ISBN 1-880510-88-X
160 pages

Preface; Foreword; Dedication; Introduction; photos; maps; Epilogue; Endnotes; Bibliography; Index

Appendices: Chronology; Those Left Behind; Army Organization; Overseas Wartime Assignments

   Every division deserves a decent divisional history. In the US Army, almost every division has at least one title devoted it to its World War II service, but some units have been much better served than others when it comes to written records. The 12th Armored Division, perhaps because it didn't play an especially lengthy or spectacular role in the war, has been one of the units without a solid, start-to-finish account. Thanks to John Ferguson, that's no longer the case.
   Ferguson rightly begins at the beginning with the creation of the division under Major General Carlos Brewer, charting in Chapter 1 the process by which the cadre was assembled, ranks filled with soldiers, and in late 1942 and early 1943 the division's component formations and their troops underwent a systematic program comprising thirteen weeks of basic training, eleven weeks of unit training, and eleven weeks of combined training. Although not at quite the same level of detail or insight, this part of the book is comparable to the early chapters of John Sloan Brown's highly regarded Draftee Division.
   From September through November 1943 the division participated in maneuvers in Tennessee as the "Blue" armored division under the watchful eye of the commanding officer of 2nd Army, General Lloyd Fredendall (who, although Ferguson doesn't mention it, had been relieved of command of II Corps in North Africa after the Battle of Kasserine Pass and sent back to the States). Following the Tennessee maneuvers, 12th Armored moved from Fort Campbell to Camp Barkeley, Texas.
   Ferguson devotes his second chapter to the making of Camp Barkeley and its use by other divisions earlier in the war, including some interesting period photographs of the installation. Chapter 3 picks up the story of the Hellcats who, reorganized from two armored regiments to one, turned over vehicles to the new 14th Armored Division and traveled by train to Texas, replacing the recently departed 11th Armored at Camp Barkeley. Despite all the intensive training and maneuvers undertaken by the division, in June 1944 it failed its combat readiness test, requiring a vigorous program of remedial training. Although the unit subsequently passed the readiness test in July, in August General Brewer was relieved of command of the division, ostensibly because of his age. Brewer was replaced by Major General Douglas Greene.
   At the end of August advance elements of the 12th began moving from Camp Barkeley to New York for transportation to Europe. On 19 September the division began boarding the General T.H. Bliss, Empress of Australia, and Marine Raven, arriving in the UK on 1 October. The unit spent little more than a month in England—just long enough for Major General Roderick Allen to take command—before moving to France. At this point 12th Armored had been in existence for two full years without seeing combat.

   On December 5 the division was attached to XV Corps, and on that same day the Hellcats received orders to move out from Luneville to Kirrberg. During this move, as would occur many times later on, the 92nd Cavalry Reconnaissance Squadron and the three armored field artillery battalions were temporarily removed so that they could support other units.
   While the artillery was detached, it fired the first shots of the division in the war against Germany. At 4:38 p.m. on December 5, 1944, the number 2 gun section of Battery A, 493rd Armored Field Artillery Battalion fired the division's first shot—in support of the 44th Infantry Division near Weisslingen, France.
   On December 6 the division received orders to begin relieving the 4th Armored Division on the front lines in the vicinity of Domfessel. It was generally acknowledged that the 4th was the premier armored division in the European Theater, and the favorite division of General George Patton. Many of the Hellcats felt a sense of pride upon taking the place of such a respected division, while other Hellcats wondered what they were getting into, with such a green, untested division replacing the experienced tankers of the 4th.
   The 12th completed the relief of the 4th Armored Division by the morning of December 8, and the division's next assignment was to support an attack by the 26th Infantry Division. The XV Corps, including the 26th and the 12th, was to breach the Maginot Line on the French frontier and continue attacking and advancing to the Siegfried Line across the border in Germany.

   Having expended fifty-seven pages on forming the division, training it, and moving the 12th into combat, Ferguson now begins the same number of pages following the unit through combat until the end of the war.
   To begin with, the division took a pounding during the German Nordwind counteroffensive in January 1945. Just over a month after going into the front line, the 12th tangled with the 10th SS Panzer Division and had two battalions destroyed and suffered over 1700 men killed, wounded, or captured around the town of Herrlisheim. "The Hellcats emerged from the experience a humbled, much wiser, less innocent division, and vastly more experienced as a result of the hard lessons of January."
   After about two weeks out of the line, 12th Armored was transferred to the French 1st Army to assist with reduction of the Colmar pocket. According to Ferguson, it was in this operation that the Hellcats came of age and became competent veterans. The division went into reserve in the second half of February.

   A significant change to the division occurred on March 10, when twelve platoons of black infantry soldiers joined the Hellcats. The division formed the new soldiers into three rifle companies and attached the companies to the existing armored infantry battalions. The new companies were officially known as Seventh Army Provisional Rifle Companies 1, 2, and 3, but were informally referred to as Company D of each of the three infantry battalions. Although the black soldiers had scant infantry training when compared to their white counterparts, the black infantry made a generally good impression.
   Sergeant Edward A. Carter, a black soldier from Los Angeles, California, in Company D, 56th Armored Infantry Battalion, was riding on a tank near Speyer, Germany, on March 23, 1945, when the tank column ran into heavy bazooka and small-arms fire. Sergeant Carter jumped off the tank on which he was riding and led three other men across an open field toward the source of the enemy fusillade. When his three companions were shot down by German fire, Carter continued alone until he was wounded five times and forced to seek cover. A German patrol then came out to his position, and Carter killed six of the enemy soldiers and captured the remaining two. Using his prisoners for a shield, Sergeant Carter returned to friendly lines where intelligence officers obtained valuable information on enemy dispositions from the prisoners.
   After the battle Captain Russell Blair, Sergeant Carter's white commanding officer, submitted paperwork nominating Carter for the Medal of Honor. The War Department downgraded the award to the Distinguished Service Cross, the Army's second highest award for valor. Many years later an Army review board determined that Carter's actions were worthy of the higher medal. Although Sergeant Carter died in 1963, Carter's family eventually received his Medal of Honor at a White House ceremony in 1997.
   During a time of strict racial segregation in the American armed forces, the 12th Armored Division had more black combat soldiers than any other unit in the Army Although the black soldiers served in combat for only two months, they displayed a willingness to serve and to share all the hardships and dangers of their white comrades. Their courage and devotion to duty, and their general acceptance by white soldiers and officer, eased the way for full racial integration in the Army and the other services a few years later.

   The remaining pages of the book chronicle the division's headlong rush to the end of the war, blitzing through Germany to the Danube and Austria, including liberation of a part of Dachau. Upon German surrender, the war for the Hellcats was over, and they settled down to peaceful occupation duties before returning to the States.
   Although 12th Armored Division began its war with a costly learning experience and campaigned for only about five months, its post-war association has maintained strong bonds among the surviving veterans, including a divisional museum in Abilene, Texas. John Ferguson, director of that museum, has also given the division a workmanlike divisional history. Although with a slightly generic feel, the book contains all the basic information about 12th Armored that any veteran, or veteran's family, could want. The chapters are leavened with headings and sidebars comprising quotes from the vets. Ferguson also includes a strong chronology of the division's activities and a full list of all the Hellcats who lost their lives during the war.
   While Hellcats doesn't offer a complete, blow-by-blow account of all the unit's operations in the style of a classic military history, and it doesn't transcend the genre like the first-class divisional histories by Brown (88th Infantry Division), Balkoski (29th Infantry Division), Colby (90th Infantry Division), or Love (27th Infantry Division), this is not a useless scrapbook or amateur photo album like some divisional histories. The 12th Armored can be thoroughly pleased with what Ferguson has written for and about them. Every division deserves a history, and this one serves admirably for the Hellcats.
   Available from online booksellers, local bookshops, or from State House Press via Texas A&M.
   Thanks to State House and Texas A&M for providing this review copy.