U.S. XV Corps

XV Corps
Shoulder sleeve insignia of XV Corps
Active	1943–46
Country	United States
Branch	United States Army
Engagements	World War II
Commanders
Notable commanders	Wade H. Haislip

The XV Corps of the US Army was initially constituted on 1 October 1933 as part of the Organized Reserves, and was activated on 15 February 1943 at Camp Beauregard, Louisiana. During the Second World War, XV Corps fought for 307 days in the European Theater of Operations, fighting from Normandy through France and southern Germany into Austria. The corps was commanded in combat by Major General Wade H. Haislip, initially as a subordinate unit to the Third U.S. Army and later as part of the Seventh U.S. Army.

After the end of the war the corps was inactivated and reactivated several times, finally being inactivated in 1968.

XV Corps took part in the July, 1944 breakout from Normandy, Operation Cobra. The corps liberated Le Mans on 8 August 1944. In a controversial decision by the Twelfth United States Army Group commander, Lieutenant General Omar Bradley, the corps was halted at Argentan on 13 August 1944, before it could link up with Canadian troops, allowing Germans trapped in the Falaise Pocket an escape route to the east. Seizing a bridgehead over the Seine River on 20 August 1944, the corps then mopped up German resistance along its west bank. Subsequently, the corps had no divisions assigned to it and used its corps troops to screen the southern flank of the U.S. XII Corps.