[Retain Mike]

I wrote this essay to be my contribution to Memorial Day and Veteran’s Day. My greatest contact with these men started about age nine when my dad began taking me out golfing on the weekends. There was a man who used the first golf cart I ever saw, because as a brigade commander of the 41th infantry in New Guinea he was debilitated by sickness. I remember one fairly good golfer who had kind of a weird back swing, because he was crippled while serving with the Big Red One in Sicily. I often ended up as a dishwasher at Michelbook Country Club. I noticed the chef always limped as he moved around the kitchen. When he saw my puzzled look, he said he got the limp from a wound received when he was with the Rangers at Pointe De Hoc. Those are just a few of the stories I remember among so many I have forgotten.

My motivation for this subject and what I have a hard time understanding still is the casualty rates in those divisions chosen repeatedly for initial assaults. For the divisions with the high casualty rates, wouldn’t they have to reconstitute and retrain the rifle platoons every thirty to ninety days? However, that seems to have been the case, because I trust my sources and I have checked my math.

I know the corps and army commanders had favorites for the initial attacks and used these divisions repeatedly. It seems other divisions were usually sent to less active sectors, entered combat later in time, or occupied a flank in an attack.

[x1stcav]

My uncle was in the first wave at Utah.

He died in the hedgerows approx. 18 days later.

I learned later that I served (allowing for conversion from regimental to brigade TO&E) 25 years later in the same battalion.

I went to visit him in 1983, where he still rests, in France.

[DuncanWaring]

...with the Rangers at Pointe De Hoc.

For those not familiar with the story, Pres. Reagan's remarks on the Rangers at Pointe du Hoc on the 40th anniversary of the Normandy Invasion are here.

[Mears]

“Ernie Pyle said of them, “The worst experience of all is just the accumulated blur, and the hurting vagueness of being too long in the lines, the everlasting alertness, the noise and fear, the cell-by-cell exhaustion, the thinning of the surrounding ranks as day follows nameless day. And the constant march into the eternity of one’s own small quota of chances for survival. Those are the things that hurt and destroy. But they went back to them because they were good soldiers and they had a duty they could not define.”

What an incredible quote by an incredible writer.

.

[jumpingcholla34]

Thanks for this post. My Dad was with the 32nd Infantry Division in New Guinea. He used to say: "The infantry is the Queen of Battles and I'm proud I served in it. Now, you stay the hell out of it."

I went with the Air Force.

[PeterPrinciple]

Nearly a third of the 65 divisions in the Pacific and European theaters suffered 100% or more casualties.

---

They saw this replacement problem early but it got bigger than they probably thought
http://militaryyearbookproject.com/references/general-references/army-replacement-training-centers-1940-41

When we watches the show Combat they had replacements every week and they died quickly, probably pretty close to the truth.

[PeterPrinciple]

here are some 1945 thoughts on the replacement soldiers.

http://www.oldmagazinearticles.com/replacement-soldiers-world-war-ii_pdf

[PeterPrinciple]

Here IS another areticle on replacement soldiers:

http://www.oldmagazinearticles.com/WW2_36th_Division_of_Texas_during_World_War_Two_pdf

[righttackle44]

In this memorable tribute, let me add a few remarks about the 45h Division, the Thunderbird, the Oklahoma National Guard with a few men from other mid-west and southwestern men added.

Gen. Patton himself said that the 45th Division was a fine division. The Thunderbirds were first into the Vatican, and they were early liberators of death camps.

And allow me my own tribute to my uncle, Simmons Parker, a Comanche Code Talker. We don't hear much about the Code Talkers of other tribes. He is a man I miss.

God bless them all--the young, the short, and the tall.

[Hugin]