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a major undertaking due to the severe
winter conditions. The Corps surprised
the German forces south of Bastogne,
cutting them off and destroying them,
thereby relieving the 101st Airborne.
The Phantom Corps
Afterward, the Corps turned east again
toward the Rhine River and overran a
German headquarter, thereby captur-
ing its records. The records contained
references to an unidentified corps as
the “Phantom Corps.” The records in-
dicated the Germans couldn’t find this
corps—whose corps it was, how large the
unit was, or what divisions it contained.
The corps was, in their minds, simply
a phantom.
On learning of the report, the Command-
ing General of the Corps responded,
“That’s a great name and that’s what
we’ll call ourselves.” The soldiers liked
it and the moniker strengthened an al-
ready strong esprit de corps; the troops
took pride in their new name.
During the first months of 1945, the
Phantom Corps moved quickly to the
offensive. Now part of the First United
States Army, they continued to take
bridges and a dam and seized numer-
ous German-held areas east of the Rhine
River and went on to Bavaria. When they
reached the Austrian border, they were
ordered to halt. A few days later, the
Germans surrendered and it was VE
(Victory in Europe) Day, which meant
the end of the war and coming home.
Though deactivated at the end of the
war, III Corps was soon reactivated
and, for the next 50 years, would act as
a key training organization of the U.S.
Army at Fort Hood in Texas. It trained
and sent troops overseas in support of
the Cold War, the Korean War, and the
VietnamWar; however, the Corps would
not see combat deployment until Opera-
tion Iraqi Freedom in 2004. It has since
seen multiple deployments to Iraq and
Afghanistan.
Home at Fort Hood
Meanwhile, back at home at Fort Hood,
the soldiers of the III Corps continued
to add to their long and illustrious his-
tory. Texas Highway 195 was the main
route from the post to Corpus Christi
and Houston, both important ports for
shipping equipment and men (it was
usually men, then) overseas—especially
during the Cold War. Even after the So-
viet Union had dissolved and peace had
been declared, there seemed to be an
ever-present possibility of future wars.
The Corps had always set very high stan-
dards in which the soldiers took pride in
meeting and maintaining. In 1985, the
Corps Commander decided that, hence-
forth, the soldiers of the III Corps should
be known as “PhantomWarriors” in rec-
ognition of their distinctive history and
reputation. It was then a simple task to
get TxDOT to add the signs dedicating
Highway 195 to these brave warriors.
Now, you too, know the rest of the story.
In 2009, the Phantom Warrior statue was unveiled in the West Atrium of the III Corps and Fort Hood headquarters building.
© 2009 Michael Heckman, ft. hood sentinel
