The Magnificent Infantry of WW II

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 extraordinary 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, malaria, arthritis, etc. Most never returned to duty. In the jungles of the Pacific, non-combat losses exacted an even 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.”

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.)

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

National 4th Infantry (IVY) Division Association http://www.4thinfantry.org/content/division-history

I wrote this letter and Op-Ed 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 could relate or 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 the 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.

There is a very accurate portrayal of interaction between experienced and replacement soldiers shown in the Audie Murphy Biopic "To Hell and Back", 1955. One of the new comers asks a corporal why the unit sergeant (Audie Murphy) was so cold and distant to he and the other new soldiers. The corporal bluntly explained that it was too painful to make friends when the new guys only lasted a couple of weeks before getting wounded or killed. If they lasted long enough to become experienced, then they could become friends.

My father thought this movie about WW2's most decorated soldier was one of the few that was more accurate than not. He cited this scene several times as reflecting how he felt during those days of WW2.

In memorium: AHS, Col. USA (ret) WW2, Korea & Vietnam, LoM, SS, BS(3), PH(4) CIB(2). He got his first PH 71 years ago today with the 45th ID (Thunderbirds) in Italy. Miss you Dad!

For every 60 days in Battle in WW 2 you had 100% Infantry casualties, new guys, replacements took the brunt.

These numbers seem to be constant across armies, American, British, and German. I was with the 25th Division in Nam between 1966 and some time after I left in 1968 we took over 60,000 casualties.

To be a causality meant you received treatment for an injury battle related or not.

This morning, I watched the televised Remembrance Day ceremonies from the National Cenotaph in Ottawa. It was especially poignant in light of the two ‘home-grown’ terrorist attacks of two weeks ago, the latter, starting at the Cenotaph. PM Harper cut short his visit to the APEC summit in Beijing, to be at the Cenotaph for Remembrance Day ceremonies. The realization that this year’s ‘Silver Cross’ mother, who lays a wreathe for the ‘Mothers of Canada’, whose son was killed by an IED in Afghanistan, was slightly younger than me, was a little disconcerting.

I can recall as a little boy, the ‘Silver Cross’ mother each Remembrance Day, was a little 90+, sometimes 100+ year old white-haired granny, who had lost multiple sons in WW1. A few years later, the scene changed. Instead she was usually a little 80+ year old white-haired granny who had lost multiple sons at places like Hong Kong, Dieppe, Normandy and the Scheldt in WW2, or in Korea. Now, it’s mothers who are about my age, who have lost sons or daughters fighting the scourge that is ‘true’ islam.

Of course there are no more WW1 vets left to march past after the Act of Remembrance, and few WW2 or Korean vets. Now, many of the vets marching past are wearing the blue UN berets. In a few years it will be the turn of veterans of Afghanistan and the upcoming war defending against islam, to march past on Remembrance Day.

Altogether those 81 assault units comprised but 3,240 men in a division of 14,000…

This was pretty much true of all armies. One of the big problems the Germans had was that Hitler insisted new recruits be formed into new divisions, while starving the veteran front line units of replacements. He also gave the new units the best equipment, leaving the veteran units to make do with old worn out stuff. It wasn't uncommon on the Russian front for divisions of 10,000 to have fewer than a couple hundred combat troops on the front line, and be expected to hold ten kilometers of the line. They had the support structure of a full division, but not even a battalion of combat strength.

Nice post!!

My pop served in WWII. A Marine in the Pacific....he was a gunner on a ship. Commanded a few men...

Did some police action...some secret stuff.

Never talked about it much....Ended up training guy's in weapons at Camp Pendleton...during the Korean War. Not a D.S. but close to one...I'd guess. Ha!!

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