US Army 80th Infantry Division shoulder sleeve patch with three blue mountains

Shoulder sleeve insignia of the 80th Infantry Division, United States Army, called the Blue Ridge Division, with a light green badge with three blue mountains. When the Unit was activated in 1917, it was composed of soldiers from the states of Pennsylvania, West Virginia, and Virginia, through which the Blue Ridge Mountains pass. The 80th Infantry landed in Normandy, France, in August 1944 and began fighting German forces in Argentan. The Division participated in the Battle of the Bulge in December, and then pushed into central Germany. They provided relief to the 6th Armored Division at Buchenwald concentration camp on April 12, 1945, and continued into Austria and liberated the prisoners in Ebensee slave labor camp, a subcamp of Mauthausen concentration camp, on May 4th and 5th. The conditions were so terrible that several hundred inmates died the day the camp was liberated. Germany surrendered on May 7, 1945 and the 80th Infantry Division became part of the Army of Occupation in Austria until their return to the US and inactivation in January 1946.