3rd Battalion of the 33rd Armored Regiment of the 3rd Armored Division, was a tank battalion in the United States Army. During World War II they fought in most of the major battles in the European Theater of Operations. The battalion found itself in the path of both major German counteroffensives in the West: Operation Luttich and Operation Watch on the Rhine, known as the Battle of the Bulge or Ardennes offensive. Cut off and surrounded in both battles, they fought their way out to rejoin friendly lines and continue the fight. 3/33 AR was also one of a select few units to have participated in closing all three of the major envelopments or pockets in the ETO: Falaise, Mons and the Ruhr-helping capture almost half a million enemy troops in total. As an attached unit to 1st Infantry Division, they were the first to capture a major German city (Aachen), the first to use flamethrowers in urban combat and, as part of the 3rd Armored Division, was the first to cross into Germany in wartime since Napoleon. They also participated in the longest single-day advance against enemy resistance in modern warfare history (90 miles).

History

Activation and Training The 33rd Armored Regiment and its subordinate battalions stood up on 12 May 1941 at Camp Beauregard, Louisiana from a cadre of prewar officers and sergeants, many from the 2nd Armored Division. The unit took in new soldiers under the "selectee" program thus expanding to division size under the colors of the newly minted 3rd Armored Division. The Armored Force was also established the same year with cadres from the Cavalry branch.

Initial training began at the newly cleared and built Camp Polk, Louisiana by fall 1941. There, despite using obsolete Grant medium tanks, the 3rd Armored Division became a potent tank force. They competed in "war games" with the 1st Armored Division outmaneuvering the latter to seize their objective on the Calcasieu River.

December 1941 and the entry of the United States into WWII brought new urgency to training and preparation for war. Commanding the 3rd Battalion, 33rd Armored Regiment was newly promoted Major Samuel M Hogan. One of the few mid-grade officers with more than a few months experience in the regular Army, Hogan would lead the unit through the following three years of training and then combat in the European Theater of Operations.

In July 1942, the division loaded up on more than 30 trains for the four-day journey to the Mohave Desert for field training as tank companies and battalions. In this harsh environment, the tankers of 33rd Armored Regiment learned how to shoot, move and communicate as units, the importance of preventive maintenance to keep their steel "horses" running, as well as the challenges of living "in the field" for extended periods of time.

From there they returned to the cold and damp for fall training at Camp Pickett, Virginia in October 1942. The tankers participated in increasingly more complex maneuvers. Their leaders took part in Command Post Exercises and learned to control company and battalion formations using radio and wire communications from their command tanks or mobile "jump" command posts.

Promoted to Lieutenant Colonel, Samuel Hogan became likely the youngest tank battalion commander in the US Army at age 27. By the September 5th 1943, the division was trained to a sharp edge and boarded troop transports to England where they settled in for the preparations for Operation Overlord and the invasion of Europe. Based out of Warminster Barracks, England. 3rd Battalion, 33rd Armored regiment took on additional maneuvers in the frigid Salisbury plains.

The Division's organization and equipment was finalized. As the second of only two heavy armored divisions in the entire US Army, the division's tank battalions wielded two companies of M4 Sherman medium tanks and one company of M5 Stuart light tanks. Each company had 15 tanks for a total of 54 tanks. Each battalion also had a 81mm mortar platoon carried aboard M3 Half Tracks and one platoon of M8 Howitzer Motor Carriage 75mm "Assault Guns". A medical section, mechanics, supply personnel, staff and cooks rounded out the authorized strength of 504 soldiers in the battalion.

Lessons learned in the hedgerow fighting showed that the heavy armored division was lacking infantry to protect the tanks from state-of-the-art anti-tank weapons employed by the Wehrmacht. In addition, they were vulnerable to mines and needed engineer and air defense support especially for the many rivers that needed to be crossed, sometimes under enemy fire, along their path to Berlin. When reinforced with external units, such as Infantry, Engineers, Air Defense, according to its assigned missions, the battalion became known as a Task Force. During World War II, battalion and regimental task forces bore the last name of their commander.

Normandy

The battalion crossed the English Channel aboard Landing Ships, Tank (LSTs) landing on Omaha Beach on 23 June 1944. They took off the waterproofing from their tanks and drew additional ammunition before moving inland. For the next two weeks the troops conducted patrols and prepared for the breakout from the Normandy perimeter.

The battalion's first action was a fight through the Norman hedgerow country with the objective of seizing key terrain overlooking crossings on the Vire River at Pont Hebert. The battle for Hill 91, known to the locals as Hauts Vents -high winds, was bloody. For the better part of three days the fighting raged against elements of the vaunted Panzer Lehr division. P-47 air strikes and efficient use of artillery and mortars proved critical. The hill was captured on 11 July after which the Americans holding the American positions were subjected to fierce counterattacks including strafing runs by Luftwaffe Focke Wolfe FW-190 fighters. The exhausted tankers were relieved on 15 July by elements of the 30th Infantry Division. Hogan's command lost seven soldiers Killed in Action. All six command tanks had been destroyed by German fire including Hogan's. The driver Corporal Addison Darbison, remains missing in action to this day, likely incinerated inside his Sherman tank.

After some rest and recuperation, the battalion prepared to participate in Operation Cobra. On August 7, 1944, Hogan's command occupied a ridge near the village of Chérencé-le-Roussel when a probe of six Panzer IV tanks advanced towards their positions. In a short sharp engagement, all six enemy tanks were destroyed. The probe was part of the opening of Hitler's counteroffensive against the Normandy landings: Operation Luttich. The four-division counterattack to recapture coastal Avranches, a mere 18 miles from Hogan's positions. In one move, the Germans could’ve split the US First and Third Armies in two. Cut off from supply, General George S Patton’s Third Army, without its daily 25,000 gallons of fuel needed to move, would languish and die at the hands of mobile Kampfgruppe, the enemy equivalent of an armored task force.

For the following five days, Task Force Hogan fought to relieve the US 120th Infantry Regiment encircled in the hilltop redoubt of Mortain as they held off the German advance to Avranches. In the face of heavy German attacks by SS regiments, artillery of all types and several Luftwaffe sorties, they held their ground and kept pressure off the surrounded GIs of the 30th Infantry Division until 12 August, when Hitler gave his exhausted troops permission to discontinue the attack.

In March 2020, the Presidential Unit Citation was awarded to Task Force Hogan, 33rd Armored Regiment “For extraordinary heroism in action and outstanding performance of duty against armed enemy forces from 6 August 1994 to 12 August 1944 in the vicinity of Mortain, France.”

After Mortain, the German Army realized it could get trapped between the advancing Americans and the Anglo-Canadians moving south from Bayeux. The allies had a golden opportunity to conduct an envelopment of Army Group B and hasten an end to the war. General Omar Bradley moved his 12th Army Group east to trap the Germans near the town of Falaise. 3rd Armored Division and Task Force Hogan blitzed through central Normandy in a series of meeting engagements with the retreating Germans. Task Force Hogan formed the VII Corps flank with the French 2nd Armored Division rear the town of Ecouché. After doing their part to close the Falaise Pocket it was on to Belgium.

Liberation of Belgium

Hot in pursuit of the retreating Germans, 3rd Armored Division continued north to cut off the German's retreating towards the Siegfried Line. During the Battle of Mons they liberated Belgium's third largest city, in conjunction with the 1st and 9th Infantry Divisions. They also annihilated the German Seventh Army capturing 8,000 German troops while destroying much of the equipment and combat power that could’ve stopped the Allies at the German border fortifications of the Siegfried Line-or West Wall. Spearhead continued moving east toward the German border. Task Force soldiers remembered the liberation of Liége and its surrounding communities as joyous occasions with Belgian civilians pouring into the streets in impromptu celebrations as the tanker and their vehicles were covered in flowers, food, drink and the civilian population's embraces.

Siegfried Line and Liberation of Aachen

After liberating Liege, they crossed into Germany proper. Taking the gateway to the Ruhr industrial region, center of gravity of Nazi warfighting capability required the capture of Stolberg. Here, the VII Corp’s Spearhead 3rd Armored Division got a taste of how hard urban combat in Germany was going to be. Half of Stolberg’s population of 30,000 was evacuated before the battle, the rest of the dwellings taken over by German troops. Task Force Hogan made initial gains moving through the outskirts of town attacking downhill. Once inside the built up areas, German tank-killer teams armed with the Panzerfaust anti-tank rockets covered by machine gun fire knocked out lead tanks and sent the accompanying infantry scrambling for cover in doorways and drainage ditches. Tanks returned cannon and machine gun fire at the buildings on either side but advances were measured in meters.

Lieutenant Colonel Samuel Hogan eager to get any advantage over the entrenched enemy of the 12th Infantry Division, requested a section of M2 flamethrowers from the 23rd Engineer Battalion. The six soldiers, each armed with a flamethrower, heavy fuel canister strapped to their back, divided up among the infantry squads. The advance resumed by nightfall in streets lit up by tank cannon muzzle flashes and the orange glow of burning napalm inside cellars. The flamethrowers tactical and psychological impact helped the Americans advance to their objective, the main intersection of town where they halted allowing other units to come online.

The work was exhausting especially for the flamethrower crews who kept up with the advance, a 68-pound container of napalm strapped to their back. Lieutenant R. Eells, of the 23rd Engineers, reported that night that it was the first organized use of flamethrowers in urban combat operations in the European theater to “encourage” an enemy to abandon fortified positions.

By 21 September, Spearhead’s advance secured central Stolberg. Pockets of German resistance continued to the north as uneasy stalemate descended on the area but its capture helped VII Corps isolate Aachen, control the city’s water supply and trap German forces in the Huertgen forest.