The 16th Armored Division arrived in France between February 11 and 17, 1945, too late to develop the long campaign record of the earlier armored divisions. Its European service was mostly training, staging, and security duty while Allied armies were already deep inside Germany. On April 28 it moved to Nuremberg and relieved the 71st Infantry Division, holding security responsibilities there as the main American drives moved beyond the city.

The division's only substantial combat operation came in the final Czechoslovakian phase. One component, the 23d Cavalry Reconnaissance Squadron, had already served with the 86th Infantry Division during the Isar-Wasserburg advance, but the division as a whole did not enter its decisive action until early May. On May 4 V Corps received the 9th and 16th Armored Divisions for the final drive toward Karlsbad and Pilsen, and the 16th was ordered from Nuremberg to the Waidhaus area. It assembled there on May 5.

On May 6 the division attacked through the lines of the 97th Infantry Division toward Pilsen. CCB made the main effort along the Bor-Pilsen road and captured Pilsen and the Skoda munitions plant the same day, while CCR drove through the city to high ground east of it. Green Book context describes the advance as a sudden passage from the sullen Sudetenland into a jubilant Czech city, with crowds greeting the American armor as liberators. The division then mopped up near Pilsen until hostilities were declared ended on May 7. Its combat record was brief, but its final operation secured one of Central Europe's major industrial objectives at the war's close.