ASTP Unit 3966

One ASTP contingent -- ASTP Unit 3966 -- was stationed at the College (University) of Puget Sound ("CPS") in Tacoma, Washington from December 1943 through March 1944. When the Army disbanded the ASTP in the Spring of 1944, the 238 men of the ASTP at CPS were assigned to the 21^st, 55^th, and 63^rd Armored Infantry Battalions of the 11^th Armored Division. The 11^th Armored Division insignia can be found on the base of the GI Memorial in Clervaux, Luxembourg, and on the Battle of the Bulge "Juncture Monument" in Houffalize, Belgium.

The men of the ASTP at CPS in the 11^th Armored Division went on to fight in the Battle of the Bulge, saving the vital highway linking Bastogne with Neufchateau in the Ardennes area of Belgium before encircling the Germans at Houffalize and sealing off the Bulge. They then liberated the town of Goedange in northern Luxembourg, before breaking through the Siegfreid Line into Germany, crossing the Rhine, seeing action in what is now the Czech Republic and liberating the prisoners of the Mauthausen Concentration Camp in Austria.

A plaque was unveiled at the University of Puget Sound in memory of the men of ASTP Unit 3966 on August 11, 1996 (see photograph below). The members of the unit were made honorary alumni of the University on that date, and those men of the unit who were killed in action during World War II were made "Roll of Honor" alumni of the University.

(Story and photo Copyright ã Patrick Kearney.  All rights reserved)

Patrick J. Kearney
55th Armored Infantry Battalion
11th Armored Division
ASTP/CPS 1943-44

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