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.”
Thanks for posting.
Dad was in the 27th ID. Fought at Saipan and was wounded at Okinawa. He’ll never be forgotten....
My Dad was in the 32nd Infantry Division in New Guinea. He carried a Thompson. He said New Guinea was the worst place on earth.
Sorry, I botched something in the HTML cut and paste. I’ll see if I can figure it out. In the meantime just check Captain Waskow + Ernie Pyle. It should be in several other places on the innerwebz. Well worth the read.
My dad served in Africa and the Pacific. He said men were trying to get to Europe to avoid the Pacific.
Except for Marines.
I was lucky enough to set foot on Ie Shima off of Okinawa where he was killed. There is a small memorial there for him.
They weren’t short of divisions, though only one (98th Inf. Div.) was not deployed into combat and another (2nd Cav. Div.) was inactivated overseas. The shortage was of infantrymen, most critically in Europe. In late 1944, Eisenhower directed the conversion of anti aircraft artillery (AAA) units into infantry units and canvased the entire theater for men to fill infantryman positions in the divisions.
He also began the long process of integrating the Army. In desperation, they organized and retrained Black service unit soldiers into infantry platoons (1st, 3rd, and 9th Armies) or companies (7th Army). The platoons were assigned to white companies, where they provided badly needed manpower and were generally very successful. The companies were less so, for a variety of reasons.
The experiment ended after the war, but the successful use of black soldiers began to erode the institutional resistance to integration. (There is a book about it on the CD I gave you a few years ago.)
Not true, the Germans were shooting 7.92mm and 88mm participation trophies at the troops.
Probably the best memoir ever written about tankers in WW II is Death Traps: The Survival of an American Armored Division in World War II by Belton Y. Cooper. I think you have to get that one.
I volunteered when the draft was still on, but the lottery was not in place yet so I didn’t know my probability of serving. However, after being around these men growing up I knew it was my turn.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.