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.”
Always a wise idea on Free Republic. Thanks for your insightful posts on this thread. Good After-Memorial Day to you, SAM. :)
German general Kesselring, speaking of the 36th Division, Texas Army Reserve, described them as the best American division he had faced in the war, with the exception of the 45th Division, Oklahoma National Guard.
Thanks again for your service, and I'm sorry if I stepped on your toes.
No comment to you, except have a good day.
Haven’t you been here long enough to know you don’t argue with the conspiracy crackpots?
I don’t know why you sound so strange about the mention of these divisions, it’s just routine military history, I don’t get how it sounds so personal to you.
I know that Kesslering mentioned the 3rd and the 36th, but what did he say about the 45th, it’s natural to ask.
The 36th is Army National Guard, not reserves.
No, this internet thing always sucks me in, I just can’t get it in my head that these troll types will go on forever playing games. In real life I can see it quickly and move on, but in print, I seem to keep thinking that they can be talked to.
I think this Secret Agent Man has never been in the military, but obviously wants to leave everyone thinking that he has been.
His work as a secret agent must be where he gets all his insider information.
No one asked him to discuss his personal history.
If they really believed in these secret cabals of unlimited power, they wouldn’t be talking about it on the internet. The shadowy agents of the Illuminati would have already taken them to the re-education camps long before now. So I think it is just a game.
Hitler started Germany down the path of WW2 by convincing the German people that shadowy forces, which included powerful bankers, conspired against them.
I spent yesterday with my wife’s uncle who was wounded in Saipan.
My neighbor once said “he was an SOB, but he was OUR SOB”.
He also said Patton had the habit of showing up at the oddest times. Seemed he ran 3rd army from his jeep.
Anytime the General saw a small group of infantrymen he would talk to them about the chow, ammo situation and mail
I don’t recall him ever telling me his unit, all I know is he was a rifleman. I remember seeing scars on his shoulder, he was wounded twice, but never stayed in the hospital.
I seem to remember he didn’t think much of Bradley either.
Well, no one, except for you:
ansel12 wrote: "So you are still in the Army, or a veteran of the Army?
Where I come from, that's asking to discuss someone's personal history.
Why are you trolling him, ansel? I generally like your posts, but you have a bee in your bonnet on this thread.
No, that isn’t a discussion of his personal history.
That was a question about his using “us soldiers”.
This was a military thread on Memorial day and that troll got on here to trash it and tell us that he is sorry for we veterans and that we are pawns.
I think he never served at all and yet refused to admit it and wants to leave the impression that he did.
Asking if someone served in the military is not a “discussion” of their personal life, and especially in the context of this anti-military troll’s posting on this thread.
Yes or no to an honorable discharge, is not a discussion of one’s personal life.
I was spot on in post 21, your jumping in to back him is the mystery, not me wanting to know if he served in the military.
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