First Army is the oldest and longest-established field army of the United States Army. It served as a regular army, having seen service in both World War I and World War II, and supplied the US army with soldiers and equipment during the Korean War and the Vietnam War under some of the most famous and distinguished officers of the U.S. Army. It now serves as a mobilization, readiness and training command.
History
Establishment and World War I The First Army was established on 10 August 1918 as a field army when sufficient American military manpower had arrived on the Western Front during the final months of World War I. The large number of troops assigned to the American Expeditionary Forces (AEF) required the activation of subordinate commands. To fill the need, First Army was the first of three field armies established under the AEF. The first commander was General John J. Pershing, who also served as Commander-in-Chief of the AEF. The headquarters planned and coordinated the first major American offensive, the St Mihiel Offensive (September 12 to 16, 1918). It went on to fight in the largest and deadliest battle in the United States Army's history, the Meuse–Argonne offensive. Serving in its ranks throughout World War I were commanders who later were important in World War II. First Army, then later under Lieutenant General Hunter Liggett, was inactivated on April 20, 1919, five months after the Armistice with Germany which ended hostilities.
Inter-war years As part of the realization of the 1920 amendment to the National Defense Act of 1916, the Army Chief of Staff, General Douglas MacArthur, directed the establishment of six field armies that each commanded three corps areas that were geographically located. The "First Army Area" (First, Second, and Third Corps Areas) contained the First and Fourth Armies, the "Second Army Area" (Fourth, Fifth, and Sixth Corps Areas) contained the Second and Fifth Armies, and the "Third Army Area" (Seventh, Eighth, and Ninth Corps Areas) contained the Third and Sixth Armies. Between 1921 and 1932, the six field armies were constituted in the Organized Reserve rather than in the Regular Army, as the War Department did not see a need for active-duty field army headquarters in peacetime. The Headquarters and Headquarters Company, First Army, was originally constituted in the Organized Reserve on 15 October 1921 and allotted to the Second Corps Area. The headquarters was initiated on 28 August 1924 at New York City, New York. In August 1927, the War Department realized it would need at least one active-duty field army, in command of three corps, in case of any contingencies, and so the First Army was withdrawn from the Organized Reserve on 15 August 1927 and demobilized.
A new field army, designated Headquarters and Headquarters Company, Seventh Army, was constituted in the Regular Army on 15 August 1927 and allotted to the Second Corps Area in place of First Army. It was redesignated Headquarters and Headquarters Company, First Army on 13 October 1927. Headquarters, First Army, was activated on 8 September 1932 at Governor’s Island, New York, and assumed control over the First, Second, and Third Corps Areas. The First Corps Area was headquartered in Boston, Massachusetts, Second Corps Area was headquartered at Fort Jay, on Governors Island in New York Harbor, and Third Corps Area headquarters was at Fort Howard near Baltimore, Maryland. The overall mission of First Army was commanding and training the Regular Army, National Guard, and Organized Reserve units in its three corps areas.
First Army's first commander, from 1932 to 1936, was Major General Dennis E. Nolan, who had been the American Expeditionary Force's (AEF) chief of intelligence during World War I. He was followed by Major General Fox Conner, previously First Corps Area commander, who had been the AEF's Chief of Operations in World War I. In the years between the wars, Conner was a crucial mentor in the careers of Dwight Eisenhower and George C. Marshall. Passed over as a candidate for Army Chief of Staff for Douglas MacArthur in 1930, Conner was assigned to command the First Corps Area instead, later commanding First Army in 1936. Conner retired in 1938.
In 1938, First Army came under command of General Hugh A. Drum. Drum began to develop the First Army into a bona fide field army with the expansion of the Army in 1939 and through the early 1940s. It began to establish and develop its own staff and participated in the large-scale Army maneuvers in Louisiana and North Carolina between 1939 and 1941.
World War II As the United States entered World War II, Drum was assigned command of the newly established Eastern Defense Command, responsible for coastal and domestic defense, which relieved the First Army of this responsibility on 24 December 1942. Drum retired in 1943 when he reached the mandatory retirement age. General George Grunert, commander of the Second Service Command, assumed command of the First Army until Headquarters, First Army was activated in Bristol, England in January 1944 under the command of General Omar Bradley.
First Army's entry into World War II began in October 1943 as General Bradley returned to Washington, D.C., to receive his command and began to assemble a staff and headquarters to prepare for Operation Overlord, the codename assigned to the establishment of a large-scale lodgement on the European Continent following Operation Neptune, which was the invasion of Normandy. The headquarters were activated in January 1944 at Bristol, England.
The second iteration of the First Army as constituted in the Regular Army after World War I did not continue the lineage of the World War I-era First Army; on 27 June 1944, the World War I-era First Army was reconstituted in the Regular Army as Headquarters and Headquarters Company, First Army, and was consolidated with the active Headquarters and Headquarters Company, First Army. Upon going ashore on 6 June 1944, D-Day, First Army came under General Bernard Montgomery's 21st Army Group (alongside the British Second Army) which commanded all American ground forces during the invasion. Three American divisions were landed by sea at the western end of the beaches, and two more were landed by air. On Utah Beach, the assault troops of VII Corps made good progress, but V Corps on Omaha Beach came nearest of all of the five landing areas to disaster. The two American airborne divisions that landed, the 82nd and 101st, were scattered all over the landscape, and caused considerable confusion among the German soldiers, as well as largely securing their objectives, albeit with units completely mixed up with each other. First Army captured much of the early gains of the Allied forces in Normandy. Once the beachheads were linked together, its troops struck west and isolated the Cotentin Peninsula, and then captured Cherbourg. When the American Mulberry harbour was wrecked by a storm, Cherbourg became even more vital.
After the capture of Cherbourg, First Army struck south. In Operation Cobra, its forces finally managed to break through the German lines. The newly established Third Army was then fed through the gap and raced across France.
With the arrival of more US troops in France, the Army then passed from the control of the 21st Army Group to the newly arrived 12th Army Group which commanded the First Army and the newly formed Third Army under Lieutenant General George S. Patton. General Bradley assumed command of the 12th Army Group and Lieutenant General Courtney Hodges was placed in command of the First Army. First Army followed Third Army, the American armies forming the southern part of the encirclement of Germans at the Falaise pocket.
After capturing Paris (the Wehrmachtbefehlshaber von Groß-Paris, Dietrich von Choltitz, capitulated 25 August, ignoring Hitler's Trümmerfeldbefehl),Dokument, Deutsches Historisches Museum During the Battle of the Mons Pocket VII Corps took approximately 25,000 prisoners. First Army headed towards the south of the Netherlands. First Army liberated most of Luxembourg in three days from 9–12 September 1944.
When the Germans attacked during the Battle of the Bulge, First Army found itself on the north side of the salient, and thus isolated from 12th Army Group, its commanding authority. It was, therefore, temporarily transferred, along with Ninth Army, back to 21st Army Group under Montgomery on 20 December.Ardennes-Alsace , Sullivan, Gordon R. The salient was reduced by early February 1945. Following the Battle of the Bulge, the Rhineland Campaign began, and First Army was transferred back to 12th Army Group. In Operation Lumberjack, First Army closed up to the lower Rhine by 5 March, and the higher parts of the river five days later.
On 7 March, in a stroke of luck, Company A, 27th Armored Infantry Battalion, part of Combat Command B, 9th Armored Division, found the Ludendorff Bridge across the Rhine at Remagen still standing. It quickly captured the bridge and established a secure bridgehead. in the next 15 days, over 25,000 troops and their equipment crossed the river. By 4 April, an enormous pocket had been created by First Army and Ninth Army, which contained the German Army Group B under Field Marshal Model, the last significant combat force in the northwest of Germany. While some elements of First Army concentrated on reducing the Ruhr pocket, others headed further east, creating another pocket containing the German Eleventh Army. First Army reached the Elbe by 18 April. There the advance halted, as that was the agreed demarcation zone between the American and Soviet forces. First Army and Soviet forces met on 25 April.
In May 1945, advance elements of First Army headquarters had returned to New York City and were preparing to redeploy to the Pacific theater of the war to prepare for Operation Coronet, the planned second phase of Operation Downfall the proposed invasion of Honshū, the main island of Japan in the spring of 1946, but the Japanese surrender in August 1945 thanks to the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki terminated that effort.
Post-war and peacetime missions First Army returned to the United States in late 1945; first to Fort Jackson (South Carolina), then to Fort Bragg, North Carolina. It was then reformed again by "reflagging" Headquarters, Second Service Command at Fort Jay, Governors Island, New York, in the spring of 1946. Technically Second Service Command and First Army had no lineage connection: actually, Headquarters, Second Service Command, became Headquarters, First Army. It became responsible for Army Reserve and National Guard supervision in a number of states in the Northeast.
RC supervising corps included: II Corps (United States), March 1958 until it was inactivated on 5 June 1970. Its headquarters was initially established at Camp Kilmer, New Jersey (1958), then subsequently moved to Fort Wadsworth, Staten Island, New York. It was responsible for the Mid-Atlantic sector of First Army, primarily covering New York and New Jersey. XIII Corps (United States), Late 1950s until its inactivation on 5 January 1970. Its headquarters was at Fort Devens, Massachusetts. It was responsible for all six New England states.
Twenty years later, in 1966, First Army relocated to Fort George G. Meade, Maryland, and took over, in addition to its ongoing original tasks, the responsibilities of Second Army, which was inactivated. In 1973, First Army's mission changed from training and preparation of active units to Army Reserve units. That year it gained the Support Group in Puerto Rico. In a 1993 reorganization, five divisions carried out that training and support mission:
75th Division, Houston, Texas 78th "Lightning" Division, Edison, New Jersey 85th "Custer" Division, Arlington Heights, Illinois 87th "Golden Acorn" Division, Birmingham, Alabama 91st "Wild West" Division, Dublin, California