Military
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The 99th Infantry Battalion (Separate), known as the Viking Battalion, was a World War II United States Army ski trooper unit activated on 10 July 1942 at Camp Ripley, Minnesota, and deactivated on 11 November 1945 at Camp Miles Standish in Boston, Massachusetts. Camp Hale, Colorado, five miles north of this site on Route 24, was its main ski trooper training area. The battalion campaigned in the European Theater of Operations and received the Presidential Unit Citation and the Belgian Croix de Guerre, with battle service in Normandy, Northern France, the Ardennes, the Rhineland, Central Europe, and the liberation of Norway on 8 May 1945. Its O.S.S. NORSO Rype Group parachuted into Norway on 24 March 1945 for sabotage missions and later joined the Underground for the liberation of Norway. At the end of the attack through Northern France, an unknown but remembered 2nd Armored Division major said, “This Viking Battalion is the only infantry outfit tanks have trouble keeping up with.”
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