The Most Badass “American General” Germans Feared – ‘Terrible’ Terry Allen-ZZ

The date was October 23, 1944.

In the dark forests of Belgium near the German border, Vermacharked soldiers huddled in their defensive positions.

These were hardened veterans, men who had fought across Europe, from the frozen steps of Russia to the deserts of North Africa.

They had seen the best and worst that war could offer.

They had faced British regularity, Soviet brutality, and now they waited for yet another American unit to test their metal.

But something felt different this time.

The intelligence reports filtering through German headquarters, spoke of a new American division.

The 104th Infantry Division, they called themselves, the Timberwolves.

Fresh troops from the United States never tested in combat.

The German officers smiled.

green American soldiers, probably farm boys and factory workers who had never seen real war.

This would be easy.

They had broken American units before.

What these German soldiers did not know was that these timberwolves were commanded by a man they would soon learn to fear.

A man whose very name would become a warning whispered among Vermacht troops in the darkness.

A general so aggressive, so unconventional, so utterly relentless that his own high command had fired him once already.

His name was Terry Deamea Allen.

The Americans called him Terrible Terry, and he was about to teach the Germans a lesson they would never forget.

The story of how this happened, how one American general became the nightmare of German forces across two continents, is not just about military tactics or battlefield victories.

It is about a man who refused to follow the rules when those rules got his soldiers killed.

A man who drank too much, cursed too freely, and cared more about winning battles than wearing a clean uniform.

A man who was fired in disgrace at the height of his success, only to return more dangerous than ever.

To understand why German soldiers feared Terry Allen, we must go back to where it all began.

Terry Allen was born on April 1st, 1888 at Fort Douglas in the Utah Territory.

He came from a military family that stretched back generations.

His father was Colonel Samuel Allen, a career army officer who had spent his entire adult life in uniform, moving from post to post across the American West.

But the military tradition ran even deeper than that.

His maternal grandfather, Captain Carlos Alvarez De Laame Mesa, had fought for the Union at Gettysburg, one of the most savage battles in American history.

Captain De Laame Mesa served with Company C of the 39th New York Volunteer Infantry, a unit known as the Gabaldi Guard, composed largely of Italian immigrants who had come to America seeking freedom and found themselves fighting to preserve it.

On July 2nd, 1863, during the second day of the battle of Gettysburg, Captain De Mesa was wounded in the intense fighting around the Peach Orchard and the Wheatfield, where thousands of men fell in a few hours of combat.

He survived his wounds and continued to serve until the war ended.

This heritage of service and sacrifice ran through Terry Allen’s veins.

Military service was not just a career in the Allen family.

It was blood.

It was destiny.

It was the family business passed down from generation to generation.

From the Civil War through the Indian Wars to whatever conflicts the 20th century would bring.

Young Terry grew up on military posts across the American frontier.

He learned to ride horses before he could properly read.

He learned to shoot before he mastered arithmetic.

He was a child of the old army, the cavalry army, the army that still thought wars would be won by men on horseback charging across open fields.

This would shape everything about him, for better and worse.

In 1907, Terry received the honor every military family dreams of, an appointment to the United States Military Academy at West Point.

Here was his chance to follow in his father’s footsteps, to become an officer in the grandest tradition.

He failed spectacularly.

Terry Allen hated West Point.

He hated the endless mathematics.

He hated the rigid discipline.

He hated sitting in classrooms when he wanted to be doing something, anything other than studying.

He stuttered in class.

He earned demerits for minor infractions.

His classmates nicknamed him tear around the mess hall Allen because of his restless energy.

The academy was built for men who could sit still, follow orders, and memorize textbooks.

Terry Allen was built for action.

In 1911, he was dismissed after failing ordinance and gunnery, having been held back earlier for failing mathematics.

Most men would have given up.

The shame of failing at West Point was enough to end military aspirations for good.

But Allan was stubborn.

If the traditional path would not work, he would find another way.

He enrolled at Catholic University of America in Washington.

He studied.

He worked.

He earned a bachelor of arts degree in 1912.

On November 30th, 1912, he received his commission as a second left tenant in the cavalry of the United States Army.

He had made it not through the front door, but through sheer determination.

This pattern, this refusal to accept defeat, this willingness to find another way when the official path was blocked would define his entire career.

Allan served as a cavalry officer on the Mexican border in 1913.

One day, Lieutenant Allen led just six soldiers against 30 Mexican cattle rustlers who had crossed into American territory.

Military doctrine said to wait for reinforcements.

Alan attacked.

He captured or killed all 30 rustlers.

This was not the action of a careful by the book officer.

This was the action of a man who saw what needed to be done and did it.

Consequences be damned.

Then came World War I.

Alan desperately wanted to get into the fight.

He feared, like many young officers, that the war would end before he could prove himself in combat.

When he finally shipped out to France in 1918, he was not leading a combat unit.

He was assigned to the 315th ammunition train attached to the 90th division, hauling artillery shells to the front lines.

Not glamorous, not what he wanted, but he was there, and that was what mattered.

Eventually, Allan got his chance.

He was assigned to command the third battalion of the 358th Infantry Regiment, 90th Division.

He led his men into battle at St.

Mihel in September 1918 and later in the Muse Argon offensive, the largest battle in American military history.

It was here in the mud and blood of the Western Front that Allan developed his signature tactical innovation.

Night attacks.

Most commanders avoided night operations.

Too confusing.

Too much risk of friendly fire.

Too easy for units to get lost in the darkness.

The 12 standard doctrine taught at military schools was to defend at night and attack in daylight when you could see the enemy and coordinate your units effectively.

Allan saw something different.

He noticed that night attacks, when properly executed, resulted in fewer casualties.

The statistics from his own combat experience bore this out.

Daylight attacks against prepared positions produced horrific casualty rates.

Machine guns could see their targets clearly.

Artillery observers could adjust fire precisely.

Defenders had clear fields of fire.

But at night, all those advantages disappeared.

The element of surprise saved lives.

The confusion that made other commanders nervous actually worked in favor of the attackers.

Defenders could not see what was coming.

They could not coordinate effective responses.

Artillery fired blindly, often hitting nothing.

And most importantly, defenders were terrified.

Firing at shadows and sounds, wasting ammunition and breaking under the psychological preda, pressure of an enemy they could not see.

Alan developed specific techniques for night operations.

Careful reconnaissance in daylight.

Detailed briefings where every soldier knew exactly what to do.

Simple plans that could be executed even in complete darkness.

Pre-arranged signals using whistles or flares.

Designated assembly areas for reorganization.

He taught his subordinates that complexity was the enemy of night operations.

Keep it simple.

Know your objective.

moved silently until discovered, then hit hard and fast.

On October 24th, 1918, Alan was shot in the face with machine gun fire during an attack.

He was tagged for medical evacuation.

Alan persuaded the doctors to return him quickly to duty.

He stayed with his men.

He kept fighting.

This was not bravado.

This was leadership.

His soldiers saw their commander, blood streaming down his face, refusing to leave them.

What message did that send? We are in this together.

I will not abandon you.

Follow me.

For his actions on October 24th, Alan was awarded the Silver Star.

He also received two Purple Hearts for his wounds.

The war ended.

Alan returned to the United States with a reputation as a brave and capable combat leader.

But now came the hard part.

20 years of peaceime army life.

The years between the wars were brutal for ambitious officers.

The army shrank from over 4 million men in 1918 to barely 130,000 by the mid 1920s.

An entire generation of officers found their careers frozen.

Promotions stopped almost completely.

Men who had commanded battalions in combat found themselves stuck as captains for a decade, sometimes longer.

Some resigned in frustration.

Others drank themselves into obscurity.

The best, like Allan, waited and prepared.

Allan was no exception to the promotion freeze, but he made the most of those lean years.

In 1920, he competed in a 300-mile horseback race through Central, Texas, a cowboy versus cavalryman competition designed to test both horse and rider to their limits.

Allan completed the brutal ride in 101 hours and 56 minutes, winning the contest and proving he still had the endurance of his frontier cavalry days.

That same year, he won a bronze medal in polo at the 1920 summer Olympics in Antworp, Belgium, representing the United States as part of the army equestrian team.

He was a cavalryman through and through, a horseman of the old army, skilled in a form of warfare that was rapidly becoming obsolete.

But Terry Allen was also watching the world change around him.

He studied military history obsessively.

He read everything he could find about World War I, analyzing what had worked and what had failed.

He studied the German army, their tactics, their organization, their doctrine.

He followed developments in tank warfare, aviation, and radio communications.

He understood that the next war would be different from anything the cavalry had prepared him for.

Horses would not matter.

Mobility, firepower, and combined arms coordination would decide battles.

Most importantly, Allan never stopped training his men hard, always preparing for the war he knew would eventually come.

Whether he was commanding a training unit or stuck in a staff position, he pushed for realistic field exercises, aggressive tactics, and high standards.

While other officers marked time and counted the years until retirement, Allan prepared himself and anyone he could influence for the war he knew was coming.

Then on October 1st, 1940, everything changed.

General George C.

Marshall, the new Army Chief of Staff, was rebuilding the American military as war approached.

Marshall had a gift for spotting talent.

He looked at Lieutenant Colonel Terry Allen and saw something others had missed.

Marshall promoted Allan directly from Lieutenant Colonel to Brigadier General, skipping the rank of Colonel entirely.

This was almost unheard of.

Marshall insisted on the promotion despite opposition from subordinates who thought Allan too rough around the edges.

Marshall saw what mattered.

Allan could lead men in combat.

Everything else was secondary.

In May 1942, Allan received the command that would define his career, the first infantry division, the big red one.

The oldest and proudest division in the American army.

Marshall himself described Allen as outstanding as a leader who can do anything with men and officers.

Allan was about to prove Marshall right.

On November 8th, 1942, the first infantry division landed at Iran, Algeria, as part of Operation Torch, the Allied invasion of North Africa.

This was the first American offensive operation in the European theater.

Allan led from the front as always.

The division took 418 casualties in the initial landing, including 94 killed in action, 73 seriously wounded, 170, eight slightly wounded, and 75 missing in action.

But they secured their objectives.

The Americans were in the fight.

The real test came in Tunisia.

The campaign in North Africa was brutal.

The Germans under field marshal Irwin RML were experienced desert fighters who had been winning battles since 1941.

The Americans were new to this kind of warfare, learning lessons in blood.

In February 1943, German forces launched a massive counteroffensive at Casarine Pass.

American units, many inexperienced and poorly led, broke and ran.

It was a disaster.

German tanks smashed through defensive positions.

American equipment was captured or destroyed.

Entire battalions retreated in confusion.

The Germans nearly split the Allied forces in two.

For the first time, Americans were tasting real defeat at the hands of an expert enemy.

On February 21st, Allen and General Paul Robinet led a strong counterattack at Jebel Alhamra.

Allan personally directed artillery fire and positioned his infantry to stop the German and Italian advance.

His troops captured 400 prisoners and stabilized the line.

The disaster was contained.

The lesson was learned.

American forces could stand and fight against veteran German units, but only with the right leadership and the right tactics.

Then came Elgar in March 1943.

This would become Allen’s defining battle in North Africa.

The Germans attacked with tanks.

On March 21st, Allen’s division fought through 21 days at what he later called the grueling battle of Elgar.

Day after day, German tanks probed for weaknesses.

Day after day, American infantry and anti-tank guns beat them back.

The fighting was savage.

Men fought in 100° heat with limited water.

Artillery pounded both sides.

Casualties mounted.

On March 23rd, the crisis came.

German tanks broke through the forward positions and threatened Allen’s headquarters.

Staff officers suggested pulling back to a safer position.

The suggestion made tactical sense.

Divisional headquarters were not supposed to be in the direct line of fire.

But Alan understood something his staff did not.

If the headquarters pulled back, the forward units would see it and might waver.

Morale, especially in inexperienced troops, could collapse in an instant.

Allan’s response entered military legend.

I will like hell pull out, and I will shoot the first bastard who does.

The headquarters stayed.

Alan walked outside and watched the German tanks approach.

His calm demeanor steadied his staff.

forward units, seeing that even the general was standing his ground, held their positions.

American tank destroyers and artillery engaged the German armor at close range.

The attack was repulsed.

The line held.

Elgatar was more than just another battle.

It was the first American defeat of experienced German tank units in World War II.

The Germans had met an American commander who would not retreat, would not panic, and would keep fighting until they broke.

Allan had proven that American troops, when properly led and trained, could beat the best the Vermacht had to offer.

In May 1943, the First Infantry Division led the final drive on Tunis.

Combat ended on May 9th.

4 days later, on May 13th, nearly 250,000 Axis troops surrendered.

The North Africa campaign was over.

The Big Red One had taken 2,000 casualties in the final 17 days of fighting.

Some companies were reduced to 50 men, but they had won.

Now came Sicily.

On July 10th, 1943, Allan led the first infantry division ashore at Gala, Sicily in Operation Husky, the Allied invasion of Sicily.

General George Patton had specifically requested the first division for jailer correctly assessing it as the most difficult landing zone.

The beach was exposed to counterattack from multiple directions.

German and Italian forces were positioned in the hills overlooking the landing areas.

If any division could handle it, Patton believed it was the big red one under Terry Allen.

The landing went well initially, but the real test came the next day.

On July 11th, German tanks from the Herman Guring Panza Division counteratt attacked toward the beach.

If they reached the shore, they could split the beach head and roll up the Allied positions.

American infantry caught in open terrain fought desperately to stop the armor.

Artillery from ships offshore fired over the heads of American soldiers to hit the advancing tanks.

Naval gunfire combined with fierce resistance from Allen’s infantry and supporting units finally stopped the German advance just short of the beach.

Omar Bradley, who was there observing the fight, later wrote in his memoirs, “I question whether any other United States division could have repelled that charge.

The big red one held.

The beach head was secure.

The invasion could continue, but the beat hardest fighting was still ahead.

The Sicilian campaign became a race between Patton’s seventh army and British General Bernard Montgomery’s eighth army to capture the island.

Both commanders wanted glory.

Both pushed their men hard.

Allen’s first division was given some of the toughest objectives.

Then came Trroina, one of the most savage battles of the Sicily campaign.

Troina was a mountain town that controlled key roads through the interior of Sicily.

The Germans had turned it into a fortress.

From July 31st to August 6th, 1943, Allen’s division attacked this stronghold.

The fighting was brutal.

Every building had to be cleared.

Every street was covered by German machine guns.

American infantry attacked uphill into prepared positions.

Casualties mounted daily.

The Germans did not just defend, they counterattacked.

Again and again, German forces launched attacks to throw the Americans back down the mountain.

By the time the battle ended, the Germans had launched 24 separate counterattacks over 6 days of continuous fighting.

24 times Allen’s men beat them back.

The division artillery fired thousands of shells.

Infantry companies were reduced to half strength.

Medics worked around the clock, but the big red one kept attacking, kept pushing forward, kept grinding down the German defenders.

Troyer finally fell on August 6th.

The road to Msina was open, but the cost had been heavy.

The First Infantry Division was exhausted.

The men had been in combat almost continuously since landing in North Africa 9 months earlier.

They needed rest.

They needed replacements.

They needed time to rebuild.

On August 9th, 1943, Time magazine published its latest issue.

On the cover was Major General Terry Allen.

The article praised him as a great division commander in the making who was gaining a personal luster.

It celebrated his victories in Tunisia and Sicily.

There was one problem.

On August 7th, two, days before the magazine hit news stands, Omar Bradley had relieved Allan from command of the First Infantry Division.

The reasons were complex.

Bradley believed that Allan and his assistant division commander, Brigadier General Theodore Roosevelt Jr.

, had let disciplines slip.

The Big Red One had become elite, confident, but also somewhat arrogant.

Bradley felt the division needed tightening up.

Allan was replaced by Major General Clarence R.

Hubner.

But there was another factor.

Recent scholarship suggests the relief was pre-planned by General Dwight Eisenhower and Patton before the Sicily campaign even began.

They believed Allen was the right man to get the division through the toughest early fighting, but not the right man for the long war ahead.

Eisenhower himself later stated, “It is a terrible injustice to General Allen to hint that he was relieved for inefficiency.

” Bradley admitted in his memoirs that none excelled the unpredictable Terry Allen in the leadership of troops, but added that neither Terry Allen nor Theodore Roosevelt Jr.

possessed the instincts of a good disciplinarian.

The truth is that Terry Allen cared more about winning battles than maintaining parade ground standards.

His men loved him for it.

The generals above him worried about it.

So at the peak of his success, appearing on the cover of Time magazine, Terry Allen was sent home.

Most officers would have retired in bitterness.

Allan asked for another chance.

On October 15th, 1943, Brigadier General Terry Allen, reduced back to his original rank, took command of the 104th Infantry Division at Campair, Oregon.

The demotion stung, but Allan did not dwell on it.

He had work to do.

These were not battleh hardened veterans like the men of the first division.

These were green troops, mostly factory workers and farm boys from the western states, just as the Germans had suspected about American units.

Average age was in the early 20s.

Most had never been far from home before the army.

They knew nothing about combat.

Alan looked at these young men and saw potential.

But potential meant nothing without proper training.

He set out to create the most thoroughly trained division in the United States Army.

And he would do it by teaching them to master something most units avoided, fighting at night.

While standard army training required 10 to 12 hours per week of tactical instruction, Allan drove his men through 30 to 35 hours per week, three times the normal requirement.

Some weeks they trained nearly 6 hours a day on top of normal military duties.

The training was relentless, exhausting, and brutally realistic.

Allan focused obsessively on night operations.

He taught his men to move silently in darkness.

He drilled them in using compasses and terrain features when they could not see more than a few feet.

He taught them to communicate without speaking, using hand signals and pre-arranged codes.

He taught them to coordinate attacks without radios which could be intercepted or jammed.

He taught them to trust their fellow soldiers completely because at night you could not see who was beside you.

You had to know they were there.

The division practiced night attacks again and again.

First in small unit exercises, then in company level operations, then in full battalion attacks with artillery support, all conducted in total darkness.

Alan insisted on realistic conditions, live ammunition, actual artillery barges, smoke to simulate the confusion of battle.

His men learned that night fighting was terrifying, but that proper training and discipline could turn that terror into a weapon against the enemy.

The other divisions at Campair thought Allan was crazy.

His men were exhausted all the time.

They stumbled through the Oregon forests at 3:00 in the morning.

They practiced attacks in driving rain and pitch darkness.

But Allan knew what he was doing.

He was teaching them to survive.

Night attacks, when done correctly, resulted in fewer casualties than daylight assaults.

The attackers had surprise.

The defenders were confused and frightened.

And most importantly, enemy artillery and machine guns could not see targets clearly enough for effective fire.

By the time the 104th Infantry Division shipped out to Europe in the summer of 1944, they were the first and only American division trained specifically for nighttime combat.

Bradley would later admit that Allan brought the only division I know of that was prepared for night combat.

That preparation would save countless lives in the battles ahead.

On October 23rd, 1944, the Timberwolves entered combat near the German border in Belgium.

The German veterans in the forest waited for easy pickings.

Intelligence reports had told them this was a green American division fresh from the United States, never tested in battle.

The Germans had faced Green American units before.

Those units made mistakes.

They panicked under fire.

They were predictable.

This would be another easy defensive victory.

What they got instead was a nightmare.

That first night, Allan launched his division into action.

The attacks came in darkness.

Companies moved silently through the forests, navigating by compass and memory of the terrain they had scouted in daylight.

They hit German positions from unexpected directions.

Centuries were eliminated silently before they could sound the alarm.

German positions were overrun before defenders fully understood what was happening.

Forward observers called for artillery support, but could not see targets well enough to direct fire effectively.

Machine gun nests fired blindly into the black, wasting ammunition on shadows.

American infantry materialized out of the darkness, struck hard with grenades and automatic weapons, and vanished before German reinforcements could arrive.

Radio operators called for help, but by the time help came, the Americans were gone, hitting another position miles away.

By dawn, the Germans were shaken.

Entire platoons had been overrun in the night.

Positions that seemed secure in daylight were death traps after dark.

These were not green troops.

These were trained killers who fought like demons in the dark.

German unit commanders sent urgent reports up the chain.

This American division was different, dangerous.

They owned the night.

Over the next months, the pattern repeated.

The 104th crossed the Mark River on November 2nd in a night operation that caught German defenders completely by surprise.

They fought in the Arkan sector starting November 16th, attacking fortified positions that had held against other Allied units for weeks.

Allen’s night tactics cracked defenses that daylight assaults could not break.

When the Germans launched the massive Arden offensive in December, what history calls the Battle of the Bulge, Allen’s division held defensive positions from December 15th, 1944 to February 22nd, 1945.

The division absorbed the shock of German attacks, held critical positions, and prevented the German breakthrough from widening.

Then on February 23rd, they crossed the Roar River and went back on the attack, driving into Germany itself.

The reputation of the Timberwolves spread among German units.

Vermacht soldiers who rotated from other fronts heard warnings about the American division that attacked at night.

Some German reports captured after the war described the 104th as elite troops specializing in night operations.

German defensive plans had to account for the possibility of American attacks in darkness, forcing them to maintain higher alert levels, and spread their forces more thinly.

This was exactly what Allan wanted.

An enemy that feared the night was an enemy that could not rest, could not relax, could never feel safe.

German propaganda broadcaster Axis Sally Rita Zuka broadcasting from Rome made references to the American night fighters in broadcasts monitored by Allied intelligence.

She claimed according to accounts verified in Gerald Aers’s biography of Allen that the American knight fighting was unfair.

This was high praise disguised as complaint.

If the enemy thought your tactics were unfair, you were doing something right.

On March 5th, 1945, the Timberwolves captured Cologne, one of Germany’s great cities.

On March 22nd, they crossed the Rine River, driving deep into the heart of Germany.

After the Rine crossing, Allen’s division advanced 193 mi in 9 days, ending at Pedorn.

Then they drove another 175 mi in 15 days, reaching the Moulder River.

On April 11th, 1945, the 104th Infantry Division alongside the Third Armored Division liberated the Nordhousen concentration camp in central Germany.

What they found there would haunt these soldiers for the rest of their lives.

Approximately 3,000 corpses lay scattered throughout the camp, many in various stages of decomposition.

750 prisoners were found alive, though barely.

They were skeletal, diseased, too weak to stand.

Many died in the days after liberation despite American medical care.

Nordhausen had been a subcamp of the Dora Middbau camp complex where prisoners had been worked to death building V2 rockets in underground factories.

The Germans had abandoned the camp as Allied forces approached, leaving the prisoners to die.

Allen’s soldiers, hardened by seven months of continuous combat, were sickened by what they saw.

They had fought Germans in open battle and respected them as soldiers.

But this was different.

This was systematic murder, industrial scale atrocity.

The men realized they had been fighting not just an enemy army, but an evil regime.

Alan ordered his men to photograph everything.

He wanted documentation.

He wanted proof.

He ordered German civilians from the nearby town to be brought to the camp to see what had been done in their name.

Some Germans claimed ignorance.

Allan did not care.

They would see.

They would know.

They would help bury the dead.

From April 15th to 19th, the division fought a 5-day battle to capture the city of Halley, an important industrial center.

The fighting was house to house, street by street.

German defenders fought stubbornly to hold every block.

Artillery and tank fire smashed buildings.

Infantry cleared rooms one at a time.

Casualties mounted on both sides.

During this operation, Allan encountered Count Felix von Lluknner, a fascinating figure from history.

Von Lukner had been a World War I naval officer, captain of the commerce raider SMS Seedler, known as the Sea Devil for his exploits sinking Allied ships in the Pacific and Atlantic.

Now he was an old man in his 60s living in Hali trying to save his city from destruction.

Von Luknner approached Alan under a flag of truce and helped negotiate a partial surrender of Halle.

His intervention saved much of the city from being destroyed by American air attacks and artillery bombardments.

Alan and von Lluknner, old warriors from an earlier conflict, dealt with each other with professional courtesy and mutual respect.

They were from different countries, different wars, but they understood each other in a way that only combat veterans can.

Later, Von Luckner was made an honorary colonel of the 104th Infantry Division, a gesture that recognized his courage in saving civilian lives.

On April 26th, 1945, at Pretch on the Ela River, soldiers of the 104th Infantry Division made contact with Soviet forces advancing from the east.

The announcement was made simultaneously from Washington, London, and Moscow on April 27th.

The Third Reich was cut in two.

The Third Reich was cut in two.

The war in Europe was nearly over.

Allen’s division had been in continuous combat for 200 days.

Not one major objective failed.

Not one attack beaten back.

The Germans had learned to fear the night.

German propaganda broadcaster Axis Sally in broadcasts monitored by Allied intelligence complained that the American night fighting was unfair.

Vermacht units that faced the Timberwolves warned other units about their prowess in darkness.

Canadian general Guy Granville Simons said once the Timberwolves got their teeth into the Bosch, they showed great dash.

In early 1945, after the capture of Cologne on March 5th, Bradley visited Allen’s headquarters.

Bradley, who had fired Allen 18 months earlier in Sicily, was impressed by what he saw.

The 104th Infantry Division was performing magnificently.

They had been in combat for less than 5 months, but were already being compared to veteran divisions that had been fighting since North Africa.

According to accounts verified in Bradley’s memoirs, Bradley told Alan Terry, “I am pleasantly surprised to see these young timberwolves of yours already ranked along with the first and the ninth as the finest assault divisions in the European theater of operations.

The first division was Allen’s old command, the big red one.

The ninth division was another elite unit with a distinguished combat record.

To be ranked with them after such a short time in combat was extraordinary praise.

Allen’s response was pure Terry Allen.

Brad the first and the ninth are in damned fast company.

It was not boastful.

It was a statement of fact delivered with the confidence of a commander who knew exactly what his division could do.

Allan had proven his point.

The methods that got him fired in Sicily had produced another elite division.

The training that others thought excessive had created soldiers who could match any unit in the army.

The man, they said, lacked discipline, had built a division that won every battle it fought.

The recognition was sweet, but it could not erase what had happened in Sicily.

Alan carried that dismissal with him always, but he had answered his critics in the most effective way possible.

by doing it again with an entirely different division.

He had shown that his success with the first division was not a fluke, not the result of inheriting good troops.

His methods worked.

His training paid off.

His leadership produced results.

The war in Europe ended on May 8th, 1945.

Terry Allen had commanded two divisions through some of the hardest fighting of World War II.

The First Infantry Division in North Africa and Sicily.

the 104th Infantry Division across Northwest Europe.

Both divisions believed they were the best in the army.

Both were probably right, and both had been shaped by the same man.

Consider what Allan accomplished.

He took the First Infantry Division, already a proud unit with a long history, and turned it into the spearhead of American offensives in North Africa and Sicily.

He led them through the disaster at Casarine Pass and taught them how to beat German armor at Elar.

He landed them at Gala under fire and held the beach against counterattacks.

He drove them up the mountains at Troina against 24 German counterattacks.

Every objective assigned, the big red one accomplished.

Every battle fought, they won.

Then after being fired, he took the 104th Infantry Division, green troops with no combat experience, and turned them into what Bradley called one of the finest assault divisions in the European theater.

He trained them harder than any division in the army.

He taught them to fight at night when other divisions avoided darkness.

He led them through 200 days of continuous combat without a single major defeat.

They crossed rivers under fire.

They captured fortified cities.

They advanced farther and faster than veteran divisions.

They liberated concentration camps.

They linked up with Soviet forces.

And they did it all in seven months, accomplishing what other divisions took years to achieve.

This was not luck.

This was not inheriting good troops.

This was leadership.

This was training.

This was a commander who understood how to turn civilians into soldiers and soldiers into winners.

Alan did it twice with two completely different divisions under two completely different sets of circumstances.

That is the mark of a truly great commander.

Alan retired from the United States Army on August 31st, 1946 with the rank of major general.

He had achieved everything a soldier could hope for except one thing.

He had never received his third star, never made lieutenant general.

Perhaps that was the price of being too aggressive, too unconventional, too much of a fighter, and not enough of a diplomat.

The truth is that Allen’s personality traits that made him a brilliant combat commander also made him difficult for the peaceime army to handle.

He drank, not to excess in combat, but enough that it concerned his superiors.

General George Marshall himself had written to Allan during the war, stating, “I must explain to you that there had come to me from several different sources an indication that you had been drinking.

I do not mean you were appearing under the influence of liquor, but I do mean drinking in the daytime.

” Marshall’s letter is revealing not just for what it said, but for what it did not say.

Marshall did not relieve Alan.

He did not punish him.

He simply warned him and left him in command.

Why? Because Marshall understood that in war you need fighters and sometimes fighters have rough edges.

Allan’s drinking never interfered with his combat performance.

His tactical decisions were sound.

His units won.

Marshall was willing to overlook the drinking because Allan delivered results where it mattered most on the battlefield.

But Bradley and Eisenhower were building an EST army for a long war and they wanted commanders who fit a certain mold.

Disciplined, professional, conventional.

Allan was none of these things.

He was effective, but he made the high command nervous.

So they removed him from the first division and hoped he would fade away.

Instead, he came back with the 104th and proved them wrong all over again.

War correspondent Ernie Pile, who was killed in the Pacific in April 1945, had written about Terry Allen earlier in the war.

Pile said, “Major General Terry Allen was one of my favorite people, partly because he did not give a damn for hell or high water, partly because he was more colorful than most, and partly because he was the only general outside the air forces I could call by his first name.

If there was one thing in the world Allan lived and breathed for, it was to fight.

He had been shot up in the last war, and he seemed not the least averse to getting shot up again.

His pattern for victory was simple.

Just weighed in and murder the hell out of the low down, good for nothing so that was Terry Allen.

Direct, profane, relentless, and completely committed to his soldiers and to victory.

After retirement, Allan lived quietly in El Paso, Texas, near Fort Bliss, where his father had once served.

He had given his whole life to the army.

Now he could rest.

But peace would not last.

On October 17th, 1967, Lieutenant Colonel Terry Deesa Allen Jr.

was killed in Vietnam.

He was commanding the second battalion, 28th Infantry Regiment, First Infantry Division, his father’s old division, the Big Red One.

The battalion that Alan Jr.

led was the same battalion his father had commanded decades earlier in World War I.

The family tradition of service continued across three generations.

Alan Jr.

was leading his battalion on a search and destroy operation near Li K when they were ambushed by two Vietkong battalions in what became known as the Battle of Enthan.

The American battalion, approximately 500 men, walked into a carefully prepared L-shaped ambush.

Heavy machine gun fire and rocket propelled grenades ripped into the American formation.

The lead companies were decimated in the first minutes of the firefight.

Alan Jr.

moved forward toward the sound of gunfire, trying to rally his men and organize a defense.

He was hit multiple times, but continued directing his troops until he was killed.

Between 58 and 64 American soldiers died in the ambush, one of the worst single day losses of the war.

Alan Jr.

was postumously awarded the Distinguished Service Cross, the nation’s second highest award for valor, for his leadership under fire.

The death of his son shattered Terry Allen.

He was 79 years old and in declining health.

But this blow was too much.

His only son, following in his footsteps, had died leading men in combat, just as Alan had done for decades.

The warriors tradition that had seemed so noble, now felt like a curse.

His health, already declining, collapsed completely.

He suffered strokes.

His heart weakened.

He held on for nearly 2 years, but the will to fight was gone.

On September 12th, 1969, Major General Terry De Laa Allen died in El Paso at the age of 81.

He was buried at Fort Bliss National Cemetery next to his son.

The old army cavalryman, the warrior who had fought in two world wars, the general who had led men through the deserts of North Africa, the mountains of Sicily, and the forests of Germany, was finally at rest.

Today, the United States Military Academy at West Point, the institution that dismissed him in 1911 for academic failure, presents the General Terry Deameasa Allen Award to the cadet with the highest rating in military science.

The academy that could not contain him as a student now honors his name.

The failed cadet became one of the most successful combat commanders in Cree Bird.

American history.

Those German soldiers who waited in the Belgian forests in October 1944 expected to face green American troops.

Easy targets.

Instead, they met Terry Allen’s Timberwolves.

Within days, German unit reports described a new threat.

An American division that fought like veterans, attacked at night and would not stop coming.

Vermacht intelligence officers warned other units.

This division was dangerous.

Their commander, they learned, was the same general who had led the first infantry division in North Africa and Sicily.

Terrible Terry Allen had returned.

By war’s end, German veterans who faced both of Allen’s divisions understood what made him different.

It was not cruelty or overwhelming firepower.

It was training so intense that green troops fought like veterans from their first day.

It was leadership so personal that soldiers would follow him anywhere.

It was tactical innovation that turned night from a time of rest into a time of terror.

And it was an absolute refusal to accept defeat under any circumstances.

Allan never commanded armies.

He never made lieutenant general.

He was fired at the peak of his success and spent years proving he deserved another chance.

But the soldiers who served under him, American and German alike, knew the truth.

Terry Allen was one of the most effective combat commanders of World War II.

He won every major battle he fought.

He led two different divisions to distinction, and he proved that American soldiers, properly trained and properly led, could beat the best troops the enemy had.

The Germans in those Belgian forests learned that lesson the hard way.

The ones who survived spread the word.

Terrible Terry was back and the night belonged to