5th Infantry Division (United States)

The 5th Infantry Division (Mechanized)—nicknamed the "Red Diamond", or the "Red Devils" —was an infantry division of the United States Army that served in World War I, World War II and the Vietnam War, and with NATO and the U.S. Army III Corps. It was inactivated on 24 November 1992 and reflagged as the 2nd Armored Division.

World War I

Organization

Units associated with the division included:

The Fifth Division (Regular) was organized in December 1917, with headquarters at Camp Logan, Houston, Texas, as a part of the program for the expansion of the armed forces for service in World War 1. No specific date was designated for the division's activation but the initial personnel assigned to the division had a reporting date of December 1.

* Headquarters, 5th Division
* 9th Infantry Brigade
** 60th Infantry Regiment
** 61st Infantry Regiment
** 14th Machine Gun Battalion
*10th Infantry Brigade
** 6th Infantry Regiment
** 11th Infantry Regiment
** 15th Machine Gun Battalion
* 5th Field Artillery Brigade
** 19th Field Artillery Regiment (75 mm)
** 20th Field Artillery Regiment (75 mm)
** 21st Field Artillery Regiment (155 mm)
** 5th Trench Mortar Battery
* 13th Machine Gun Battalion
* 7th Engineer Regiment
* 9th Field Signal Battalion
* Headquarters Troop, 5th Division
* 5th Train Headquarters and Military Police
** 5th Ammunition Train
** 5th Supply Train
** 5th Engineer Train
** 5th Sanitary Train
*** 17th, 25th, 29th, and 30rd Ambulance Companies and Field Hospitals

The 5th Division was activated on 11 December 1917, just over eight months after the American entry into World War I, at Camp Logan, near Houston, Texas and began training for deployment to the Western Front.''Order of Battle of the United States Land Forces in the World War'', Center of Military History 1988 The first general officer (Major General Charles Henry Muir) assumed command- - as the activation date of the division. The organization was a "square" division (i.e., there were four infantry regiments) with an authorized strength of 28, 105 personnel

The entire division had arrived in France by 1 May 1918 and components of the units were deployed into the front line. The 5th Division was the eighth of forty-two American divisions to arrive on the Western Front. The 5th Division trained with French Army units from 1 to 14 June 1918. The first soldiers of the unit to be killed in action died on 14 June of that year. Among the division's first casualties was Captain Mark W. Clark, then commanding the 3rd Battalion, 11th Infantry Regiment, who would later become a four-star general. On 12 September, the unit was part of a major attack that reduced the salient at St. Mihiel. The division later fought in the Meuse-Argonne Offensive, the largest battle fought by the American Expeditionary Force (AEF) (and the largest in the history of the U.S. Army) in World War I. The war ended soon after, on November 11, 1918. The division served in the Army of Occupation, being based in Belgium and Esch-sur-Alzette, Luxembourg until it departed Europe. The division returned to the United States through the New York Port of Embarkation at Hoboken, New Jersey, on 21 July 1919.

Insignia

The 5th Division adopted a red diamond as its shoulder sleeve insignia. The color red was selected in honor of World War I commander John E. McMahon, who was a member of the Army's Field Artillery branch. The diamond shape was chosen in recognition of the Diamond Dyes company, a maker of fabric coloring products whose ad slogan "It Never Runs" conveyed a martial meaning during war. The shape of the diamond in the 5th Division's insignia represents strength, because in bridge construction the trusses that provide the greatest durability are mutually supporting isosceles triangles.

Interwar period

The 5th Division was stationed at Camp Gordon, Georgia until October 1920. After that date, it was stationed at Camp Jackson, South Carolina. On 4 October 1921 the 5th Division was inactivated due to funding cuts, but was represented in the Regular Army by its even-numbered infantry brigade (the 10th) and select supporting elements. The division headquarters was placed on the Regular Army Inactive list and staffed by Organized Reserve personnel. On 1 September 1927, the division headquarters was removed from the inactive list and ordered to cease operations; in August 1936, it was provisionally activated at Fort Knox, Kentucky, to control the 10th Infantry Brigade and the West Virginia Army National Guard's 201st Infantry Regiment for the Second Army's Maneuvers.

World War II

On 16 October 1939, the 5th Division was reactivated as part of the United States mobilization in response to the outbreak of World War II in Europe the previous month, being formed at Fort McClellan, Alabama, under the command of Brigadier General Campbell Hodges.

The following spring, in 1940, the division was sent to Fort Benning, Georgia and then temporarily to Louisiana for training exercises, before being transferred to Fort Benjamin Harrison at the end of May 1940. That December the division relocated to Fort Custer, Michigan, from where it participated in the Tennessee maneuvers. The division went next to Camp Joseph T. Robinson, Arkansas, in August 1941 for staging into both the Arkansas and Louisiana maneuvers before returning to Fort Custer that October. The division, under the command of Major General Cortlandt Parker from August, was stationed there when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor and Germany declared war on the United States in December 1941, thus bringing the United States into the conflict. As the winter passed the division was brought up to strength and fully equipped for forward deployment into a war zone. During April 1942, the 5th Division received its overseas orders and departed the New York Port of Embarkation (NYPOE) at the end of the month for Iceland. The 5th Division debarked there in May 1942, where it replaced the British garrison on the island outpost along the Atlantic convoy routes and a year later was reorganized and re-designated as the 5th Infantry Division on 24 May 1943.

Normandy

The 5th Infantry Division, now commanded by Major General Stafford LeRoy Irwin, left Iceland in early August 1943 and was sent to England to prepare and train for the eventual invasion of Northwest Europe, then scheduled for the spring of 1944. Upon arrival in England the 5th Division was stationed at Tidworth Barracks, Wiltshire in South West England, before moving to Northern Ireland.

After two years of training the 5th ID landed in Normandy on Utah Beach, on 9 July 1944, over a month after the initial D-Day landings, and four days later took up defensive positions in the vicinity of Caumont-l'Éventé

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