The 3d Armored Division activated at Camp Beauregard, Louisiana on April 15, 1941. Following intensive training at Camp Polk, Louisiana and maneuvers in the Mojave Desert the division left for England in September 1943. After more training and final preparations in England, 3d Armored Division men landed on Omaha Beach in France in the days following D-Day. The Division served in the vanguard of the breakout from Normandy, knifing through France, Belgium and Germany in the Fall of 1944 and earning its famous "Spearhead" nickname. "You will spearhead the attack," was a frequent mission given the Division by General J. Lawton Collins, then VII Corps Commander. After serving in the Battle of the Bulge, the Division fought in the Battle for Cologne, the Rhine and finally the Battle for Dassau. After VE Day, the Division served a brief occupation tour and was inactivated in November 1945, at Aalen, Germany. Reactivated in 1947, the Division initially served in support of the Armor Training Center at Fort Knox. Deployed to Germany in 1956, the Division remained in Germany for the next 33 years. It served in Desert Storm, and was subsequently inactivated on August 15, 1992 in Germany.
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