Word: 3rd
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Dates: during 1940-1949
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...3rd Armored Division and 104th Infantry ("Timberwolves") moved in, a church bell rang crazily, not in joy but high and loose-lipped like the laughter of a hysterical woman. A mud-stained veteran stared with dazed eyes at the desolation about him murmuring over and over, "Ain't it awful! Ain't it awful!" Silent Rubble. In most districts not one street was untouched, not a single house undamaged. The outer areas of the city were 85% destroyed, the center 95% rubble. TIME Correspondent Sidney Olson, who went in with the first troops, cabled: "The first impression...
...terrain was rougher and the resistance tougher. The First's men ran into counterattacks by two enemy armored divisions. Nevertheless they reached the Rhine two miles north of Cologne, and several divisions took up positions around the city, while heavy shellfire crashed into it. The 10th Infantry and 3rd Armored Divisions were the first outfits to break into the city limits...
...northern end of the island was within gun sight for Major General Graves B. Erskine's 3rd Division, which had driven a wedge that had almost split the Japs into two pockets. On the flanks the 4th and 5th Divisions were grinding the enemy down...
Until last week it seemed that this might not be so. At the end of the tenth day Major General Graves B. Erskine's hell-for-leather 3rd Division recovered from its long stymie around Motoyama Airfield No. 2, finally broke through for a 1,000-yd. gain straight up the middle of Iwo Jima. Here it seemed that the Japs might crack wide open. But the Jap flanks held and they tightened their grip on the craggy ravines. Instead of falling apart, the Japs fought more fanatically than ever and postponed their downfall...
...days of bitter fighting, the men of the 3rd Marine Division (Major General Graves B. Erskine), the 4th (Major General Clifton B. Cates) and the 5th (Major General Keller E. Rockey) hold approximately 40% of Iwo Jima, including half of Airfield No. 2, the fighter field. This is almost in the exact geographical center of the island and is perhaps the key to the entire defense. Built on a high plateau, it is defended by hundreds of interlaced pillboxes and concrete casemated caves, apparently connected by labyrinthine tunnels which wind in & out of the cliffsides...