more at http://quickfound.net/links/military_news_and_links.html 'THE BIG PICTURE goes to Europe for this interesting program on United States Army activities in Europe. The Seventh Army and the allied countries play an important race in keeping peace, but have to follow rigid training rules to be always ready, as shown in "Soldier in Europe."' The Big Picture episode TV-238 The Big Picture TV Series playlist: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL_hX5wLdhf_Jwfz5l_3NRAcCYURbOW2Fl Public domain film from the US National Archives, slightly cropped to remove uneven edges, with the aspect ratio corrected, and mild video noise reduction applied. The soundtrack was also processed with volume normalization, noise reduction, clipping reduction, and/or equalization (the resulting sound, though not perfect, is far less noisy than the original). http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Army_Europe United States Army Europe (USAREUR) is an Army Service Component Command of the United States Army. It is responsible for directing US Army operations throughout the United States European Command Area of Responsibility. During the Cold War, HQ USAREUR supervised ground formations primarily focused upon the Warsaw Pact militaries to the east as part of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation's (NATO) Central Army Group. Since the Revolutions of 1989, USAREUR has greatly reduced its size, dispatched US forces to Operation Desert Shield and Desert Storm, and increased security cooperation with other NATO land forces... Headquarters, European Theater of Operations, United States Army was a United States Army formation which directed U.S. Army operations in parts of Europe from 1942 to 1945. It commanded Army Ground Forces, United States Army Air Forces, and Army Service Forces operations north of Italy and the Mediterranean coast, in the European Theater of World War II... When the war ended in Europe on 8 May 1945, the ETOUSA headquarters was located in Versailles, France, just outside Paris. As Eisenhower and his staff began to prepare for the occupation of Germany, the ETOUSA headquarters staff moved to Frankfurt, Germany... From 1948 to 1950, the Cold War began to warm, and the outbreak of hostilities in Korea heightened East-West tensions in Europe. Seventh Army was reactivated at Stuttgart in late November 1950. The two U.S. Army division sized units in the U.S. Occupation Zone of Germany, the First Infantry Division and the U.S. Constabulary, were assigned to the Seventh Army. Within a few weeks other assignments to Seventh Army included the V and VII Corps. Due to President Truman's 10 December 1950 Declaration of a National Emergency as a result of circumstances in the Korean War (the war began in June 1950), four CONUS based U.S. Army divisions were alerted to move to the U.S. Occupation Zone of Germany (these divisions were known as the augmentation force to the U.S. Army in Europe). A main concern was possible Soviet attempts to take advantage of their numerical superiority in Germany during the Korean War. The first augmentation division to arrive overseas in Germany was the 4th Infantry Division in May 1951, followed by the 2nd Armored Division and the 43rd and 28th Infantry Divisions during summer and fall of 1951. A new joint United States European Command (USEUCOM) was established in Frankfurt, Germany on 1 August 1952. On that day, the Army headquarters at Heidelberg, formerly known as EUCOM, became Headquarters, United States Army, Europe. In 1953, the Korean War Armistice was signed, and tensions began to ease in Europe. About 13,500 soldiers manned each of the USAREUR divisions. New equipment fielded at the time included the M-48 tank, the M-59 armored personnel carrier, and tactical nuclear weapons. On 15 July 1958 USAREUR forces were ordered to assist the Lebanese government. Task Force 201, the Army component of Operation Blue Bat rapidly deployed more than 8,000 Soldiers from Europe to Beirut by air and sea. As the situation quickly stabilized, all U.S. forces redeployed from the country within 4 months. Although the Korean War, open East-West conflict had ended, political tensions remained high in Europe. Particularly troublesome was the impasse over the Federal Republic of Germany (West Germany, the former British, French and U.S. zones of occupation) and the German Democratic Republic (East Germany, the former Soviet zone of occupation). East Germany [the DDR] was considered by many countries over the years to be nothing more than the Soviet Zone of Occupation; this changed in 1973 with the UN recognition of both Germanies. Berlin posed an additional problem; it was surrounded by East Germany, but Great Britain, France, the United States, and the Soviet Union all occupied sectors in the city. In the early years, travel between the sectors was unrestricted...

• published: 30 Jun 2015
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