This account focuses on the tactical operations of the Third Army and its subordinate units between 1 September and 18 December 1944.

This account focuses on the tactical operations of the Third Army and its subordinate units between 1 September and 18 December 1944.

(Includes maps) In 1946 the Historical Division of the War Department made plans for the preparation of a nine-volume series recounting the history of the European Theater of Operations. There was no precedent in the experience of the United States Army for an official narrative account of military operations on the grand scale. Careful study of the official histories produced by the European combatants after World War I showed that these histories could offer little in the way of a pattern for recording the European campaigns of 1944 and 1945. The drastic change from the trench warfare of 1914-18 to the mobile operations of 1944-45 had complicated the task of the military historian. In World War I, a tactical situation represented by three divisions rising from the trenches in simultaneous attack on a narrow front permitted a reasonable unity in treatment and allowed the historian to write at the level of the army corps. Thirty years later, that same frontage might be held by a single reinforced regiment. The fluid condition of the combat zone in World War II and the wide dispersion of troops over the battle area resulting from the impact of the tank, the plane, the machine gun, the truck, and the radio telephone inevitably induced a degree of fragmentization and an unavoidable lack of sequence in the narrative of events on the battlefields of 1944 and 1945. It was decided, therefore, that the common denominator in the present series would be the division, since the division represents the basic tactical and administrative unit of the combined arms. Although emphasis is placed on the division, organization by chapters generally will follow the story of the army corps as a means of achieving narrative and tactical unity. "The Lorraine Campaign" is the first volume to be published in the projected series embracing the history of the American armies in the European Theater of Operations. This volume deals with the campaign waged by the Third Army in Lorraine during the period 1 September-18 December 1944. Since it has been impossible to organize the writing of individual volumes so that they may be published in the chronological sequence followed by military operations, the reader interested in the history of the Third Army before or after the events here set forth must wait until the appropriate volumes are completed. The present volume is concerned with the tactical operations of the Third Army and its subordinate units. The story of command and decision in higher headquarters is told only when it has a direct bearing on the campaign in Lorraine. The logistics of this campaign likewise have been subordinated to the tactical narrative. The basic unit in the present narrative is the infantry or armored division. The story of the division has been told in terms of its regiments and battalions, but swerves on occasion to the company or the platoon, just as the operations themselves turned on the exploits of these smaller units.

Illustrated with over 20 maps and diagrams The Lorraine Campaign: An Overview, September-December 1944 originated at the U.S. Army Command and General Staff College as an introductory lesson to a course on corps operations. It is an adaptation of a narrated slide presentation used to provide students with a historical context on which to base their studies of current doctrine. The Lorraine Campaign, which included failures as well as successes, was chosen because it encompassed a variety of operations that involved such factors as logistics, intelligence, and weather. This overview serves as a point of departure for more in-depth studies, sets the stage for the analysis of unit operations from platoon to corps, and furnishes a useful reference for studying branch operations in battle. Repeated reference to this overview will give students an insight into specific operations or single branch actions. This study also provides a concise summary of Third Army operations in one of the World War II European campaigns.