WITH THE 4TH ARMORED DIVISION IN GERMANY--Third Army’s fighting 4th
Armored Division, General George S. Patton’s “Sunday Punch,”
which made the “fire alarm” run from the Saar Valley to relieve
the besieged 101st Airborne Division at Bastogne, has long been a
thorn in the side of the German army. Aggressive leadership in this
aggressive division is believed to be its secret of success in battle.
Under the title of aggressive leadership can be placed the name of
Major General (then Brigadier General) Holmes E. Dager, 52-year-old
commander of the crack tank division’s Combat Command “B”.
Now engaged in his second war with the Germans, the scrappy little
general--he’s five feet seven inches tall--whose courage in battle
has been recognized by five awards, rose from the ranks in World War I
to build and command an armored element that is now known as General
Patton’s “work horse.”
General Dager resumed his private war with the Wehrmacht when he led
Fourth Armored troops against the Boche in Normandy hedgerows.
The speed and power of General Dager’s attack and advance achieved a
major breakthrough in the German lines.
At Avranches, the gateway to the Brittany peninsula, General Dager’s
troops captured 4,000 German prisoners in two days of fierce armored
battle. In that action the general earned the Distinguished Service
Cross. When the Nazis attacked his headquarters from three sides
simultaneously, General Dager directed the counter fire that beat off
the attack while manning the guns on his command tank.
General Dager’s latest award, a second Bronze Oak-Leaf Cluster to
the Bronze Star Medal, came for heroic action in the battle which
relieved the encircled American troops in Bastogne. General Dager’s
tanks, artillery and infantry cut through a thick wall of German armor
and troops to help open the corridor to the hard-hit 101st Airborne
Division. The Union, N.J., general was awarded the Bronze Star Medal
and an Oak-Leaf Cluster in September during the fierce fighting in
eastern France where the Fourth Armored pushed the Nazis behind the
Reich’s frontier in addition to protecting the south flank of Third
Army.
Enemy equipment knocked out or captured by fighting units of General
Dager’s command in six months of combat include 144 tanks, 224
vehicles, 15 self-propelled assault guns, 51 88s, 50 half-tracks, 62
anti-aircraft guns, 16 prime movers, as well as a locomotive and 32
freight cars.
In Combat Command “B” headquarters, officers and enlisted men have
won a total of six Silver Star Medals and 61 Bronze Star Medals.
[Illustration: Life magazine: “Colonel Abe”]
Tankman Creighton Abrams of the 4th Armored Division, Spearhead of
Patton’s Advances, Makes Himself a Terror to Germans by Basing His
Operations on Overpowering Violence