 Unit crest of the United States Army V Corps, the Victory Corps.  Shoulder sleeve patch of the V Corps. </div>
The V Corps (Fifth Corps) —nicknamed the Victory Corps— is a corps of the United States Army. It is headquartered at Campbell Barracks in Heidelberg, Germany.
Command and Staff
The commanding general of V Corps is Lieutenant General Ricardo S. Sanchez, who took command in June 2003, replacing Lieutenant General William S. Wallace.
The Chief of Staff is Brigadier General Daniel J. Keefe, who replaced Brigadier General Daniel A. Hahn in August 2003.
Strength
V Corps has 41,000 personnel.
Subunits
- 5th Panzer Division: German Army unit under V Corps operational control
- 1st Infantry Division
- 1st Armored Division
- 130th Engineer Brigade
- 41st Field Artillery Brigade
- 5th Battalion, 7th Air Defense Artillery (ADA)
- 4th Battalion, 3rd ADA
- 5th Signal Command. Commanded by Brigadier General Marilyn A. Quagliotti
- 2nd Signal Brigade, at Mannheim. Commanded by Colonel Hubert W. Newman
- 22nd Signal Brigade
- 22nd Brigade Headquarters Company
- 440th Signal Battalion
- 32nd Signal Battalion, located at Darmstadt
- 17th Signal Battalion, located at Kitzingen
- 11th Aviation Regiment
American Civil War
The corps was first organized on May 18, 1862, designated as the "V Corps Provisional". It was formed within the Army of the Potomac, which was engaged in the Peninsular Campaign to seize Richmond. It was created by merging Major General Fitz John Porter's 3rd Division of the III Corps with Major General George Sykes' division of US Regular troops, formerly in the Reserve.
Porter became its' commander and his 1st Division went under General Morell. On July 22, 1862, "provisional" was dropped as the War Department confirmed it as the V Corps, Army of the Potomac.
The V Corps fought in several battles throughout the Peninsular Campaign, including Hanover Court House, Mechanicsville, Gaines' Mill, Glendale, and Malvern Hill. The loss of the corps in the Seven Days Battle was 995 killed, 3,805 wounded, and 2,801 captured or missing; total, 7,601, or half the entire loss of the army. Of these casualties, 6,837 occurred at Gaines' Mill; the remainder at Mechanicsville, Glendale, and Malvern Hill. The corps was temporarily enlarged on June 14 by McCall's division of Pennsylvania Reserves, which included future stars John F. Reynolds and George G. Meade. The corps fought stoutly at Gaines' Mill in particular, where Porter commanded the Union forces which included only the V Corps and Henry Slocum's 1st Division of the VI Corps against nearly the entire Confederate Army.
Following the failure of the Peninsular Campaign, the Pennsylvania Reserves were reassigned to Irvin McDowell's I Corps (III Corps at 2nd Manassas). The V Corps was reassigned to Major General John Pope's Army of Virginia, along with the III and IX Corps of George McClellan's Army of the Potomac.
The V Corps saw action at the Second Battle of Bull Run fighting on the left-wing of the Union army. Losses of the small corps were 331 killed, 1,362 wounded, and 456 missing; a total of 2,151, out of about 6,500 engaged.
The corps saw minimal action on September 17, 1862 at the Battle of Antietam. The 1st Division was held in reserve in the relative center of the Union line, but the Sykes' 2nd Division was drawn out during the battle. It was after Antietam that a new 3rd Division was added under Andrew A. Humphreys, with mostly 9-month recruits from Pennsylvania.
In the Army of the Potomac's restructuring under newly-appointed General Ambrose E. Burnside, the V Corps was placed with the III Corps in the Center "Grand Division" under the command of Joseph Hooker. General Daniel Butterfield replaced Porter to command the V Corps at the Battle of Fredericksburg, and Generals Griffin, Sykes, and Humphreys the three divisions. Losses were 206 killed, 1,669 wounded, and 300 missing; total, 2,175.
When General Joseph Hooker took command of the Army of the Potomac in the spring, he did away with the "grand divisions" and made Butterfield his chief of staff. Major General George G. Meade, formerly commanding the 3rd Division of the I Corps, took charge of 5th. It was at this time that each corps was designated a symbol; the 5th Corps' five-armed variation on the Maltese cross has lasted through its history.
The V Corps was not majorly engaged at Chancellorsville, but soon after their entire 3rd Division had their army terms expired and went home. Another division under Brigader General Samuel Crawford, made up of two Pennsylvania Reserve brigades, promptly joined as while Robert E. Lee's Army of Northern Virginia invaded the North.
George Sykes took command of the V Corps on June 28, 1863, as George Meade was promoted to command of the entire army. The corps arrived at the eastern end of the Gettysburg battlefield on July 2nd. They earned distinction from fighting in the wheatfield, but perhaps was most famous for the actions of Colonel Strong Vincent's 3rd Brigade, 1st Division. The brigade quickly marched to cover Little Round Top, a nearly bare hill at the left end of the Union line. Against ferocious attacks from the Confederate 1st Corps of James Longstreet, Vincent's Brigade held the hill and saved the Union army from being flanked. The scene is depicted in the movie Gettysburg (1993), focusing on the 20th Maine regiment at the extreme left, under the command of Colonel Joshua Chamberlain (Jeff Daniels in the film).
The V Corps saw the deaths of two of their generals at Gettysburg: Brigader Generals Stephen K. Weed and Strong Vincent (who was quickly promoted not long before his death for his heroic efforts on Little Round Top).
In March, 1864, with Lieutennant General Ulysses S. Grant now in command of Union forces in the East (accompanying Meade, not replacing him, as many commonly believe), the V Corps was restructured with the entire army. The 1st and 2nd Divisions were consolidated into one 1st Division, under General Griffin. Crawford's 3rd Division of Pennsylvanians remained unchanged. The I Corps was fused into the V as the 2nd and 4th Divisions under Generals Robinson and Wadsworth respectively. The new commander of the V Corps was Major General G.K. Warren.
By the time of the Battle of the Wilderness, it contained over 25,000 men; following the end of the Battle of Spotsylvania in May over 10,000 had become casualties. General Wadsworth was killed at the Wilderness, and Robinson was severely wounded (losing a leg) at Spotsylvania. His division was broken down and dispersed among the others of the V Corps. Wadsworth's Division went under General Culture, commander of the Iron Brigade.
The V Corps saw hard fighting at Cold Harbor and the Siege of Petersburg in June. Many of its men were captured in the Battle of Weldon Railroad on August 19, 1864. At this point the divisions were commanded by generals Griffin, Ayres, and Crawford; they would remain until the end of the war.
By March 31, 1865, the V Corps was down to 17,000 men and would lose 2,000 more by the time Lee would surrender at Appomattox Court House. After the Battle of Five Forks, with the war's end literally days away, General Warren was replaced by Griffin on the advice of General Philip Sheridan. The corps was officially disbanded on June 28, 1865.
History
V Corps was one of the formations that took part in the D Day landings. It landed on Omaha Beach, and many casualties were suffered there due to the strong German defences. During the Battle of Normandy, and indeed for almost the whole campaign up to the surrender of Germany, V Corps was assigned to First Army. The only exceptions were a brief detachment to Seventh Army during the autumn of 1944 and being switched to Third Army during the very final days before the enemy surrender.
After the war, V Corps remained in Germany as part of the American occupation forces. Its role then evolved into that of countering Soviet forces. Along with VII Corps, it was one of the two main US combat formations in Germany.
With the end of the Cold War came the Gulf War. Although units from V Corps took part in the Persian Gulf War of 1991, the corps headquarters itself did not deploy. They came under the control of VII Corps or XVIII Airborne Corps.
After the Gulf War, VII Corps was withdrawn back to the United States and disbanded, leaving V Corps as the only major US combat field headquarters in Europe. Various peacekeeping operations during the 1990s took V Corps units to Bosnia and Kosovo. However, like the during the Gulf War, the headquarters itself did not deploy. In September 2000, V Corps participated in Operation Victory Strike I, one of the first times American units had ever deployed in Poland. In September 2002, Victory Strike II repeated the exercise. 4000 U.S., Polish, and Italian soldiers took part. The exercise tested a modular plug-in command post system which is expected to be used by U.S. forces in the future.
In March 2002, General Wallace traveled to U.S. Central Command headquarters in Tampa, Florida, to discuss contingency plans for deployment to the Middle East. A year later, for the first time since 1945, V Corps headquarters deployed for combat operations. It had many of the American forces committed to Operation Iraqi Freedom under its command. The main units under its command were the 3rd Infantry Division and 101st Airborne Division, along with a brigade from the 82nd Airborne Division. V Corps is still deployed in Iraq controlling the occupation forces.
It is thought unlikely by some that the headquarters will ever return to Germany. Plans have been announced for the main units of V Corps to redeploy either to bases in the more easterly parts of Europe, or to the United States itself.
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