 This insignia is proudly worn by the 4th Infantry Division, also known as the Fighting 4th. In two world wars, the 4th has been in the forefront of action. Today, the distinctive I.B. Leap Patch is prominent in our effort to prevent a third global conflict. This issue of the big picture will review not only the magnificent combat record of the 4th, but also its current role as a component of STRAT, the Strategic Army Corps. You will see how the tough and ready battle groups of the 4th Division today range farther and faster than any before to meet the threat of aggression. Its army presents the Big Picture, an official report produced for the armed forces and the American people. The 4th is based at Fort Lewis in western Washington state, but as a STRAT unit, it is ready to move if called upon to any part of the globe, the entire division, or any of its component parts. STRAT is the United States Army's answer to brush fire trouble spots to the need for quenching such fires before they spread. The nucleus of the Strategic Army Corps consists of three crack divisions, 82nd Airborne, 101st Airborne, and the 4th Infantry. To create and maintain a crack outfit takes long and intensive training, modern weapons, a deeply felt sense of purpose, good leaders and men. The men of the 4th, many of them volunteers, know that they may be called upon for crucial duty without warning. They take their responsibility seriously. For then, rigorous training is a way of life. Due to the nature of STRAT's mission, the soldiers of this division must be ready to cope with any situation. Amphibious assault, mountain fighting, desert warfare, jungle operations. They must be ready for anything and ready now. As an element of STRAT, they have been called the best trained, best informed, and most effective soldiers anywhere in the world. Because speed is essential to STRAT's mission, the emphasis is on mobility. They are ground soldiers who know the utility of air. They are drilled to get there first with the most. These soldiers give the answer to talk that this generation of Americans is growing soft. As qualities that make up a crack outfit, there is usually one other, tradition. Since its beginning, the IV division has always been asked to do the hardest jobs. The division was formed at Camp Green, North Carolina in December of 1917. Six months later, the IV men were over there in France. They were part of the counterweight that would swing the pendulum in the long, indecisive conflict to its final decision. In Midsummer, they moved to the front to forge history. They fought the Second Battle of the Monk at Chateau Thierry, San Miel, Verdun, in the Argonne Forest. In 69 days of combat, the IV took 120th of all battle casualties of the AEF. It met and helped to defeat 16 German divisions and received battle honors for five campaigns. Then the IV marched off for seven months of occupation duty. In the 20 months of its existence, the division left an imprint of valor that would not be forgotten. The ashes of World War I, the Nazis vowed to build a third Reich to last a thousand years. These were the Carpenters. The speed the Nazi machine overran Poland, the Netherlands, Belgium, where the Nazi tide would crest. The unit that would first puncture the Nazi homeland was reactivated at Fort Benning, Georgia, ahead for the fourth lay months, years of reorganization and training. The division, like the nation, had to prepare to meet a new kind of threat, to fight a new kind of war. This was the beginning. In July 1942, the division was pulled out of the mammoth Carolina maneuvers and alerted for overseas. Instead, the men were sent to more training. At Camp Gordon Johnston on Florida's Gulf Coast, they received painstaking instruction in a new technique, amphibious assault. By now, other American outfits had fought in North Africa, in Sicily, Mussolini had fallen, Italy surrendered, and still the fourth trained on friendly beaches. These men could not know that the gap was closing between them and a day not yet on their calendars, an hour not on the clocks, D-Day, H-Hour. After final preparation and staging in England, the fourth division learned what all the training was for. The greatest invasion armada in history was to storm Fortress Europe. The fourth was one of two American spearheads. Ultimately, the total effort of a combat machine is concentrated at the cutting edge. The spearhead must be so hard that it will not blunt, so resilient that it will not crack, and it must endure. To paraphrase a famous statement of the time, much had been given to the fourth division in preparation. Now much would be asked. The time is D-Day, June 6, 1944, H-Hour. For the Third Reich, the H-Hour is late. Division's Eighth Regiment put the first troops ashore at Utah Beach. It was a model landing at Utah, achieving immediate success at minimum cost in casualties. Troops pushed inland quickly. One immediate objective was to reach isolated 82nd Airborne paratroopers who controlled a beachhead artery at San Mary Geese, six miles away. At the end of the second day, the fourth had carried out its first critical assignment. We had a beachhead. Now we needed a port. The division's assignment, expand the beachhead and secure the vital port of Cherbourg, how it was bitter going. The intermediate towns fell despite tenacious and costly enemy resistance. In June, the fourth was in Cherbourg. While it cleaned out the last Nazi pockets, engineers at once began restoring the port city. It was essential. General Patton's swift striking Third Army had to be brought in through here and assembled. The fourth was assigned to pave the way for the buildup. To clear the Quotentin Peninsula, the assignment had a built-in obstacle course. Hedge rows they were called. They divided farm plots about every hundred yards. Frenchmen built them. Germans used them. Americans had to take them. In July, the Nazis were out of the peninsula and the Third Army was in it, waiting to break out. The hole was to be made somewhere along the Sand Load line with a powerful assault by the First Army. The fourth division was one of the spearheads. The breakout operation began with a saturation aerial bombardment. An IV regiment moved out at age hour. This was seven weeks, four and a half hours after the landing in Normandy. Until this moment, Allied gains had been limited and expensive. Now we were going for all of France. The enemy knew what was at stake and fought fanatically. But by the end of a week, his line was fractured and the Third Army began rolling south. The 4th's 22nd Regiment received a presidential citation for opening up the Nazi lines. At the same time, strategic Vélodieu fell to the division. The drive was picking up momentum now. We were picking up more information about the recently departed Nazis. The critical key in demolishing the Nazi defense system. One final stronghold remained for the 4th. Saint-Pois. And as this spearhead division passed through towns, the GIs saw the transformation taking place. Signs went quickly. They were no longer needed. The Germans were gone. They weren't coming back. On Swastika. Up, tricolor. After one desperate counterattack, Nazi resistance faded and the way was open all the way to Paris. With the 2nd French Armored Division, the 4th was ordered to liberate the city. For these visitors, the heady experience of transforming captive Paris to Gay Paris. The 4th's 12th Regiment entered Paris at midnight. By noon, it had reached the heart of the city and the hearts of its people. One trouble with spearheads, they don't linger for victory parades. They move on. From Paris, the advance was breathtaking. 50 miles and more some days across northern France and Belgium. All the while everyone wondered just how tough is the wanted Siegfried Line. A 4th Division patrol was the first Allied unit to set foot on Nazi Germany. The time is September 11th. The next day, the division crossed the frontier in force and soon had bucked into the Siegfried Line. However, it developed that the full strength of the 1st Army was needed. In November, the 4th pushed into the Hurtgen Forest. New terrain for the veterans of the beachhead and hedgerows. The Hurtgen was a maze of ridges and Nazi defense lines. After 19 days of bitter fighting, the division rammed through to the other side. The Ivy men moved on to Luxembourg, just as the Nazis burst through in their desperate Ardennes Offensive. The German assault slammed into four isolated companies of the 12th Regiment. Beyond them was a treasure house of supplies and the roads to France. But the 4th Division units held firm, then counter-attacked. Then it became a matter of shrinking the bulge. After the Nazis' last desperate bid crumbled, the 4th joined in the final assault on Germany. Its advance turned to pursuit. It pierced across the Rhine to Würzburg and Rettgen. Then it struck southeast to the Danube. Then on to Munich. The spearhead was six miles from the Austrian border on V.E. Day. The famous 4th returned to the United States and with the end of World War II was deactivated. Its contribution to victory and peace would not soon be forgotten. The emergence of a hard peace in the deeply troubled world eventually would require the 4th again to serve its country's call. The 4th was reassigned to Fort Lewis. Here in 1958, the Ivy Division was selected as a component when Strach was formed. Today, the 4th is ready for any emergency. Its communications prepare the Division for such far-reaching exercises as Operation Long Trust. Men of the fighting 4th respond with dispatch when word is received to begin the operation. A 6,000-mile air deployment to join NATO forces in Europe. All three combat groups of the Division are involved in this longest and fastest large-scale airlift in Strach history. More than a maneuver, the troop movement is designed to evaluate and strengthen our tactical airlift capacity. Only essential equipment goes with them. There are vehicles and heavy weapons await them in Germany. Spearheading Operation Long Trust are units of Division headquarters. They are the first of 5,600 men of the 4th, making the move from Fort Lewis to Western Germany. Farewell scenes are familiar to the 4th Division. Its men have made quick departures before to Puerto Rico, South Carolina, Florida, Alaska. But this time their destination is the other side of the Atlantic. At nearby McCord Air Force Base, aircraft await the troops. Heading this movement is the Division commander, Major General William F. Train, nicknamed Super Chief, by his staff. The nation's most traveled infantrymen follow a carefully prepared timetable as they embark for the airlift. Close cooperation with the Air Force is inherent in Strach movements. The Military Air Transport Service has assembled nearly 100 aircraft for this operation. No idle boast as General Train slogan, Have Division Will Travel. Bleed Plane is one of a group of giant jet aircraft. Turbo prop aircraft also contribute to the unprecedented airlift. Conventional piston engine planes add to the total effort. At the Rhine Main Air Base in Germany, Operation Long Thrust landings continue hour by hour. 4th Division forces build up. General Charles D. Palmer, Deputy Commander-in-Chief of the U.S. Army European Command, meets the early arrivals. Operation Long Thrust enters its second phase. Ivy men prepare to move to their new base near Menheim, 6,000 miles from Fort Lewis. The fast-moving 4th heads for the Bivouac area. Waiting there are the jeeps, trucks, tanks, armored personnel carriers, and heavy weapons which have been shipped in advance. The convoys arrive at Coleman Barracks. In this home away from home, the Ivy Division soldiers will begin the final phase of Operation Long Thrust. Once again, the 4th is on German soil. Here they will prepare for maneuvers with troops and equipment from other NATO forces. General Loris Norstad is an early visitor, as Chief of the NATO forces facing the Iron Curtain, he has a vital interest in this test of strike capability. Tactical plans for the 4th Division are completed at operational headquarters. The Ivy battle groups are assigned to maneuvers in the Hohenfelds area, eastern Bavaria. The first part of the tactical move is by truck, deep into the Dern-Brookin Forest. The strike soldiers have a rendezvous with their magic carpet, a wide variety of helicopters shuttling between the rear area and the forward zone. These versatile troops and equipment carriers quickly deploy the 4th Division units to the maneuver area. At home on land as well as in the air, troops of the 4th disembark from the helicopters and fan out over the landscape. Now the climax of Operation Long Thrust, getting there first with the most. In the shadow of the Iron Curtain, the 4th Division again carries out its mission. This strike unit has demonstrated forcefully that it can cross two continents and an ocean in a matter of hours to bring its power to bear on any distant trouble spot. As Major General Train commented on Operation Long Thrust, never before in history have battle groups flown so far, so fast, so effectively. And so history continues to be made by soldiers of the famous 4th, men who stand ready to preserve the peace anywhere in the world. A big picture is an official report for the armed forces and the American people. Produced by the Army Pictorial Center. Presented by the Department of the Army in cooperation with this station.