The 16th returned to the U.S. after World War I August 1919 serving at Fort Jay, Governor’s Island, New York. In the 20 years that followed, the regiment remained at Fort Jay where it became known as “New York’s Own” and adopted the popular “Sidewalks of New York” as its regimental song. The 16th moved to Fort Benning, Georgia, from New York on 19 November 1939 joining the rest of the 1st Inf. Div. at Fort Devens, Massachusetts.

In August 1942, the 16th Inf. Reg. sailed from New York City abroad the Queen Mary for Gourok, Scotland. By 9 August 1942 the regiment had moved into Tidworth Barracks in southern England.

The16th Infantry Regiment's 1,700 soldiers took part in the landings in North Africa and were the first American infantry to land on the beaches during Operation Torch defeating Rommel's Afrika Corps, and Sicily Sicily defeating Hermann Goering's Panzer Division, and at Normandy and they participated in Operation Cobra.

Fox Company, 2nd Battalion of the 16th Infantry was the first unit in the 1st Division to take part in an offensive operation when Fox Company supported by Charlie Company, 1st Battalion, and George Company, 3rd Battalion supported by tanks from 1st Armored assaulted the Le Senia Airfield just south of Oran, Algeria.

The 400 Americans killed 270 French soldiers and captured 700 of them without loss. During the Battle of Kasserine Pass the 16th Infantry counterattacked a line that had been left open by retreating units of the 26th Infantry Regiment.

The 16th Infantry's combat record in World War II is exceeded by no other U.S. unit. It was among the first American units to engage Hitler’s “Africa Corps” in Northern Africa, during Operation Torch, the first combat operation of the 16th Infantry in World War II.

During the bitter fighting in the Kasserine Pass the 16th earned its third French ‘Croix de Guerre’ for its role in stopping the German counterattack which nearly destroyed the U.S. II Corps. At Matuer, Tunisia, the 16th again distinguished itself, earning its first Presidential Unit Citation.

In the Invasion of Sicily, the 16th was the first American unit to land on the beaches of Sicily near Gela and capture the city with heavy losses on the beach.

On 10 July 1943, during Operation Husky at Gela, the regiment earned its second Presidential Unit Citation by stopping a German Panzer Division and spearheading a subsequent assault deep into the Sicilian heartland.

Following Sicily, the 16th Infantry took part in the invasion of Europe when they landed at Omaha beach.

Prior to departing for Europe again, the 16th Infantry Regiment became known as "New York's Own" as it spent over 20 years at Fort Jay, Governor's Island, New York training, conducting ceremonies and other various garrison activities.

It was on Omaha Beach that the 2-16th Infantry earned its nickname "Rangers" as it secured the 2nd Ranger Battalion's eastern flank, while the Rangers assaulted the cliffs of Point du Hoc. The Germans could not tell the difference between the 2 units as both were disciplined in the face of murderous fire and fought with absolute tenacity.

On Omaha Beach, Normandy, 6 June 1944, the 16th earned its third Presidential Unit Citation during Operation Overlord. That same day, Technician Fifth Grade John Pinder and 1stLt. Jimmie Montieth each earned and received the Medal of Honor at Colleville-sur-Mer for their roles in getting American troops across the fire swept beaches.

For its exceptional valor in the Normandy Campaign, the 16th was awarded its forth French Croix de Guerre Fourragere, thus being awarded the French Medaille Militaire Fourragere, the highest honor ever bestowed on a foreign unit by the government of France.

On July 15, elements of the 16th Infantry raced north to rescue units of the 82nd Airborne Division near Piano Lupo and engaged the Herman Goring Panzer Division resulting in heavy German losses. The regiment then moved north taking several key cities and towns before taking part in the battle of Troina.

Over the course of the next year, the 16th Infantry Regiment distinguished itself in battles throughout France, Belgium, Germany with the rest of the 1st Infantry Division and fought its way across Europe, ending the war in Czechoslovakia.

On 7 August 1943, during the invasion of Sicily, the 18th Infantry Regiment captured Mount Pellegrino which overlooked the Troina defenses allowing accurate direction of Allied artillery.

The 18th Infantry Regiment was part of the landing forces that participated in the initial onset of Operation Overlord that stormed Omaha Beach.

The regiment was scheduled to land at 09:30 on Easy Red. The first battalion to land, 2/18, arrived at the E-1 draw 30 minutes late after a difficult passage through the congestion off shore.

Casualties were light, though despite the existence of a narrow channel through the beach obstacles the ramps and mines there accounted for the loss 22 LCVP s, 2 LCI(L) s and 4 LCT s. Supported by tank and subsequent naval fire, the newly arrived troops took the surrender of the last strong point defending the entrance to the E-1 draw at 11:30 .

The Blue Spaders deployed to England and then North Africa when the United States entered World War II. Through four years of war, campaigns were fought from French Morocco, Tunisia, and Sicily to Normandy and Central Europe.

The 26th Infantry led America's first-ever amphibious assault in North Africa, fought at the Kasserine Pass, assaulted Sicily, invaded Normandy, conquered the first German city of the war at Aachen, vaulted the Rhine and attacked all the way to Czechoslovakia by war's end. The regiment conducted three amphibious assaults, and earned seven battle streamers, a Presidential Unit Citation, and five foreign awards.

Beginning another occupation of Germany, the Blue Spaders were given the honor of bearing the United States National Colors at the Allied Victory in Europe parade, and were selected to serve as America's guard of honor at the Nuremberg War Crimes Trials. Thus began a lengthy stay in Germany, first as conquerors and later as friends and allies.

Events bringing the United States Army to North Africa had begun more than a year before the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor. For both the Axis and the Allies, the Mediterranean Sea area was one of uncertain priority. On the Axis side, the location of Italy made obvious Rome’s interest in the region. But the stronger German partner pursued interests hundreds of miles north. A similar division of emphasis characterized the Allies. To the British the Mediterranean Sea was the vital link between the home islands and long-held Asian possessions as well as Middle Eastern oil fields. To the Americans, however, the area had never been one of vital national interest and was not seen as the best route to Berlin. But the fall of France in June 1940 had also brought a new dimension to the region. The surrender of Paris left 120,000 French troops in West and North Africa and much of the French fleet in Atlantic and Mediterranean ports. Both the Axis and Allies saw overseas French forces as the decisive advantage that would allow them to achieve their contradictory objectives in the Mediterranean.

Tunisia Campaign
17 November 1942 – 13 May 1943

Victory at Casablanca, Oran, and Algiers gave the United States Army and its British ally solid toeholds in the western Mediterranean Theater of Operations. But it offered no guarantee of easy access to Italy or southern Europe, or even to the eastern end of the Mediterranean, where the British desperately needed assistance to secure Egypt and strategic resources in the Near East. The sudden entrance of American forces during 8–11 November 1942 created an awkward deployment in which two pairs of opposing armies fought in North Africa, one in Tunisia, the other in Libya. Neither Axis nor Allies found any satisfaction in the situation; much fighting remained before either adversary could consider North Africa secure.

If American commanders and troops thought their brief combat experience in French Morocco and Algeria in November 1942 was adequate preparation to face hardened Axis units in a lengthy campaign, the fighting in Tunisia brought about a harsh reappraisal. With few exceptions, French units in North Africa had been more intent on upholding national honor than inflicting casualties and damage; those that offered determined resistance were at a marked disadvantage in terms of weapons, equipment, supplies, and numbers. In Tunisia, however, American soldiers found themselves faced with well-trained, battle-tested units skillfully using the most advanced weapons and innovative combined arms tactics repeatedly to frustrate Allied plans. The result was painful to Army units involved and a shock to the American public: five months of almost continuous setbacks with commensurably high casualties.

Sicilian Campaign
9 July – 17 August 1943

On the night of 9–10 July 1943, an Allied armada of 2,590 vessels launched one of the largest combined operations of World War II—the invasion of Sicily. Over the next thirty-eight days, half a million Allied soldiers, sailors, and airmen grappled with their German and Italian counterparts for control of this rocky outwork of Hitler’s “Fortress Europe.” When the struggle was over, Sicily became the first piece of the Axis homeland to fall to Allied forces during World War II. More important, it served as both a base for the invasion of Italy and as a training ground for many of the officers and enlisted men who eleven months later landed on the beaches of Normandy.

Normandy Campaign
6 – 24 July 1944

A great invasion force stood off the Normandy coast of France as dawn broke on 6 June 1944: 9 battleships, 23 cruisers, 104 destroyers, and 71 large landing craft of various descriptions as well as troop transports, mine sweepers, and merchantmen—in all, nearly 5,000 ships of every type, the largest armada ever assembled. The naval bombardment that began at 0550 that morning detonated large minefields along the shoreline and destroyed a number of the enemy’s defensive positions. To one correspondent, reporting from the deck of the cruiser HMS Hillary, it sounded like “the rhythmic beating of a gigantic drum” all along the coast. In the hours following the bombardment, more than 100,000 fighting men swept ashore to begin one of the epic assaults of history, a “mighty endeavor,” as President Franklin D. Roosevelt described it to the American people, “to preserve. . . our civilization and to set free a suffering humanity.”

Northern France Campaign
25 July – 14 September 1944

As July 1944 entered its final week, Allied forces in Normandy faced, at least on the surface, a most discouraging situation. In the east, near Caen, the British and Canadians were making little progress against fierce German resistance. In the west, American troops were bogged down in the Norman hedgerows. These massive, square walls of earth, five feet high and topped by hedges, had been used by local farmers over the centuries to divide their fields and protect their crops and cattle from strong ocean winds. The Germans had turned these embankments into fortresses, canalizing the American advance into narrow channels, which were easily covered by antitank weapons and machine guns. The stubborn defenders were also aided by some of the worst weather seen in Normandy since the turn of the century, as incessant downpours turned country lanes into rivers of mud. By 25 July, the size of the Allied beachhead had not even come close to the dimensions that pre–D-day planners had anticipated, and the slow progress revived fears in the Allied camp of a return to the static warfare of World War I. Few would have believed that, in the space of a month and a half, Allied armies would stand triumphant at the German border.

Rhineland Campaign
15 September 1944 – 21 March 1945

The Rhineland Campaign, although costly for the Allies, had clearly been ruinous for the Germans. The Germans suffered some 300,000 casualties and lost vast amounts of irreplaceable equipment. Hitler, having demanded the defense of all of the German homeland, enabled the Allies to destroy the Wehrmacht in the West between the Siegfried Line and the Rhine River. Now, the Third Reich lay virtually prostrate before Eisenhower’s massed armies.

Ardennes - Alsace Campaign
16 December 1944 – 25 January 1945

In August 1944, while his armies were being destroyed in Normandy, Hitler secretly put in motion actions to build a large reserve force, forbidding its use to bolster Germany’s beleaguered defenses. To provide the needed manpower, he trimmed existing military forces and conscripted youths, the unfit, and old men previously untouched for military service during World War II.

In September Hitler named the port of Antwerp, Belgium, as the objective. Selecting the Eifel region as a staging area, Hitler intended to mass twenty-five divisions for an attack through the thinly held Ardennes Forest area of southern Belgium and Luxembourg. Once the Meuse River was reached and crossed, these forces would swing northwest some 60 miles to envelop the port of Antwerp. The maneuver was designed to sever the already stretched Allied supply lines in the north and to encircle and destroy a third of the Allies’ ground forces. If successful, Hitler believed that the offensive could smash the Allied coalition, or at least greatly cripple its ground combat capabilities, leaving him free to focus on the Russians at his back door.

Central Europe Campaign
22 March – 11 May 1945

By the beginning of the Central Europe Campaign of World War II, Allied victory in Europe was inevitable. Having gambled his future ability to defend Germany on the Ardennes offensive and lost, Hitler had no real strength left to stop the powerful Allied armies. Yet Hitler forced the Allies to fight, often bitterly, for final victory. Even when the hopelessness of the German situation became obvious to his most loyal subordinates, Hitler refused to admit defeat. Only when Soviet artillery was falling around his Berlin headquarters bunker did the German Fuehrer begin to perceive the final outcome of his megalomaniacal crusade.