United States Army 30th Infantry Division (Old Hickory)

U. S. ARMY 30TH INFANTRY DIVISION (OLD HICKORY) -  This is today's 30th Heavy Brigade Combat Team.  The 30th Infantry Division was a unit of the Army National Guard in World War I and World War II.  It was nicknamed the "Old Hickory" division, in honor of President Andrew Jackson.  The Germans nicknamed this division "Roosevelt's SS.".   The 30th Infantry Division was regarded by SLA Marshall as the number one infantry division in the European Theater of Operations (ETO), involved in 282 days of intense combat over a period from June 1944 through April 1945.

In May 1918 the division was sent to Europe and arrived in England, where it departed for the Western Front soon after. The division, along with the 27th Division, was assigned to the U.S. II Corps but did not serve with the main American Expeditionary Force (AEF) and was instead attached to the Second Army of the British Expeditionary Force (BEF), trading their American equipment for British equipment.

The major operations the 30th Division took part in were the Ypres-Lys, and the Somme offensive, in which it was one of the two American divisions to break the Hindenburg Line in the Battle of St. Quentin Canal.  The division had, in three months, from July until October 1918, sustained 1,237 officers and men killed in action (KIA), with a further 7,178 wounded in action (WIA) or missing in action (MIA).

It landed at Omaha Beach, Normandy, on June 11, 1944, five days after the initial D-Day landings of June  6, 1944, secured the Vire-et-Taute Canal, crossed the Vire River on July 7th.   Beginning on July 25th, the 30th Division spearheaded the Saint-Lô break-through of Operation Cobra, which was intended to break out of the Normandy beachhead, thus ending the stalemate that had occurred.

WWII Casualties

• Total battle casualties: 18,446
• Killed in action: 3,003
• Wounded in action: 13,376
• Missing in action: 903
• Prisoner of war: 1,164

Following the war, the 30th Division was once again reactivated as a National Guard formation in 1947, split between three states.   It included the 119th, 120th, and 121st Infantry Regiments.  In 1954, the division became an entirely North Carolina Army National Guard manned formation, as Tennessee's portion became the 30th Armored Division, which was maintained with the Alabama Army National Guard.  In 1968 the division was designated as the 30th Infantry Division (Mechanized).  On January 4, 1974 the division was again inactivated, and the brigade in North Carolina become the 30th Infantry Brigade (Mechanized) (Separate).  The 2nd Brigade, 30th Infantry Division, became the 218th Infantry Brigade (Mechanized) (Separate).