99th Infantry Battalion (United States)

The 99th Infantry Battalion (separate) was a battalion of Norwegian-speaking soldiers in the US Army. Created in July 1942 at Camp Ripley, Minnesota, the battalion originally consisted of 1,001 soldiers. The battalion was attached to the First Army; however, it was labeled "Separate" because it was not attached to a specific regiment.

After the attack on Pearl Harbor, the United States Department of War considered how the military could use foreigners and bilingual, first-generation immigrants from German-occupied areas to assist the war effort. The initial assessment concluded that it would be "un-American" to train foreign troops on US soil, prompting the Norwegian government to refuse a request to recruit Norwegians in the United States for military training in Canada. After a time, however, the Department of War decided to set up special units of US citizens from certain ethnic groups for operations in countries occupied by the Axis powers.

The following five battalions, established in 1942, were organized based on ethnic groups:

A Polish unit was also proposed but never created.

In Norwegian historiography, the men of Battalion 99 are often referred to as Norwegian Americans. This is only partially correct; the original intention was to transfer voluntary "Norwegian nationals" from existing armies. These people were foreigners who had begun the immigration process, which was a condition of enlistment. The battalion was allowed to contain only United States citizens who spoke Norwegian.

In her book, The 99th Battalion, the Norwegian novelist Gerd Nyquist estimates that they may have constituted 50 percent of the original workforce – about 500 men. One of Nyquist's sources from the battalion said 40 percent of the battalion had been Norwegian citizens (around 400 soldiers). This figure was the result of an informal survey conducted by Nyquist; however, the survey was limited to 152 respondents.

Based on information from a veteran of the battalion, Max Hermansen argues in his book D-dagen 1944 og norsk innsats that there were approximately 300 Norwegians in the battalion.

In October, 1942, the battalion moved to Fort Snelling, Minnesota; and again in December, 1942, to Camp Hale in Colorado for training in winter warfare and alpine warfare. On September 5, 1943, Battalion 99 was shipped out from New York to Scotland. In the UK, the battalion was stationed in Perham Down Camp between Salisbury and Andover. The training there was for infantry purposes as D-Day approached, and it became increasingly clear that the battalion would receive its baptism by fire in Operation Overlord.

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