The 45th had one of the most interesting older patches.
A replacement for this patch was approved in 1939, even without being a patch expert, I can hazard a guess why.
Posted on 05/25/2015 6:16:41 PM PDT by Retain Mike
The Army deployed 65 infantry divisions for the Second World War. Each was a small town with its own equivalents for community services plus eight categories of combat arms. Units such as artillery, engineering, and heavy weapons engaged the enemy directly. Yet of all categories, the foot soldier faced the greatest hazard with the least chance of reward. Except for the Purple Heart and the coveted Combat Infantryman’s Badge, recognition often eluded them because so few came through to testify to the valor of the many. The infantryman confronted the most dismal fate of all whose duty was uninterrupted by missions completed or a fixed deployment time. They were enveloped within a most chaotic, barbaric, and brittle existence against resolute enemies where victory often required actions pushing beyond prior limits for impossibility.
Omar Bradley said, “Previous combat had taught us that casualties are lumped primarily in the rifle platoons. For here are concentrated the handful of troops who must advance under enemy fire. It is upon them that the burden of war falls with greater risk and with less likelihood of survival than any other of the combat arms. An infantry division of WW II consisted of 81 rifle platoons, each with a combat strength of approximately 40 men. Altogether those 81 assault units comprised but 3,240 men in a division of 14,000…..Prior to invasion we had estimated that the infantry would incur 70 percent of the losses of our combat forces. By August we had boosted that figure to 83 percent on the basis of our experience in the Normandy hedgerows.”
Nearly a third of the 65 divisions in the Pacific and European theaters suffered 100% or more casualties. However, their regimental staffs saw frontline units obliterated three to six times over. To deal with this problem there were never enough infantrymen coming from the states. Replacement centers continually reassigned artillerymen, machine gunners, cooks, and clerks to infantry duties. The situation in Europe became so severe that rear area units in France and Great Britain were tasked to supply soldiers for retraining as infantrymen. Those suffering battle fatigue came off the line for a few days for clean uniforms, bathing, hot food, and sleep. However, scarcity compelled their repeated return until crippling wounds, mental breakage, death, or victory brought final relief.
For example the 4th and 29th Infantry landed on D-Day and suffered about 500% battle casualties in their rifle platoons during the eleven months until VE-Day. Added to these numbers were half again as many non-battle human wrecks debilitated by trench foot, frost bite, pneumonia, hernia, heart disease, arthritis, etc. Many never returned to duty. In the jungles of the Pacific, non-combat losses often exacted a greater price. But somehow the infantry crossed Europe and the Pacific and always remained in the forefront of attacks.
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.”
Partial bibliography: A Soldier’s Story by Omar N. Bradley
Brave Men by Ernie Pyle (the quote named Tommy Clayton, but was generalized here because Ernie Pyle saw him as an example of the infantrymen he loved.)
Crusade in Europe by Dwight D. Eisenhower
The U.S. Infantryman in World War II by Robert S. Rush Foot Soldier by Roscoe C. Blunt, Jr. Links for Listings of United States Divisions during WW II http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_Army_divisions_during_World_War_II http://www.historyshots.com/usarmy/
Army Battle Casualties and Non-battle Deaths in World War II http://www.ibiblio.org/hyperwar/USA/ref/Casualties/index.html
3rd 'Marne' Infantry Division http://www.custermen.com/ItalyWW2/Units/Division3.htm Total casualties greater than 34,000
National 4th Infantry (IVY) Division Association http://www.4thinfantry.org/content/division-history Total casualties of 34,000
29th Infantry Division http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/29th_Infantry_Division_(United_States)
45th Infantry Division http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/45th_Infantry_Division_(United_States)
Remembering the Thunderbirds – Oklahoma’s 45th Infantry Division http://www.baptistmessenger.com/remembering-the-thunderbirds-oklahomas-45th-infantry-division/ Total casualties of 62,640
When Gen. George S. Patton described the 45th Infantry Division, he said it was “one of the finest, if not the finest infantry division in this history of modern warfare.”
You couldn’t work in a little more cussing into your Memorial day rant against our military and veterans?
Took me ten years of gentle coaxing to get my uncles(2) to talk about WWII. Both were infantry in Europe. My uncle that served in the Pacific just started talking about it in 2005. A historian from the Smithsonian broke the dam with him. None of them had PTSD, they just didn’t want to talk about. it was a past chapter of their full lives.
Thanks.
I remember Daddy mentioning that once they were able to listen in on the radio frequency being used by our armor during a battle.
He said it was downright chilling.
My Dad was on the Battleship Texas. I am so sad that school taught history wipes out everything afer 1865. So much these poor ignorant intellects know. Ask one who we fought in WW2. They don’t have a clue. Why?
Fella that bought the farm next to ours served with Patton in Europe. He NEVER talked about the war, ever.
First time I saw the movie “Patton”, he was with us. He came out of the theatre with tears running down his face, just looked at me and said “that’s that SOB top to bottom.”
The only other times he mentioned the war at all were if someone disparaged the memory of “Georgie”.
And he never heard Montgomery’s name that he didn’t cuss and spit.
I have a female friend who’s father was Infantry in the 34th, whenever he and her mother would visit her out here from Ohio, I would prod him to talk about his time in the Army in WWII.
One night he followed me out to my garage and told me about how he got the scar on his face, he was on night patrol when something hit him in the face, it was a German soldier stabbing him, the Germans had been on patrol as well.
This little old man who everyone loved as such a gentle, and nice Ohioan small town guy, killed the German in that hand to hand fight, my girlfriend had never known the story.
The 45th had one of the most interesting older patches.
A replacement for this patch was approved in 1939, even without being a patch expert, I can hazard a guess why.
”I am so sad that school taught history wipes out everything afer 1865. So much these poor ignorant intellects know. Ask one who we fought in WW2. They dont have a clue.”
And, ask one what the National Guard did to four Kent State College students in 1968. You will get blank stares.
If you really think it was against military and veterans, you honestly DO NOT KNOW HOW TO READ.
DO NOT BOTHER ME AGAIN.
1970, but that is fairly minor history, there is much bigger, more fundamental history not being taught.
I know how to read, you belittled our service, our sacrifices, and our importance, to make your little crack.
I MADE NO SUCH SLAM. YOU ARE A LIAR.
YOU DO NOT KNOW HOW TO READ.
I am sick of the military being USED by big corporate interests, corrupt politicians with their own stupid agendas and blackmailed positions, and globalists who plan their little plans to create chaos around the globe to change things the way they want, using people who serve in the military as their pawns.
That is what I am sick of. Not the people who do volunteer.
You need to learn reading comprehension.
READ IT AGAIN.
That is what I said, you think we are dupes, suckers, tools of ‘the man’, you belittled our service, our sacrifices, and our importance.
Great Memorial Day statement for our war dead, or the “pawns” as you call them.
“(Kent State)... is fairly minor history...”
Have to disagree. I don’t believe 4 US citizens being murdered, shot to death
by US Military troops here in America is minor at all.
Well, yes, it is minor, that is why you couldn’t even place it in the correct decade, and it wasn’t murder, and those National Guardsmen were doing state duty, they were not federal Army troops at the time.
By the way, this is your interest in Memorial Day?
You do not think there are people that use the military for their own ends? Are you that insanely naive? Good grief, after how Clinton used them for covering his ass ...
You know I just cannot even speak to people like you.
Do you not understand there are multiple overt agendas and covert agendas working simultaneously, all the time, on just about everything that is done? Do you not think nobody has ever been used because of appeals to their patriotism?
You are the one looking for insult when none was given. I am sickened that there are people that have hidden agendas that will use patriotism as a guise to get their fellow citizens to fight wars for undisclosed reasons they are not allowed to know at their pay grade.
Tell me Obama isn’t doing this. Tell me everything he’s done with the military has been above board and there’s no other agendas in operation.
I don’t blame the soldiers. I feel for them. They are patriots. Many have wondered though about their missions and what exactly they did, have anything to do with protecting and defending the constitution of the USA.
Can’t you find a different thread to be doing your ranting?
This one, and this day, is for the pro-military people, not the whacked out agenda nuts.
You are delusional. Seek help. Why you cannot see a pro-military, but anti-nwo/globalist that uses the military to their ends, and somehow infers that to mean I am slamming the military,
you’re just concocting something to be offended at. And it’s just as depressing as any liberal that sits around and just looks for anything to be offended at. You are a person here on FR that continually looks to find stuff to be offended at in order to jump on other posters here. You’re as bad as any liberal with chips on their shoulders just waiting for anything they can take out of context and act all offended about.
No more.
Thank you for posting this excellent article, Retain Mike. My father was an infantryman in the 63rd Infantry Division “Blood and Fire” during the breach of the Siegfried Line and the breakout across southern Germany. I knew he was wounded twice because our mother told us, but he never spoke about it. It was only after he died (too young) that I found his award citations and realized all he had done. The men of his generation did their duty, licked their wounds and got on with the rest of their lives like grown men did. I chose Marine Corps infantry to honor my father’s example.
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