Posted on 11/11/2014 6:04:22 PM 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 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.”
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
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.
I guess the Infantry is what is often now called “the tip of the spear”. In WWII I think the armor was also one of the first if not the first in combat.
Daddy was in the Combat Engineers. I have noticed that former infantrymen always speak highly of them.
“The Army deployed 65 infantry divisions for the Second World War.”
The single most staggering statistic I have learned this veterans day, or in a long time for that matter.
To the guys who were a little before my time, but taught me much... thank you and Happy Veterans Day:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JUTQExmJ2qw
I’ve never seen anyone spam with a thread so many times, what is this, the fifth thread of your vanity?
BUMP!
As an old infantry officer, I found this a good read. Thank you.
Yours is a unique response compared to the 30 or more who found this essay a fitting tribute to the “Queen of Battle” on Veterans Day, and to the many who would have missed the insights found here if I had posted it only once.
Posting your vanity five times so far, that is unique.
Incredible.
That's nothing - you've disrupted over five hundred threads with your OCD to protect the MSM propaganda monopoly.
Now that is one wild and crazy post that makes no sense at all, I wonder what liberal positions you take that I must have challenged you on in the past, to create this personal grudge in you.
Your right, I mistook you for humblegunner. My apologies.
But jeez, you didn't have to call me a liberal ;)
Well thanks, I was baffled by that one.
ROFLOL!!!!
Pics from the Past of WWII- It is amazing the difference in 70 years.
HOLD AND DRAG YOUR MOUSE ARROW GENTLY FROM LEFT TO RIGHT ON THE ORIGINAL 1944 PHOTOS AND IT WILL BECOME THE EXACT SAME LOCATION TODAY .... DRAG IT BACK OVER AND YOU ARE IN 1944 AGAIN. Then scroll down for next photo.
.
http://interactive.guim.co.uk/embed/2014/apr/image-opacity-slider-master/index.html?ww2-dday
Now this is great. Thanks for posting.
Glad to do it.
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