United States Army North United States Army North , or the " Fifth Army " , is an Army Service Component Command ( ASCC ) of the United States Army . It is responsible for homeland defense and defense support of civil authorities as the joint force land component command of United States Northern Command . History . World War II . The Fifth United States Army was one of the principal formations of the U . S . Army in the Mediterranean during World War II . It was activated on 5 January 1943 at Oujda , French Morocco and made responsible for the defence of Algeria and Morocco . It was also given the responsibility for planning the American part of the invasion of mainland Italy . It was commanded by Lieutenant General Mark W . Clark . It first saw action during Operation Avalanche , the assault landings at Salerno in September 1943 . Due to the low numbers of American troops available in theatre it was made up of one American and one British corps . It had the X Corps ( United Kingdom ) and the VI Corps ( United States ) under its command . At Salerno , X Corps landed on the left flank , and VI Corps on the right flank . Progress was initially slow , due in part to lack of initiative by the American corps commander , Maj . Gen . Ernest J . Dawley , who was subsequently replaced . However , after heavy naval and air bombardment had saved the forces from any danger of being driven back into the sea , and also with the approach of the British Eighth Army ( which had landed further south ) , the German forces retreated . Progress was then good for a couple of months until the Germans turned , stood and fought . The Germans established a position on the Winter Line , which included the formidable defensive positions at San Pietro Infine in the Liri Valley and at Monte Cassino . By this point , Fifth Army had been reinforced by a second American corps , II Corps . With the failure of the first operations to capture Monte Cassino , an attempt was made to exploit the Allied preponderance in seapower before the coming invasion of Normandy robbed the Mediterranean of the naval forces necessary for an amphibious assault . VI Corps was withdrawn from the line and replaced by the French Expeditionary Corps under General Alphonse Juin . They made a second attempt to capture Monte Cassino in conjunction with the amphibious assault by VI Corps , which again failed . VI Corps landed at Anzio on 22 January 1944 in Operation Shingle , and suffered many of the same problems as had been seen at Salerno . A lack of initiative on the part of the U . S . commander , Maj Gen . John P . Lucas , combined with worries about the Germans catching VI Corps off balance if it advanced too far in land resulted in the bridgehead being bottled up . The Germans nearly breached the last beachhead defences before again being driven off by heavy naval and air support . After the failure of Shingle , a large reorganisation took place . Previously the Apennines had been the rough dividing line between Fifth and Eighth Armies . However , the dividing line was shifted westwards , to allow the concentration of both armies on the western side of Italy for maximum firepower to break through to Rome . the V Corps ( United Kingdom ) was left on the Adriatic coast to pin down any German units there . Fifth Army was relieved of responsibility for Cassino and the final phases of that battle saw Indian , New Zealand and finally Polish troops thrown against the fortress . Fifth Army also lost X Corps at this time , since it was felt that having exclusively American - organised units under Fifth Army and British - organised units under Eighth Army would ease logistics . The breakthrough was achieved during the spring of 1944 . Coordinated assaults by all the Allied forces , except V Corps , which was confined to a holding action , broke through . II Corps attacked along the coast , the French Expeditionary Corps , in a classic demonstration of mountain warfare , broke through on the right flank of Fifth Army , and VI Corps broke out of the Anzio beachhead . By early summer , Allied forces were well on their way to capturing Rome . At this point , one of the more controversial incidents in the history of Fifth Army occurred . The strategic conception of General Harold Alexander , commanding 15th Army Group was that the forces of VI Corps , coming out of Anzio would trap the retreating German forces , and leave them to be annihilated by the advancing Fifth and Eighth Armies . However , in contravention of orders , Clark diverted units of VI Corps towards Rome , leaving a small blocking force to attempt to stop the Germans . It failed to do so , and the German forces were able to escape and reestablish a coherent line to the north of Rome . Clark claimed that there were significant German threats which necessitated the diversion , but many believe that he was primarily glory - seeking by being the first to liberate Rome . Two days after Rome fell , Operation Overlord was launched . The strategic conception of Overlord called for a supporting operation to be mounted by invading southern France . In order to do so , forces would have to be withdrawn from Allied Armies in Italy . In the end , VI Corps was withdrawn , forming the nucleus of the field forces of the US Seventh Army for the invasion of the French Riviera , Operation Dragoon . The French Expeditionary Corps was also withdrawn , to allow its men to be used to form French First Army , a follow - up formation for Dragoon . In two months , the strength of the Fifth Army dropped from 250 , 000 to 150 , 000 , or the equivalent of 9 divisions . However the Brazilian Expeditionary Division as well as other divisions had arrived to align with IV Corps , so two corps were maintained within Fifth Army . In the 2nd half of 1944 , the Allied force on Italian Front within the US 5th Army and 8th British Army resembled more a multi - national force being constituted by : Americans ( including segregated African / and / Japanese - Americans ) , British , French , members of French and British colonies ( New Zealanders , Canadians , Indians , Gurkhas , Black Africans , Moroccans , Algerians , Jews and Arabs from the British Mandate in Palestine , South Africans , Rhodesians ) , as well as Brazilians and exiled forces from Poland , Greece , former Czechoslovakia and anti - fascist Italians . The Germans reestablished their line across Italy at the level of Pisa and Rimini . The Allied forces spent another winter frustrated at their lack of ability to break through . This time Fifth Army was straddling the Apennines , with many of its units occupying high , exposed positions which were miserable to garrison . That winter also saw a significant change of command . General Clark moved to command 15th Army Group , and Lieutenant General Lucian Truscott was appointed to command Fifth Army in his place . Truscott would command the Army from 16 December 1944 until the war ' s end . In the final operations against the German Army Group C , the Eighth Army initiated the main offensive on the Adriatic coast , and then the Fifth Army also broke through the German defenses around Bologna . The German units , in the main , were pinned against the Po River and destroyed , or at the very least deprived of their transport and heavy weapons , which effectively made many of them useless . II Corps units raced through Milan towards the French frontier and the great port of Genoa . The IV Corps pushed due north through Verona , Vicenza and as far as Bolzano and to the Brenner Pass , where they linked up with elements of the US Seventh Army . Its role in Italy cost Fifth Army dearly . It suffered 109 , 642 casualties in 602 days of combat . 19 , 475 were killed in action . The Fifth Army headquarters returned to the United States in September , 1945 . 2 October 1945 saw Fifth Army deactivated at Camp Myles Standish , Massachusetts . In the informal athletic competitions held between units of the European and North African theaters , the 5th Army was among the most successful , winning titles in baseball , boxing , swimming and football during the 1944 season . The football championship was gained after a victory over 12th Air Force in the Spaghetti Bowl on January 1 , 1945 . Postwar . Its next role was considerably less violent , and it was reactivated on 11 June 1946 at Chicago under the command of Major - General John P . Lucas , who had commanded Operation Shingle at Anzio during World War II . It was redesignated Fifth United States Army on 1 January 1957 . Its postwar role was as a command and control headquarters for Army Reserve units , formally responsible for the training of many Army troops and also the ground defense of part of the continental United States . In June 1971 , Fifth Army moved to its current base at Fort Sam Houston , Texas . In January 2012 , LTG William B . Caldwell , IV assumed command and ensured about 270 , 000 National Guard and Reserve personnel were qualified for combat . Fifth Army has recently given up its Reserve preparation obligations to First Army , and is now responsible for homeland defense and Defense Support of Civil Authorities ( DSCA ) as United States Army North . Joint Task Force - Civil Support , a subordinate command , is designated as the Department of Defense ( DoD ) command element for Department of Defense assistance to the overall federal response to a state governments request for assistance in the event of a catastrophic chemical , biological , nuclear or high yield explosive CBRNE emergency . The command also has a subordinate Contingency Command Post ( CCP ) , known as Task Force - 51 , which is responsible for responding to all hazards incidents that require DOD assistance . TF - 51 can be employed as an all - hazards task force or a Joint Task Force ( JTF ) with joint augmentation . Major General ( ARNG ) Charles Gailes is the commanding general .