Interwar period XIII Corps (I) The XIII Corps was authorized by the
National Defense Act of 1920, and was to be composed of units of the
Organized Reserve located primarily in the Third
Corps Area. The Headquarters and Headquarters Company were constituted on 29 July 1921 in the
Regular Army, allotted to the Third Corps Area, and assigned to the
Fourth Army. The Headquarters was organized about November 1921 with Reserve personnel at
Fort Howard, Maryland. The Headquarters Company was organized with Reserve personnel in February 1923 at
York,
Pennsylvania. Though there seems to be no definitive information available, the corps headquarters appears to have been inactivated sometime in 1925. The Headquarters Company was inactivated on 19 July 1929 at Fort Howard. The Headquarters was withdrawn from the Regular Army on 1 October 1933 and demobilized.
XIII Corps (II) The second iteration of the XIII Corps was constituted in the Organized Reserve on 1 October 1933, allotted to the Third Corps Area, and assigned to the First Army. This new corps’ designated headquarters location for organization purposes was Fort Howard. In the event of mobilization, it was to be organized with Regular Army officers from the Third Corps Area and with Reserve personnel already assigned to the corps headquarters and headquarters company in peacetime. The designated mobilization station was
Camp George G. Meade, Maryland, where the corps headquarters would assume command and control of its subordinate corps troops, which would then be mobilizing throughout the Third Corps Area. It was redesignated on 1 January 1941 as Headquarters, XIII Army Corps. The XIII Corps was not initiated nor activated prior to World War II.
World War II The XIII Corps was activated on 7 December 1942 at
Providence, Rhode Island, the
XIII Corps fought for 180 days in the
European Theater of Operations, from the
Netherlands to the
Elbe River. It was first activated under the command of then-
Major General Emil F. Reinhardt, but would be commanded in combat by
Major General (later
Lieutenant General)
Alvan C. Gillem, Jr. as a subordinate unit to
Ninth U.S. Army, it under the command of the Allied
21st Army Group. In November 1944, the XIII Corps pierced the
Siegfried Line and pushed to the
Roer River. On 23 February 1945, the corps routed
Third Reich forces in the
Cologne Plain and made a dash for the
Rhine on 31 March of that year. In 180 days of combat, the corps had progressed as far as the Elbe River to the vicinity of
Tangermunde, bringing it to approximately 50 miles from Berlin, the closest American forces would come to the enemy capital before
V-E Day. In total, the corps fought across more than 300 miles of enemy territory and captured more than 247,000 prisoners, as well as taking key cities, such as
Viersen,
Krefeld,
Moers,
Homburg,
Münster, and
Hannover. In the month following V-E Day, units from the corps were redeployed. Corps headquarters would eventually find its way to
Camp Cooke, California, where on 25 September 1945, XIII Corps was inactivated. The corps was subsequently active as part of the Regular Army from 1958 until 1970 at
Fort Devens, Massachusetts. In 1961 it was controlling all reserve activities in the six New England states, under the command of Maj. Gen. William J. Verbeck. During an extended callup of reservists in December 1961 reservists had a variety of complaints.
Order of battle During operations in Europe the corps major units included: • the
84th,
102nd,
29th and
35th infantry divisions • the
5th Armored Division • the
17th Airborne Division • the
11th Cavalry Group • the 19th Anti-aircraft Artillery Group. • Corps Field Artillery Groups included the 196th, the 202nd, the 411th, the 422nd or the 472nd with the 2d, 70th, 83rd armored, 252nd, 280th, 349th, 695th armored, 753rd, 754th, 755th, 774th, 777th, 787th and 808th artillery battalions. Other units included: the 3rd and 92nd Chemical Mortar Battalions, 226th Searchlight Battalion, the 135th AAA Gun Battalion, the 556th AAA Automatic Weapons Battalion, the 125th Liaison Squadron (flying Cubs and L-5s), 21st Weather Squadron, 40th Mobile Communications Squadron, 669th Engineer Topographical Company (Corps), 3258th Signal Services Company, 232nd Army Postal Unit, 213th Counter-intelligence Corps Detachment, the 167th and 168th Signal Photo Companies, 1st platoon/278th Signal Pigeon Company, the 184th Medical Battalion (with the 446th and 448th Medical Collecting Companies and the 625th Medical Clearing Company), 822nd Military Police Company, the 80th Quartermaster Battalion (663rd and 648th Quartermaster Truck Companies), the 866th Quartermaster Fumigation and Bath Company, the 102nd, 103rd and 104th Interrogation of Prisoners of War teams, the 457th and 458th Military Intelligence Interpreters teams, the 46th Order of Battle team and the 70th and 101st Photo Interpretation teams. The corps officially met with the Soviet troops in Gartow where General Gillem met with Lieutenant General Oslikowski of the
3rd Cavalry Corps of the
Red Army. ==Commanders==