The Magnificent Infantry of WW II

Self | May 25, 2015 | Self

[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.”

[ansel12]

"I don’t blame the soldiers. I feel for them."
"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."
"God bless the soldiers. That said, let the g-damn bankers fight the wars. Let the politicians be drafted and fight the wars they bring about. Let the billionaires and the major corptocracies put their businesspeople on the lines for their interests they want us soldiers to protect. Keep the military forces for us military and country needs. Not for new world order/globalist/big corporations to play with as they desire. Let them hire their own mercs and foot the damn bill in their own money and lives."

Thank you for sharing on Memorial day, is that really the way your felt when you were in the military?

[kiryandil]

The damned engineers: Janice Holt Giles

Kampfgruppe Peiper failed at the Battle of the Bulge because of the American combat engineers, and its commander, Joachim Peiper, knew it.

[Secret Agent Man]

I never said that and I don’t believe that. You are the only one of us who’s used those words. I did not and I would not because I don’t believe that.

Just because I believe that there are people in high places that have used, and those that are using the military for their own ends/benefits, that does NOT follow that I think the military are stupid, or dupes. THAT IS YOUR WHACKED OUT PERSONAL INFERRED LOGIC. Maybe you need to check your cynicism at the door and turn off a few of your own bias filters.

I don’t believe they are stupid or dupes. I believe most believe the reasons they are told, whatever that happens to be. I don’t believe many in the lower ranks ever know the upper echelons’ multitude of reasons why.

[Secret Agent Man]

I know that is the way a lot of disillusioned former military folks have been left feeling.

Do you really want the militray fighting wars for special interests, used to deflect attention off the latest political scandal of the president, and things “too big to fail”, or would you rather they fight when war is actually declared properly, there is a clear American interest defined, the mission parameters are defined, objectives are defined, and it’s clear and obvious to everyone how it protects the security of our nation. I mean that’s not too much to ask considering American soliders are going to be killed, is it?

[Retain Mike]

“I just thought it was something people were supposed to do.” Now that was my thought when I was finishing college and Vietnam was still on. I didn’t really want to go, but it was my turn. I didn’t really believe there was much to think about considering the type of men I had grown up around, so I volunteered for the Navy officer program since that service would have always been my first choice.

[ansel12]

Is that how you felt when you were in the military, like a “pawn” and a “merc”?

[kiryandil]

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.

And now Ramadi is gone...

[ansel12]

You can’t answer post 46 about how you felt in the military, in regards to your posts about the rest of us, and the war dead, being pawns and mercs, that you feel sorry for?

Which president did you enlist under?

[Jeff Chandler]

combat engineers.

My father was in the Combat Engineers. They would be routinely sent out as commandos on suicide missions, forging well beyond the front lines to fight the Germans and secure river beachheads, where they would build the bridges for the infantry to use when the front line caught up with them.

[DMZFrank]

Not so during WW II. The primary mission of the Armored Force was to exploit breakthroughs and dash for the enemies rear areas, as a mechanized substitute for the horse cavalry role. Their near simultaneous task was in the infantry support role by eliminating enemy gun emplacements , machine gun positions, light armored vehicles and soft targets of all types. This explains the ubiquitous Sherman tank, which was robust, mechanically reliable and mobile, with a main gun that had a good high explosive round, and a relatively weak anti-armor round.

The job of engaging enemy tanks was to be handled by TANK DESTROYER units, such as the fully tracked M-10 and M-36 Gun Motor carriages, and the towed 37 mm, 57 mm and 3 inch anti-tank guns.

In actual practice, the tank destroyers and tanks had their roles intermixed, often unsuitably if courageously performed. This was particularly true of the lightly armored gun motor carriages, which because they looked like tanks and could fire high explosives, led them to be USED as tanks when tanks werent available. The army abandoned the tank destroyer concept after the war and focused on a universal armored fighting vehicle known as the main battle tank to handle both roles.

[Secret Agent Man]

I am not saying the military folks feel they are mercs or pawns, I am saying that the people using them feel that way about them. How can you not grasp that? How are you unable to see that?

Seriously, man, what is wrong with you? What is seriously wrong with you? What is your major malfunction?

Given your confrontational attitude and your well-established ability to take things out of context, I have zero desire to talk to you about anything in my personal life.

[ansel12]

Let the billionaires and the major corptocracies put their businesspeople on the lines for their interests they want us soldiers to protect.

So you are still in the Army, or a veteran of the Army?

[Secret Agent Man]

Again you do not read what I write.

I told you I am not going to discuss my personal history with someone with your surly, argumentative personality. You only want to use anything I say to your benefit, against me. I imagine you’ll what I just wrote and twist it to whatever you want to say about me.

[ansel12]

Well, you already posted that you are in the Army, or used to be.

You won’t even say which president you served under?

[Secret Agent Man]

Exactly where did you see me post that?

[5th MEB]

That neighbor of yours kind of sounds like my father.
My father was with Third Army, 11th Armored at the Battle of The Bulge. The only thing he had to say about Patton was “He was an SOB, but he got things done”.
He did see the movie Patton with my mother, he said “there was a lot more snow than they showed in the movie”.
He hated snow until the day he died.
Only time he ever talked about the war was when I came home from Viet Nam, had to get him drunk as a skunk before he was willing to open up. Even then he just wanted to talk about the time him and his buddies drove their half-track into a barn with 2 walls and half the roof blown out, he said it was great not to have to sleep in the snow or the mud.

[ansel12]

Didn’t you read post 52? I quoted you.

[Secret Agent Man]

us == US (United States)

[Secret Agent Man]

us == US (United States)

I don’t talk street.

[ansel12]

So on Memorial day you do this to this thread and you refuse to even say if you served in the military.