THE 10TH MOUNTAIN DIVISION · WORLD WAR II
Their story may be
part of yours.
THEIR STORY · IN FOUR ACTS
The men who climbed.
From the men I knew to the war they rarely spoke about.
FOLLOW THEM.
Where did their unit fight?
Begin with a name. Find a unit. Follow its path through the campaign.
LOOK THEM UP.
Begin with a name.
Find their unit in the name index, or choose a regiment, battalion, or company you already know.
Select a marker to explore a place. At the Po River and Lake Garda, open Hays’s account to hear the commander describe the ground. The map moves when you choose.
FROM RIVA RIDGE TO LAKE GARDA · 1945
The Forgotten Front.
An Unfinished Honor.
The Presidential Unit Citation recognizes extraordinary heroism by a military unit in combat—the collective equivalent of the Distinguished Service Cross. During World War II, it was called the Distinguished Unit Citation.
At Omaha Beach, the 16th and 116th Infantry Regiments earned it. They fought through German fire to gain the high ground and establish a foothold in France. Recognition also reached engineer, medical, signal, and quartermaster units whose work sustained the beachhead. The achievement belonged to the men who broke through—and to those who opened the way, carried supplies, and brought the wounded back.
At Mortain in August 1944, the 30th Infantry Division helped stop a German armored counteroffensive threatening the American advance through France. Two battalions, four companies, and two antitank platoons received citations in the 1940s. But recognition of the division’s collective achievement remained unfinished. In 2020—seventy-six years after the battle—the Presidential Unit Citation was extended to the remaining units, honoring the division and its attached troops as a whole.
Recognition came late. But it came.
No unit of the 10th Mountain Division received the Distinguished Unit Citation—today’s Presidential Unit Citation—for its actions in Italy during World War II. Not one company. Not one battalion. Not one regiment.
More than eighty years after the men climbed those mountains, held those heights, and carried their wounded comrades down, that recognition has yet to come.
Valor does not have an expiration date.
Between February 18 and 25, 1945, the men of the 10th Mountain Division seized and held a chain of fortified heights in the northern Apennines. Each victory made the next possible. Success depended on separate units executing perilous, interlocking missions:
- 86th Mountain Infantry
Climbed Riva Ridge in darkness and held it against counterattacks. Its 3rd Battalion later captured and defended the Torraccia sector.
- 85th Mountain Infantry
Spearheaded the assaults on Mount Belvedere and Gorgolesco, driving along the ridge and holding against repeated German counterattacks.
- 87th Mountain Infantry
Fought through the fortified western slopes and villages, securing and defending the division’s exposed left flank.
- The supporting units
Artillerymen breaking up counterattacks; Company D, 126th Mountain Engineer Battalion, building the cliffside tramway; men of the 256th Quartermaster Pack Company carrying water and ammunition where mules could not go; signalmen restoring communications under fire; men of Service Company, 85th Mountain Infantry, carrying supplies forward and wounded men back; and the medics and litter-bearers whose work gave those men a chance to come home.
They climbed. They assaulted. They held.
And they kept one another alive.
Their collective achievement warrants the same recognition.
And the case extends beyond these seven days.
In April, the men of the 10th attacked again—at Rocca Roffeno and across the division’s front—helping break the German mountain defenses and open the way into the Po Valley. The infantrymen who fought through those positions, and the artillerymen, engineers, medics, signalmen and supply troops who sustained them, deserve consideration under the same standard of extraordinary collective heroism.
At Lake Garda, Company G of the 86th crossed under fire in DUKWs. Companies I, K and L of the 86th fought German armor in the streets of Torbole. Artillerymen, engineers and transport crews carried the advance forward and brought the wounded back. Their part in the victory belongs in this record too.
We seek Presidential Unit Citation consideration for the units whose actions made these victories possible—from the February heights to the final advance in April. Each action must be supported by its own record.
The Forgotten Front must not mean forgotten valor.
Support recognition for the men and units who fought, held, and sustained the advance—from Riva Ridge and Mount Belvedere to Rocca Roffeno and Lake Garda.
Add Your NameYour name may accompany the recognition request. Your email will remain private.
THE STORY CONTINUES
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Help secure recognition for the extraordinary courage of the men of the 10th Mountain Division—from Riva Ridge and Mount Belvedere through the final battles in northern Italy—and the men who kept them supplied, connected, and alive.