Description
9TH INFANTRY DIVISION
Hold Fast! • World War II •
78 pages scanned. Instant PDF download.
Document Overview:
Hold Fast! was compiled and edited by 1st Lt. Joseph B. Mittelman, Division Historian, and printed in Munich just after the war for the men of the Ninth Infantry Division, the “Old Reliables.” Rather than a dry official record, it gathers what the foreword calls historical bits of pathos, lore, heroism and satire: the division’s World War I roots, a condensed history from activation at Fort Bragg in 1940 through the North African landings, Bizerte, Sicily, the cutting of the Cherbourg Peninsula, and the first breach of the Siegfried Line, followed by press tributes and character sketches of Medal of Honor men Herschel Briles and John Butts, the rule-breaking scout “Molotov,” soldier of fortune Alfred Perrott-White, Ernie Pyle’s portrait of General Eddy, and the legends of Col. Paddy Flint. This is a digital download of a scanned copy of the original booklet.
Campaigns: Algeria-French Morocco; Tunisia (El Guettar, Sedjenane, Bizerte); Sicily (Troina, Randazzo); Normandy (Cherbourg Peninsula, St. Lo); Northern France (Mortain, Falaise Gap, Meuse crossing); Rhineland (Siegfried Line, Hurtgen Forest)
Commanders: Maj. Gen. W. A. Holbrook (1918); Maj. Gen. Jacob L. Devers (1940–41); Brig. Gen. Rene E. DeR. Hoyle (1941–42); Maj. Gen. Manton S. Eddy (1942–44); Maj. Gen. Louis A. Craig (from August 1944)
Division newspaper: Ninth Division News
Table of Contents
Foreword – Division Historian
The Octofoil
The Ninth in World War I
How It Began
The Long African Campaigns
Across the Mediterranean
Winchester and Invasion
Through Belgium, Into Germany
Invasion Advice
The North African Landings
Staff Sergeant Herschel F. Briles, Medal of Honor
Second Lieutenant John E. Butts, Medal of Honor
And So the Enemy… (Maria of Monschau)
Molotov
The March of the Silent Men
Perrott-White, Soldier of Fortune
General Eddy
The Legends of Paddy Flint
Letter to the 39th Infantry on the Death of Col. Paddy Flint – Maj. Gen. Manton S. Eddy
“It is not necessary that you should keep your property, or even your life, but it is necessary that you should hold fast your integrity.”
— William Ellery Channing, the book’s epigraph