The
Marshall
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16 March 1946 Dear General Hobbs: Now that I am leaving the service, I thought it might
be well to give you the following information for whatever satisfaction
you might derive therefrom. I was historian of the ETO. Toward the end of last fall,
for the purpose of breaking the log-jam of paper concerning division
presidential unit citations, General Eisenhower instructed me to draw
up a rating sheet on the divisions. This entailed in the actual processing
that we had to go over the total work of all the more experienced
divisions, infantry and armor, and report back to him which divisions
we considered had performed the most efficient and consistent battle
services. We so did, and we named certain infantry divisions in
the first category and same with armor, and we placed others in a
second category and yet others in a third. The 30th was among five
divisions in the first category. However, we picked the 30th Division No. 1 on the list
of first category divisions. It was the combined judgment of the approximately
35 historical officers who had worked on the records and in the field
that the 30th had merited this distinction. It was our finding that
the 30th had been outstanding in three operations and that we could
consistently recommend it for citation on any one of these three occasions.
It was further found that it had in no single instance performed discreditably
or weakly when considered against the averages of the Theater and
that in no single operation had it carried less than its share of
the burden or looked bad when compared with the forces on its flanks.
We were especially impressed with the fact that it had consistently
achieved results without undue wastage of its men. I do not know whether further honors will come to the
30th. I hope they do. For we had to keep looking at the balance of
things always and we felt that the 30th was the outstanding infantry
division in the ETO. Respectfully yours, Colonel S.L.A. Marshall, GSC |
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| Updated August 6, 2006 | ||||
