The combat record of the 30th Infantry Division in the European Theater in World War II led to it being named the "outstanding infantry division of the ETO" by Colonel S. L. A. Marshall, the US Army historian for the theater. The men of the 30th stood their ground and saved the Normandy breakout at Mortain; they were among the first to breach the Siegfried Line and penetrate Germany at Aachen; and they stopped Kampfgruppe Peiper cold, the tip of the spear of the German advance at the Battle of the Bulge. Recruited mainly from the Carolinas, Georgia, and Tennessee, they formed one of the hardest-fighting units the US ever fielded in Europe. Their US Army nickname was the "Old Hickory" Division. But after encountering them on the battlefield, the Germans themselves came to call them "Roosevelt's SS." By the end of World War II, the 30th Infantry Division had accumulated a remarkable list of battle honors. It spent 282 days in combat earning five battle stars in the Normandy, Northern France, Rhineland, Ardennes-Alsace, and Central Europe campaigns. Eight Presidential Unit Citations were awarded to subordinate units within the division, and six Old Hickory men earned Medals of Honor. More than 80 men earned Distinguished Service Crosses, the nation's second highest award for valor. This book is a combat chronicle of the division that takes the reader right to the heart of the fighting in the ETO as told through the voices of those who were there. Each chapter is meticulously researched and assembled with accurate timelines and afteraction reports. Many of the last remaining veterans of the 30th Division and attached units relate their remarkable experiences here for the first, and probably the last, time. Book jacket.