the battle. Pyle describes a “high-dollar” seaside
resort town that soon was reduced to chaos and rubble.
“Broken steel girders lay across sidewalks. Marble statues fell in
littered patios. Trees were uprooted, and the splattered mud upon
them dried and turned gray. Wreckage was washed up on shore.
Everywhere there was rubble and mud and broken wire,” Pyle wrote.
Soon the United States found itself in another stalemate. The units
at Anzio were trapped for four months. The 45th was credited with
holding the position despite frightful casualties, drawing away
Hitler’s valuable resources from the French coast and paving the way
for D-Day and Operation Overlord. Finally, on May 23, the 45th led a
breakout that opened a hole in the Axis lines and entered Rome by
early June.
Although thousands of 45th members were killed, wounded, or missing
from Anzio, the unit kept going. After fighting across Italy the
unit made an amphibious landing at St. Maxime on the coast of
Southern France, fought through France, and marched into Nazi
Germany, setting foot in the Fatherland Dec. 12, 1944.
On April 29, 1945, the 45th liberated Dachau concentration camp. The
first sight that met 45th soldiers approaching the camp was a line
of railroad cars filled with hundreds of corpses, victims whose
bodies were to be hastily removed against the tide of oncoming
Allied forces. The image so enraged the soldiers of the 45th that
initially they refused to take prisoners among the surrendering
German guards, shooting them down until ordered to stop.
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