The United States Army North (ARNORTH) is a formation of the United States Army. An Army Service Component Command (ASCC) subordinate to United States Northern Command (NORTHCOM), ARNORTH is the joint force land component of NORTHCOM. ARNORTH is responsible for homeland defense and defense support of civil authorities. ARNORTH is headquartered at Fort Sam Houston, Texas. Redesignated ARNORTH in 2004, it was first activated in early January 1943 as the United States Fifth Army, under the command of Lieutenant General Mark W. Clark.
History
World War II
The United States Fifth Army was one of the principal formations of the U.S. Army in the Mediterranean during World War II, and was the first American field army ever to be activated outside of the United States. It was officially 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, and therefore was not involved in the Allied invasion of Sicily (codenamed Operation Husky), where it was instead assigned the role of training combat troops destined for Sicily. The United States Fifth Army was initially commanded by Lieutenant General Mark Clark, who would lead the Fifth Army for nearly two years, and was to experience some of the toughest fighting of World War II, where it was engaged on the Italian Front, which was, in many ways, often more reminiscent of the trench warfare of the Western Front in World War I. Writing to Lieutenant General Jacob L. Devers (American deputy to Field Marshal Sir Henry Maitland Wilson, Mediterranean Theater commander) in late March 1944, Clark explained the difficulties of the fighting in Italy so far, which could be said of the whole campaign. They were, he claimed, "Terrain, weather, carefully prepared defensive positions in the mountains, determined and well-trained enemy troops, grossly inadequate means at our disposal while on the offensive, with approximately equal forces to the defender."
The Fifth Army first saw action during the Salerno landings (Operation Avalanche), the assault landings at Salerno, part of the Allied invasion of Italy, in September 1943. Due to the comparatively low numbers of American troops available in the Mediterranean Theater it was made up of one American and one British corps. They were the U.S. VI Corps, under Major General Ernest J. Dawley and the British X Corps, under Lieutenant-General Richard L. McCreery. At Salerno, VI Corps landed on the right flank, and X Corps on the left flank. Progress was initially slow, due in part to a lack of initiative by Dawley, the VI Corps commander, and due also to heavier than expected German resistance. However, heavy naval and air bombardment, along with a parachute drop by elements of the U.S. 82nd Airborne Division, had saved the forces from any danger of being driven back into the sea, combined with the approach of the British Eighth Army, under General Bernard Montgomery (the Eighth Army had landed further south in Operation Baytown, six days before Avalanche), the German 10th Army began to retreat. On 20 September, by which time the Fifth and Eighth Armies had linked up, Major General Dawley, VI Corps commander, was relieved of his command by Clark. Dawley was temporarily made deputy army commander, and was soon replaced in command of VI Corps by Major General John P. Lucas.
Progress was then good for a couple of weeks and the Fifth Army crossed the Barbara Line and the Volturno Line until the Germans turned, stood and fought. They had established a position on the Winter Line (also known as the Gustav 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, commanded by Major General Geoffrey Keyes. By the end of November Clark's Fifth Army had almost doubled in size, with the addition of French General Alphonse Juin's French Expeditionary Corps, from 130,247 men to 243,827. 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 to seize Rome.