VIII Corps ( United States ) The U . S . VIII Corps was a corps of the United States Army that saw service during various times over a fifty - year period during the 20th century . The VIII Corps was organized 26 – 29 November 1918 in the Regular Army in France and demobilized on 20 April 1919 . The VIII Corps was soon reactivated , being constituted in the Organized Reserves in 1921 . It was allotted to the Regular Army in 1933 and activated on 14 October 1940 at Fort Sam Houston , Texas . The VIII Corps fought across Europe from Normandy to Czechoslovakia in World War II . After World War II , the corps was inactivated and reactivated several times , with the final inactivation occurring in 1968 . Normandy . Commanded by Major General Troy H . Middleton , VIII Corps was made operational in Normandy on 15 June 1944 , and took up defensive positions west of Carentan on the Cotentin Peninsula as part of the U . S . First Army . Attacking in early July , the corps pushed through bocage country , taking La Haye - du - Puits and the Mont Castre forest . After closing on the Ay and Sèves Rivers , VIII Corps joined the allied breakout from Normandy ( Operation Cobra ) on 26 July 1944 . On 28 July , the corps took the key road junction of Coutances and liberated Avranches two days later . Brittany . In a controversial adherence to the original allied plan for the invasion of Normandy , the U . S . 12th Army Group commander , Lieutenant General Omar N . Bradley , directed VIII Corps westward into Brittany on 1 August 1944 , with the object of liberating the Breton ports for Allied use . This decision was later deemed a poor use of the two armored division s in the corps , which could have been used far more profitably in the rapid allied advance eastward across France . On 7 August 1944 , the corps took the port of Saint - Malo . After an involved battle lasting almost six weeks and characterized by urban combat and reduction of fortifications , VIII Corps liberated Brest on 19 September 1944 . Ironically , after so much effort , German demolition proved so effective that the liberated Breton ports were unusable for the remainder of the war . See Battle for Brest for more details . Ardennes . Reorganizing after the operations in Brittany , VIII Corps moved east to join the rest of the allied forces along the border of Germany . Still part of Ninth Army , the corps took over the front in the Ardennes along the Our River and the Schnee Eifel on 4 October 1944 . Because this area of the front was so quiet , the corps was used as an orientation and rest area for new U . S . divisions and divisions that had taken heavy casualties while fighting in the Hurtgen Forest . This mission continued until 16 December 1944 , when the Germans attacked VIII Corps with over 20 divisions in what came to be known as the Ardennes Offensive . Faced with overwhelming odds , the northern units of the corps , the U . S . 14th Cavalry Group and the U . S . 106th Infantry Division were pushed back or encircled . On the Schnee Eifel , some 6 , 700 inexperienced soldiers of VIII Corps were taken prisoner by the Germans . Further south , however , other units of the corps conducted a fighting withdrawal that successfully delayed the Germans long enough for the allies to rush reinforcements to the Ardennes . Units of the corps , in particular the U . S . 101st Airborne Division , famously held the key road junction of Bastogne against a five - day German siege that was broken on 26 December 1944 , by armored units of the U . S . Third Army advancing from the south . Four days later , VIII Corps counter - attacked toward the town of Houffalize . On 16 January 1945 , the corps made contact with the U . S . First Army near Houffalize , effectively pinching off the western end of the " bulge " made in allied lines by the German attacks . The corps reentered Luxembourg on 22 January 1945 , and six days later reached the Our River again . To the Rhine . In the first week of February 1945 , the corps again occupied the Schnee Eifel and pushed through the Siegfried Line . VIII Corps took Pruem on 12 February 1945 and then cleared Siegfried Line fortifications in the corps area for the remainder of the month . On 6 March 1945 , the corps crossed the Kyll River and reached the Rhine River at Andernach on 9 March 1945 . On 16 March 1945 , the corps assaulted across the Moselle River near Dieblich , and took Koblenz in a three - day battle that ended on 19 March 1945 . Against stiff German resistance , VIII Corps assaulted across the Rhine River at Boppard and pushed eastward into central Germany . Final operations . Moving north of Frankfurt am Main at the end of March 1945 , the corps moved into the Rhön Mountains by early April . In the first two weeks of April 1945 , VIII Corps cleared the Thuringer Wald and crossed the Gera , Salle , Weiße Elster , and Mulde Rivers in swift succession . By order of the First Army , VIII Corps pulled back to the west side of the Mulde River near the border of Czechoslovakia on 24 April 1945 , where the corps was located when Germany surrendered on 8 May 1945 . Campaign credits and Inactivation . VIII Corps is credited with service in the Normandy , Northern France , Rhineland , Ardennes - Alsace , and Central Europe campaigns . Headquarters , VIII Corps , was inactivated on 15 December 1945 , at Camp Gruber , Oklahoma . The corps was subsequently activated and inactivated several times , with the last inactivation occurring on 1 April 1968 at Austin , Texas . The photo book " Ragnarök " ( about the end of World War II and the US Army ) by Anna Rosmus , 464 pp , with bilingual captions , published by Dorfmeister in Tittling , Germany , 2010 , contains multiple images . Readers can see VIII Corps soldiers and their commanders crossing Germany , all the way to the Mulde River .