12TH ARMORED DIVISION MEMORIAL MUSEUM FOUNDATION INC

The 12th Armored Division Memorial Museum Foundation tells the history of WW2, and in particular the 12th Armored Division’s little known role in the defeat of the German Forces in Europe: Your donations are greatly appreciated and help with the expenses incurred in running the museum. This includes salaries, utilities, internet, building repairs, upkeep of existing exhibits and development of new exhibits, as well as expenses in educating school groups and others from all over the world, and audio visual equipment used in that distance learning.
Here is an outline of some of the exploits of the 12th AD. In Mid January 1945, outnumbered 3 to 1, the 12th Armored Division in its first major battle, held off 3 experienced German Divisions as part of the last German Offensive of WW2, losing over one third of their soldiers killed or captured in just a few days. One of the veterans recalled recently that there was a perfectly strait horizontal line of smoke above the battlefield. That air burst made foxholes not effective at all and made it nearly impossible for the Germans to advance. With a little more digging, we recently discovered that the US Army had a little help and had just started using a Top Secret artillery shell with a radar tipped proximity fuze. These battles were considered the turning point of the war, which some call the "Second Battle of the Bulge". Henceforth the 12th was called the “Suicide Division” by the Germans and were most feared by the German Army. The radar fuze enabled detonation at a preselected height above the ground and above an advancing adversary which made digging a foxhole useless in providing protection from an overhead blast. 92 Million of these devices were manufactured during the war and the device was probably the best kept secret of WW2 with components made by Raytheon, Crosby and numerous other Radio and Radar component manufacturers.
Keeping it’s momentum the 12th rapidly moved south to pinch off another German Bulge into the Colmar Pocket and retook the city of Strasbourg.
The 12th next removed all it identification and became one of Patton’s mystery divisions and was the tip of the spear in General Patton’s race to take an intact Bridge across the Rhine River.
After crossing the Rhine they set speed records for an armored division keeping the Germans on the run.
Advancing so rapidly they surprised the German Soldiers guarding a bridge over the Danube river at Dillingen Germany before the Germans could blow it with the multitude of 500 lbs bombs wired to blow the bridge. This was the first time in history that an intact bridge over the Danube had ever been breached by an adversarial army since Julius Caesar.
Advancing rapidly behind that bridge, they liberated 10 concentration camps in the Landsburg Kaufering area in 11 days. These camps were some of the 200 sub camps of the Dachau complex. One of the prisoners stated that if the 12th had arrived 15 minutes later he would have been killed.
Later they captured and accepted the surrender of Werner Von Braun’s Rocket Scientist’s and their supersonic wind tunnel in the Tyrol and helped with their return to the USA .
In the last days of the war, in probably the strangest battle of the war, they fought side by side with the regular Garman Arm against the Nazi SS. Together they rescued a dozen high profile political prisoners held by the SS at Itter Castle. This was the subject of a recent book “The last Battle”.
The 12th was also one of the first integrated division and the heroic actions of the African American troops probably planted some of the seeds of the civil rights movement. Sergeant Carter an experienced African American soldier who previously fought with the Lincoln Brigade in the Spanish Civil War, won the Medal of Honor in heroic action knocking out some machine gun nests that had pinned down part of the division.
Thanks for your support of the Museum in telling the history of the 12th Armored Division and World War II. Hopefully through education, the museum can help make sure something like this does not happen again.