U.S. 2nd Infantry Division

The 2nd Infantry Division (2ID, 2nd ID) ("Indianhead") is a formation of the United States Army. Since the 1960s, its primary mission has been the pre-emptive defense of South Korea in the event of an invasion from North Korea. Approximately 17,000 soldiers serve in the 2nd Infantry Division, with 10,000 stationed in South Korea, accounting for about 35% of the United States Forces Korea personnel. Known as the 2nd Infantry Division-ROK/U.S. Combined Division (2ID/RUCD), the division is bolstered by rotational Brigade Combat Teams (BCTs) from other U.S. Army divisions.Sgt. Raquel Villlalona, 2ID/RUCD Public Affair
(5 Nov 2018) 2ID Regimental Walk, A New Chapter
David Cho

The 2nd Infantry Division is unique as the only U.S. Army division to incorporate South Korean soldiers through the KATUSA (Korean Augmentation to the U.S. Army) program, which began in 1950 with the agreement of South Korean President Syngman Rhee. By the end of the Korean War, around 27,000 KATUSAs had served with U.S. forces. As of May 2006, roughly 1,100 KATUSA soldiers are assigned to 2ID. Between 1950 and 1954, over 4,748 Dutch soldiers also served with the division.

History

World War I

The 2nd Division was first constituted on 21 September 1917 in the Regular Army. It was organized on 26 October 1917 at Bourmont, Haute Marne, France.

Order of battle

* Headquarters, 2nd Infantry Division
* 3rd Infantry Brigade
** 9th Infantry Regiment
** 23rd Infantry Regiment
** 5th Machine Gun Battalion
* 4th Marine Brigade
** 5th Marine Regiment
** 6th Marine Regiment
** 6th Machine Gun Battalion
* 2nd Field Artillery Brigade
** 12th Field Artillery Regiment (75 mm)
** 15th Field Artillery Regiment (75 mm)
** 17th Field Artillery Regiment (155 mm)
** 2nd Trench Mortar Battery
* 4th Machine Gun Battalion
* 2nd Engineer Regiment
* 1st Field Signal Battalion
* Headquarters Troop, 2nd Division
* 2nd Train Headquarters and Military Police
** 2nd Ammunition Train
** 2nd Supply Train
** 2nd Engineer Train
** 2nd Sanitary Train
*** 1st, 15th, 16th, and 23rd Ambulance Companies and Field Hospitals

Twice during World War I the division was commanded by US Marine Corps generals, Brigadier General Charles A. Doyen and Major General John A. Lejeune (after whom the Marine Corps Camp in North Carolina is named), the only time in U.S. military history when Marine Corps officers commanded an Army division.

The division spent the winter of 1917–18 training with French and Scottish veterans. Though judged unprepared by French tacticians, the American Expeditionary Force (AEF) was committed to combat in the spring of 1918 in a desperate attempt to halt a German advance toward Paris. Major General Edward Mann Lewis Commanded the 3rd Brigade as they deployed to reinforce the battered French along the Paris to Metz road. The division first fought at the Battle of Belleau Wood and contributed to shattering the four-year-old stalemate on the battlefield during the Château-Thierry campaign that followed.

On 28 July 1918, Marine Corps Major General Lejeune assumed command of the 2nd Division and remained in that capacity until August 1919, when the unit returned to the US. The division went on to win hard-fought victories at Soissons and Blanc Mont. Finally the Indianhead Division participated in the Meuse-Argonne Offensive which ended any German hope for victory. On 11 November 1918 the Armistice was declared, and the 2nd Division entered Germany, where it assumed occupation duties until April 1919.

The 2nd Division was three times awarded the French Croix de guerre for gallantry under fire at Belleau Wood, Soissons, and Blanc Mont. This entitles current members of the division and of those regiments that were part of the division at that time (including the 5th and 6th Marine Regiments) to wear a special lanyard, or fourragère, in commemoration. The Navy authorized a special uniform change that allows hospital corpsmen assigned to 5th and 6th Marine Regiments to wear a shoulder strap on the left shoulder of their dress uniform so that the fourragère can be worn.

The division lost 1,964 (plus USMC: 4,478) killed in action and 9,782 (plus USMC: 17,752) wounded in action.

Major operations

* Third Battle of the Aisne
* Belleau Wood
* Château-Thierry campaign
* St. Mihiel
* Meuse-Argonne Offensive
* Aisne-Marne offensive
* Source for World War I data and information: United States Army Center of Military History, The Army Almanac: A Book of Facts Concerning the Army of the United States, U.S. Government Printing Office, 1950, pp. 510–592.

Interwar years

The 2nd Division arrived at Hoboken, New Jersey, on 3 August 1919 after completing 8 months of occupation duty near Koblenz, Heddesdorf, and Dierdorf, Germany. It moved to Camp Mills, New York, where all emergency period personnel were discharged from the service, and the 4th Marine Brigade was relieved from assignment to the division. It proceeded to Camp Travis, in San Antonio, Texas, on 16 August 1919 where it remained until Camp Travis was absorbed into Fort Sam Houston in 1922. The 4th Infantry Brigade (consisting of the 1st and 20th Infantry Regiments) was assigned to replace the 4th Marine Brigade in the division structure, and was activated in October 1920 at Camp Travis. The division was allotted to the Eighth Corps Area and the VIII Corps in 1921. The 2nd Division was the most combat-ready division stationed in the continental United States during most of the interwar period, given that the majority of the unit was stationed at a single post and the division headquarters staff was not allowed to atrophy like those of the 1st or 3rd Divisions, the other two nominally active stateside Regular Army divisions.

During the early post-World War I period, the division’s time was spent rebuilding and training on a limited scale. The slow pace left time for the division to assist Hollywood in making movies about the Army. Division units participated in Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer’s movie '' The Big Parade'' in May and June 1925 and in '' Wings'' in April 1926. By 1926, however, maneuver training of divisional units was becoming more frequent, leaving little time for movies. The maneuvers generally took place in May, before the division’s units assisted the training of Organized Reserve units, Citizens Military Training Camps (CMTC), and ROTC cadets during the summer. Typically, the division would deploy to Camp Bullis, Texas, or areas west of San Antonio, and perform field training, usually at company and battalion level. The division deployment would culminate in brigade-versus-brigade maneuvers near the end of the field training period.

After transfer of the 4th Infantry Brigade to Fort D.A. Russell, Wyoming (later renamed Fort Francis E. Warren), in 1927, the 1st Cavalry Division's 1st Cavalry Brigade began to road-march over from Fort Clark, Texas, to participate in combined arms maneuvers each May. Once the division maneuvers were complete, the division shifted to training the Reserve components. The 3rd Infantry Brigade usually trained Reserve officers of the 90th Division, Infantry CMTC, and ROTC cadets. Units of the 2nd Field Artillery Brigade trained the artillery officers of the 90th Division, the XVIII Corps, and several General Headquarters Reserve (GHQR) artillery units in the Eighth Corps Area. After transferring to Fort Francis E. Warren, the 4th Infantry Brigade conducted their maneuver training at the Pole Mountain Military Reservation where they also trained their affiliate Reserve units of the 104th Division. In 1936, the division participated in the Third Army command post exercise (CPX) at Camp Bullis to prepare army, corps, and division staffs for future large-scale army maneuvers. The next major training event for the division came in September 1937 when it participated in the Provisional Infantry Division (PID) tests at Camp Bullis. The “Indianhead” Division was temporarily reorganized with three regiments to test the concept of the “triangular” division. The exercise was apparently very successful as further tests were called for after analysis of the results by Army planners. The following year, units of the Eighth Corps Area including the 2nd Division were assembled at Camp Bullis for the Third Army maneuvers. In January 1939, the division was reorganized for the second time as a triangular division, this time for the Provisional 2nd Division (P2D) tests. These tests finalized the decision to adopt the new triangular organization for Regular Army divisions. As a result, in October 1939, the division’s 4th Infantry Brigade was disbanded, the 1st and 20th Infantry Regiments were relieved from assignment, and the 38th Infantry Regiment was assigned to the division to make its transition to the triangular concept complete.

In May 1940, the “Indianhead” Division deployed to the vicinity of Horton, Texas, to train under the new organization in preparation for the next Third Army maneuver. The 1940 Third Army maneuvers were held in west-central Louisiana in August 1940 and were primarily performed with the Regular Army and National Guard divisions stationed in the Fourth and Eighth Corps Areas. After the exercises in Louisiana, the “Indianhead” Division returned to Fort Sam Houston. The following June, the division moved to Brownwood, Texas, to participate in the VIII Corps maneuver held there that month. In August 1941, the division, now redesignated as the 2nd Infantry Division, returned to the Louisiana Maneuver Area for the GHQ maneuvers between the Second and Third Armies, after which it returned to its home station.

On 27 July 1942, the division was again transferred to the Louisiana Maneuver Area, remaining there until 22 September 1942, whereupon the formation again returned to Fort Sam Houston. It then moved to Camp McCoy at Sparta, Wisconsin, on 27 November 1942. Four months of intensive training for winter warfare followed. In September 1943 the division received its staging orders, and moved to the Camp Shanks staging area at Orangeburg, New York on 3 October 1943, where it received port call orders. On 8 October the division officially sailed from the New York Port of Embarkation, and started arriving in Belfast, Northern Ireland on 17 October. It then moved to England, where it trained and staged for forward movement to France.

World War II

Assignments in European Theater of Operations

# 22 October 1943: Attached to First Army
# 24 December 1943: XV Corps, but attached to First Army
# 14 April 1944: V Corps, First Army
# 1 August 1944: V Corps, First Army, 12th Army Group
# 17 August 1944: XIX Corps
# 18 August 1944: VIII Corps, Third Army, 12th Army Group
# 5 September 1944: VIII Corps, Ninth Army, 12th Army Group
# 22 October 1944: VIII Corps, First Army, 12th Army Group
# 11 December 1944: V Corps
# 20 December 1944: Attached, with the entire First Army, to the British 21st Army Group
# 18 January 1945: V Corps, First Army, 12th Army Group
# 28 April 1945: VII Corps
# 1 May 1945: V Corps
# 6 May 1945: Third Army, 12th Army Group

Narrative

After training in Northern Ireland and Wales from October 1943 to June 1944, the 2nd Infantry Division crossed the channel to land on Omaha Beach on D plus 1 (7 June 1944) near Saint-Laurent-sur-Mer, however around 150 men from the 9th & 23rd Infantry Regiments and 2nd Combat Engineer Battalion volunteered to assist the operations of the Special Engineer Task Force and their Operations on June 6th, these men were disperse into the various Assault Gap Teams of the 146th & 299th Combat Engineer Battalions and landed with them at H-Plus 3 at Omaha Beach.

23rd Regimental Headquarters, and Headquarters Company along with M.P. Platoon, A.T. Company, Cannon Company, Medical Detachment, 1st, 2d, 3d Bn. landed on Easy White beach, from an L.C.I., at 2355 hours, 8 June 1944, right on scheduled time. The regimental command post (C.P.) was setup in the town of St. Laurent Sur-Mer, France. They would be placed in division reserve until heavy weapons and vehicles would arrive.

On 9 June, as part of V Corps, spearheaded by the 2nd Division and joined with the 1st Division on their left and the 29th Division on their right assembled for an attack on Trevieres. They were opposed by the German units of the 513th Schnelle Bn, 352d Inf. Div., 17th SS Panzer Div., and 30th Schnelle Brigade. Enemy concentration was reported to be generally south and southeast of the town.

Attacking across the Aure River on 10 June, the division liberated Trévières and proceeded to assault and secure Hill 192, a key enemy strong point on the road to Saint-Lo. After three weeks of fortifying the position and by order of Commanding General Walter M. Robertson, the order was given to take Hill 192. On 11 July under the command of Col. Ralph Wise Zwicker the 38th Infantry Regiment and with the 9th and the 23rd by his side the battle began at 5:45am. Using an artillery concept from World War I ( rolling barrage) and with the support of 25,000 rounds of HE/WP that were fired by 8 artillery battalions, the hill was taken. Except for three days during the Battle of the Bulge, this was the heaviest expenditure of ammunition by the 38th Field Artillery Battalion, and it was the only time during the 11 months of combat that 2nd Division artillery used a rolling barrage. The division went on the defensive until 26 July. After exploiting the Saint-Lo breakout, the 2nd Division then advanced across the Vire to take Tinchebray on 15 August 1944. The division then raced toward Brest, the heavily defended port fortress that was a major port for German U-boats. After 39 days of fighting the Battle for Brest was won, and was the first place the Army Air Forces used bunker busting bombs.

The division took a brief rest 19–26 September before moving to defensive positions at St. Vith, Belgium on 29 September 1944. The division entered Germany on 3 October 1944, and was ordered, on 11 December 1944, to attack and seize the Roer River dams. The German Ardennes offensive in mid-December forced the division to withdraw to defensive positions near Elsenborn Ridge, where the German drive was halted. In February 1945 the division attacked, recapturing lost ground, and seized Gemund, 4 March. Reaching the Rhine on 9 March, the division advanced south to take Breisig, 10–11 March, and to guard the Remagen bridge, 12–20 March.

The division crossed the Rhine on 21 March and advanced to Hadamar and Limburg an der Lahn, relieving elements of the 9th Armored Division, 28 March. Advancing rapidly in the wake of the 9th Armored, the 2nd Infantry Division crossed the Weser at Veckerhagen, 6–7 April, captured Göttingen 8 April, established a bridgehead across the Saale, 14 April, seizing Merseburg on 15 April. On 18 April the division took Leipzig, mopped up in the area, and outposted the Mulde River; elements which had crossed the river were withdrawn 24 April. Relieved on the Mulde, the 2nd moved 200 miles, 1–3 May, to positions along the German-Czech border near Schönsee and Waldmünchen, where 2 ID relieved the 97th and 99th IDs. The division crossed over to Czechoslovakia on 4 May 1945, and attacked in the general direction of Pilsen, attacking that city on VE Day. The division lost 3,031 killed in action, 12,785 wounded in action, and 457 died of wounds.

The 2nd Infantry Division returned to the New York Port of Embarkation on 20 July 1945, and arrived at Camp Swift at Bastrop, Texas on 22 July 1945. They started a training schedule to prepare them to participate in the scheduled invasion of Japan, but they were still at Camp Swift on VJ Day. They then moved to the staging area at Camp Stoneman at Pittsburg, California on 28 March 1946, but the move eastward was canceled, and they received orders to move to Fort Lewis at Tacoma, Washington. They arrived at Fort Lewis on 15 April 1946, which became their home station. From their Fort Lewis base, they conducted Arctic, air transportability, amphibious, and maneuver training.

Campaign participation credit

* Normandy
* Northern France
* Rhineland
* Ardennes-Alsace
* Central Europe
* Days of combat: 303

Casualties

*Total battle casualties: 16,795Army Battle Casualties and Nonbattle Deaths (Statistical and Accounting Branch, Office of the Adjutant General, 1 June 1953
*Killed in action: 3,031
*Wounded in action: 12,785
*Missing in action: 193
*Prisoner of war: 786

Awards and decorations

* Medals of Honor: 6
* Distinguished Service Crosses: 34
* Distinguished Service Medals: 1
* Silver Stars: 741
* Legions of Merit: 25
* Soldier's Medals: 14
* Bronze Stars: 5,530
* Air Medals: 89
* Distinguished Unit Citations: 16

Korean War

With the outbreak of hostilities in Korea on 25 June 1950, the 2nd Infantry Division was quickly alerted for movement to the Far East Command and assignment to the Eighth United States Army

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