Before 'Special Snowflakes' and participation trophies.
Posted on 11/11/2016 8:52:37 AM PST 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 the most chaotic, barbaric, and brittle existence against extraordinary enemies where victory often required actions well 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, though large numbers were transferred from Army Service Forces and Army Air Forces to Army Ground Forces. Replacement centers overseas 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. and 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.”
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
National 4th Infantry (IVY) Division Association http://www.4thinfantry.org/content/division-history
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.”
As a young boy though, they seemed common men who behaved as if they had experienced an ordinary rite of passage. My most often contact 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 permanently debilitated by sickness. I remember one fairly good golfer who had kind of a weird back swing. I found out he was crippled while serving with the Big Red One in Sicily. My Economics professor in college served with one of the first UDT teams clearing barricades and mines in the surf zone before Pacific landings. I often ended up as a dishwasher at Michelbook Country Club and noticed the chef always limped as he moved around the kitchen. He saw my puzzled look, and 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 others I could tell or have forgotten.
I remain amazed how certain infantry divisions could be chosen repeatedly for initial assaults where they incurred terrible casualties. The corps and army commanders had favorites and somehow division staffs responded to reconstitute and retrain the rifle platoons every few weeks without losing the quality of the assault forces. It seems other divisions were usually sent to less active sectors, entered combat later in time, or occupied a flank in an attack. Again, these were the most ordinary of men, so I keep hearing Aaron Copland’s Fanfare for the Common Man as I read the narratives for this essay.
This is absolutely wonderful.
A bit off topic.
My father was a Sherman tank driver for Patton. When he finally talked about the war itself, it was simply a matter of fact. But, it was a lesson I learned the history books are not always right, and many times they whitewash what really happened.
He passed in 2010, I have his locker, and it’s a fantastic treasure trove of this traumatic yet important chapter of his life. Letters, photographs, ration books, etc.
I graduated from high school after the draft ended, but felt compelled to serve in the military for this country. I felt compelled because I love this country and my dad. I have little respect for people of my age or younger who never served. I imagine a huge percentage of gentlemen on FR have served. and thanks to you.
Thanks so much Mike, for sharing this with us. My Dad is still kicking at age 99. I’m taking to the Vet’s Parade later today. He served in the Pacific Theater.
Before 'Special Snowflakes' and participation trophies.
I loved the Mauldin cartoons growing up.
Some of my favorites, one was “I can’t get any lower, Wille, me buttons is in the way!”. Another one, they are clinging to boulders on a cliff and some one yells, “Get Down!”
Bedford, in VA, suffered casualty loses that morning that no community had seen in one day since the Civil War.
Amazing people. Millions just quietly suffered years of the worst tragedies of modern war and the survivors just quietly came home. This nation needs to remember that sacrifice as long as the US survives.
never get tired of videos like that....
God Bless my fellow Grunts!!!
http://mediaschool.indiana.edu/erniepyle/1944/01/10/the-death-of-captain-waskow/
The Death of the Ball Turret Gunner
From my mother’s sleep I fell into the State,
And I hunched in its belly till my wet fur froze.
Six miles from earth, loosed from its dream of life,
I woke to black flak and the nightmare fighters.
When I died they washed me out of the turret with a hose.
— Randall Jarrell
Miss you, Dad.
Give your Dad a hug. We are blessed to have them.
I have a very clear memory of reading that poem in middle school. The last line made a stark impression on my young mind.
Dad hit Omaha Beach in 1944, wounded, Purple Heart. Died in 1990 after VA medicos missed his cancer too long and he went terminal.
Was proud to follow him as an 11Bravo in 1966, 101st Airborne then 199th Light Infantry AirMobile, Tet 1968.
Infantry rules!
Can you recheck your link? It’s not working for me and I’d very much like to see this video. Thanks, T_J
My Dad was in the 88th/351st (Blue Devils) Army Infantry in
N. Africa, Italy, Germany - shell-shocked all to hell -
flashbacks to the battle in Laiatico, Italy the rest of his
life. - I miss him, too. He passed away going on 82 yrs. old
in 2002. (I would not call him back into this vale of
tears, though, even if I could.)
Ernie Pyle was shot dead by a Japanese sniper.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ernie_Pyle
I don’t have the figures in front of me, but the US Army Ground Forces were very short of divisions at the end of the war. Conversely IIRC we had excess aviation units.
At the beginning of the war the army guessed wrong on how many of each they would need.
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