The newspaper clippings contained in this issue do not necessarily represent the best that have been written about the Division.  Nor do they in any sense represent even a small portion of all the stories which have appeared in the papers of the Allied nations.  In reading thru this short, and obviously inadequate, compilation, it should be borne in mind that a story marked by any one of the large news services undoubtedly appeared in many hundreds , even thousands, of newspapers.  Too, many of the stories which are here presented as appearing in a newspaper, may also have been broadcast by one of the large radio networks.  In short, then, this tab size newspaper merely attempts to present a cross section of some of the better stories of the Division, selected from the limited supply of those that have been sent to the men of this Division.

The best writers have written the stories.

But the stories were made by the men of the best Division

From the New York Daily Mirror, Saturday, December 90, 1944.
By FRANK CONNIFF
ILA GLEIZE, Belgium, Dec. 29 (INS).

The men of Is Gleize were expendable. Now they are immortal.

Here, in a little Belgian village, the expendables from Main St., U. S. A., sold themselves at great price a week ago to keep at bay a Nazi horde vastly superior in numbers, and died unconscious that they were one with the American heroes of Bataan, the Alamo. and Gettysburg.

Where the gently-flowing Belgian hills encircle this once-peaceful village, these GI Joes fought until their machineguns were silent for lack of ammunition. until the bullets for their carbines were gone and until their fingers clutched pistols with emptied chambers.

But before these gallant men had expended themselves in a hour so grave and a situation so crucial, they had annihilated thousands of the Reich's elite warriors and destroyed mountains of Nazi material. With their last breath and their final bullet, they gambled to blunt Field Marshal von Rundstedt's powerful thrust, and won.

Out of this valley of almost total death -- into which these men knowingly walked that other Americans might live --- only a few returned to tell the heroic tale.

It was difficult to understand how this handful of Americans absorbed that first furious German lunge until I talked with one of the survivors, Capt. Edward McBride, Somerset, Ky., a member of the company command post.

As the Nazi tide finally washed over his expendables, McBride saw dozens of his closest friends die within arm's reach. In the dark of a night attack that flooded over them the captain sensed the glory in which he stood.

Even with Knives

"When I came to an American machine gun position, I'd find all the ammunition gone", he said.  "Then I would see the gunners with pistols still clutched in their hands. I'd pry a weapon loose and find all its clambers empty. Occasionally there would be one or two cartridges left.

"All around would be dead Germans. Our men fought until everything was gone. When nothing else was left to them. they used pistols..,

By HAL BOYLE.

An American Command Post Near Malmedy, Dec. 21 (Delayed) (A.P.). - If the Germans ever bust through this defense line they'll have to ride tight over one of the most belligerent generals in the United States Army (Major General L. S. Hobbs, commanding general of the 30th).

And if he ever heard any one say he was bossing a "defense line" he would skin them alive.

When the Germans tried to take advantage of heavy fog this morning and slice through American positions between Malmedy and Stavelot to relieve a large Panzer force trapped west of Stavelot, this General didn't sit in his room sifting various reports and weighing possibilities.

He moved right into the middle of his intelligence and operations staff and grabbed a field telephone leading to his most forward fighting men.  And when this General gives commands things begin to happen. He is chunky and powerful and when he hollers it is hard for a listener to believe that his ordinarily slow, drawling voice could carry such an impact.

The General takes every forward German step anywhere along the American front as a personal insult. As for his own front - he simply won't concede the Nazis are punching at him. His theory is that his job isn't to halt Germans - it is to kill them or drive them back to Berlin.

When he had restored the situation to normal - that Is, his men had killed some dozens of Nazis, destroyed five enemy-manned tanks and beaten away the rest of the attacking force - he relaxed long enough to give his battle philosophy: "Hell. they aren't attacking me. I am attacking them. It's a defensive- We aren't just sitting here.

During more than seven months of toilsome combat the 30th Infantry Division's campaigns, under the command of Major General L. S. Hobbs. have been almost singularly linked with the most historically important events of World War II's Battle of Europe.

Mixing aggressively in the fight on D plus 9 when the Allies were struggling to enlarge that precious little bridgehead in Normandy, the "Old Hickory" Division has played a noteworthy role ever since.

The 30th slashed the Nazis in stubborn retreat through the mud and rain of the hedgerow country near the invasion beach and harassed their withdrawal into their fatherland in a chase across France, Belgium and Holland.

Then after smashing into Germany through the Siegfried Line north of Aachen and securing and enlarging an important bridgehead on the route to Cologne and Berlin the 30th was called to help stop the bold German offensive that rust into Belgium in mid-December.

The 30th performed sensationally in helping stop that drive and then in workmanlike manner went about the task, once more, of fighting the Nazis back into Germany.
Here concisely and chronologically is the combat history of the 30th Infantry Division in World War II:

Immediately upon landing at Omaha Beach in Normandy the 30th on June 15 fought the Germans back beyond the Vire River and thus received its baptism of battle.
After maintaining contact with the foe, watching the Germans dig in and strengthen their defenses, the 30th on July 7 forced a crossing of the Vire River and Vire et Taute Canal, both in a matter of hours, and routed the Nazis from their foxholes, capturing and killing many and forcing them to yield ground.

Old Hickorymen fought on in a costly slugging match, beating off major attacks and sharing in the capture of St. Lo.

Then on July 25, a date already historically significant, the 30th spearheaded that breakthrough west of St. Lo, cut through the hedgerow country which had slowed Allied progress, and held open the gate for the armors' speedy overrunning of France.
More costly and equally vital fighting awaited the 30th when It arrived 1n the Mortain-St. Barthelmy sector on August 8 to relieve the First Division and to find four German armored divisions pounding at its hastily set up defenses.

In a daring, masterly timed offensive the Germans had set out for Avranches in an attempt to split the American First and Third Armies.  It was there that infantry riflemen with bazookas, artillery, tanks, tank destroyers, anti-aircraft artillery and even the cooks, drivers and messengers of the Division with the timely help of American and Royal air force support finally threw back the German tanks in a battle that had seesawed for three days.

In this same battle, the great defensive at Mortain-St. Barthelmy, a battalion was isolated on a hill near Mortain, cut off without food, ammunition and medical supplies for five and a half days and despite the fact the harassed infantrymen were under constant enemy observation, artillery and mortar fire, they refused repeated demands to surrender.

The Germans were driven from the commanding positions and the 30th's offensive was resumed as the troops drove rapidly against the Nazis to free Evreux and Louviers.

In late August the 30th crossed the Seine at Mantes Gassicourt to enlarge, the bridgehead there and prepare for the next breakthrough, this time into Belgium.
An opposed infantry speed march record was made and another commendation was won when on August 31 and September 1 the 30th dashed to Tournai, Belgium, covering 180 tulles through enemy occupied territory. The march was motorized during the last two days and screened by a task force of the Division.

The 30th was the first Allied infantry division to enter Belgium.  Still disrupting German efforts toward an orderly withdrawal, the Old Hickorymen drove on to become the first Allied troops in Holland, arriving there on September 12, after having captured the famous border fortress, Eben Emael, on September 10. Maastricht, Holland, fell to the 30th on September 13, after which told Hickory troops fought on into Germany, advance elements crossing the border at Horbach on September 14.

The attack on the Siegfried Line started October 2, continued for two weeks, to establish the bridgehead in what was reputed by the Germans to be their "impenetrable West Wall".

There the 30th troops charged through the greatest concentration of artillery and mortar fire they had met in the Western Campaign as they stormed the bunkers and established a foothold in Germany.

Smashing the Siegfried Line in the sector north of Acahen where it was heavily manned and then aiding in closing the gap that forced Aachen's fall constituted one of the toughest jobs assigned any division in the Battle of Europe.

Strengthening its positions in Germany the 30th prepared for further penetration of the German industrial sector and on November 16 participated in what XIX Corps described as "the perfect infantry attack".  In that, great teamwork was brought into play, with one German town after another falling to the Old Hickorymen, the defenders being completely baffled by the expert and surprise tactics.

That drive continued until 30th troops were emplaced along the Roer River near Julich, awaiting and preparing for their next big task, that of crossing the river and advancing into the Rhineland.

The German drive December 16 changed those plans.  Alerted for action in a new sector shortly before noon on December 17 the Division was en route a few hours later and, after a 48-mile march, advance elements were reducing the German spearhead at Stavelot, Belgium. At Stavelot, Stoumont, La Gleize and Malmedy the 30th stopped cold the northern expansion of the Germans' Belgian bulge and thwarted their plans for storming Liege, part of an ambitious scheme to regain much of the territory the Allies had taken from them in six months of bitter fighting.

Old Hickory troops gained control of the situation along their wide sector of the German salient with sensational speed and in the savage fighting against the 1st 88 Panzer Division "Adolf Hitler" that raged from December 18 until December 24 all but wiped out that elite portion of the German army.

Taking a defensive stand at Stavelot after driving the Germans out, Old Hickorymen slaughtered thousands of soldiers and knocked out scores of tanks and vehicles advanced by the Nazis in determined at, pts to reopen the Stavelot road network to their use.

Other 30th troops fought and beat into retreat 88 men at Stoumont and near Malmedy, taking a further heavy toll of their personnel and armor.  At La Gleize on December 24 Old Hickorymen closed in to capture 170 German vehicles including 39 tanks, six of them Tigers, 70 halftracks, 33 guns, self-propelled, and 30 other vehicles.
Of outstanding importance in this operation was the fact the enemy's drive to the north and northwest in the Stavelot-Malmedy section had. been halted. This area shielded a vital sector of the First U. S. Army. In it were critical supplies of gasoline and ammunition which the enemy had counted upon seizing in order to continue the attack.

The arrival of the 30th on the scene was a remarkably fortuitous circumstance in respect to time. It caught the lot 88 Panzer Division squarely astride a vital river crossing, and on a severely canalized route to the west. Fate played in the hands of the alert 30th.

Having materially aided in stopping the German offensive the 30th stood by in the Malmedy-Stavelot sector to await stabilization of the situation.

On January 13 it started the task of retaking from the Germans that portion of Belgium they had mastered in their holiday season grab.  Through snow sometimes up to their armpits and over rugged terrain - wooded hills that gave the dug-in defenders great advantages the 30th troops forged ahead. Against stubborn resistance and frequent counterattacks they resumed the offensive - started pushing again over the rough route to Berlin.