•
Ordered into active military service: 15 September 1942 at
Camp Maxey,
Texas •
Overseas: 12 September 1944 •
Campaigns:
Rhineland,
Central Europe •
Days of combat: 173 •
Distinguished Unit Citations: 4 •
Awards:
DSC-8;
DSM-1;
SS-686; LM-15; SM-39; BSM-5,498; AM-91. •
Commanders: Major General
John B. Anderson (September 1942 – December 1943), Major General
Frank A. Keating (8 January 1944 – February 1946), Brigadier General Charles M. Busbee (February 1946 to inactivation). •
Assistant Division Commanders (partial list):
Lloyd D. Brown (May 1942 – February 1943),
Alonzo Patrick Fox (April 1943 – May 1945) •
Returned to U.S.: 11 March 1946. •
Inactivated: 23 March 1946.
Order of battle Before Organized Reserve infantry divisions were ordered into active military service, they were reorganized on paper as "triangular" divisions under the 1940 tables of organization. The headquarters companies of the two infantry brigades were consolidated into the division's cavalry reconnaissance troop, and one infantry regiment was removed by inactivation. The field artillery brigade headquarters and headquarters battery became the headquarters and headquarters battery of the division artillery. Its three field artillery regiments were reorganized into four battalions; one battalion was taken from each of the two 75 mm gun regiments to form two 105 mm howitzer battalions, the brigade's ammunition train was reorganized as the third 105 mm howitzer battalion, and the 155 mm howitzer battalion was formed from the 155 mm howitzer regiment. The engineer, medical, and quartermaster regiments were reorganized into battalions. In 1942, divisional quartermaster battalions were split into ordnance light maintenance companies and quartermaster companies, and the division's headquarters and military police company, which had previously been a combined unit, was split. The 408th Infantry Regiment was inactivated by relief of remaining Reserve personnel on 6 January 1942, and disbanded on 11 November 1944. • Headquarters, 102nd Infantry Division • 405th Infantry Regiment • 406th Infantry Regiment • 407th Infantry Regiment • Headquarters and Headquarters Battery, 102nd Infantry Division Artillery • 379th Field Artillery Battalion (105 mm) • 380th Field Artillery Battalion (105 mm) • 381st Field Artillery Battalion (155 mm) • 927th Field Artillery Battalion (105 mm) • 327th Engineer Combat Battalion • 327th Medical Battalion • 102nd Cavalry Reconnaissance Troop (Mechanized) • Headquarters, Special Troops, 102nd Infantry Division • Headquarters Company, 102nd Infantry Division • 802nd Ordnance Light Maintenance Company • 102nd Quartermaster Company • 102nd Signal Company • Military Police Platoon • Band • 102nd Counterintelligence Corps Detachment
Combat chronicle The 102nd Infantry Division, under the command of
Major General Frank A. Keating, arrived on the
Western Front in the
European Theater of Operations (ETO) at
Cherbourg,
France, 23 September 1944, and, after a short period of training near
Valognes, moved to the German-
Netherlands border. On 26 October, elements attached to other divisions entered combat and on 3 November the division assumed responsibility for the sector from the
Wurm to
Waurichen. A realignment of sectors and the return of elements placed the 102nd in full control of its units for the first time, 24 November 1944, as it prepared for an attack to the
Roer. The attack jumped off, 29 November, and carried the division to the river through Welz, Flossdorf, and
Linnich. After a period of aggressive patrolling along the Roer, 4–19 December, the division took over the
XIII Corps sector from the Wurm River, north of the village of Wurm, to
Barmen on the south, and trained for river crossing. On 23 February 1945, the 102d attacked across the Roer (
Operation Grenade), advanced toward Lövenich and
Erkelenz, bypassed
Mönchengladbach, took
Krefeld, 3 March, and reached the
Rhine. During March the division was on the defensive along the Rhine, its sector extending from
Homburg south to
Düsseldorf. Crossing the river on 9 April on pontoon bridge, the division attacked in the
Wesergebirge, meeting stiff opposition. After 3 days and nights of terrific enemy resistance Wilsede and
Hessisch-Oldendorf fell, 12 April 1945, and the 102d pushed on to the
Elbe, meeting little resistance.
Breitenfeld fell, 15 April, and the division outposted the Elbe River, 48 miles from Berlin, its advance halted on orders.
Storkau experienced fighting on the 16th, EHRA on the 21st along with
Fallersleben. On 3 May 1945 the 102nd shook hands with the Russian
156th Division just outside Berlin. On 15 April the division discovered a war crime in
Gardelegen: the
Isenschnibbe Barn Atrocity. About 1,200 prisoners from the
Mittelbau-Dora and Hannover-Stöcken concentration camps were forced from a train into an empty barn measuring approximately a hundred by fifty feet on the outskirts of the town. The barn was then set afire, killing those inside. About 1,016 people were killed. However, two men survived, buried under a shield of dead bodies, protecting them from the gunfire and flames. When the first soldiers arrived at the barn, the two came crawling out from under the dead and burning bodies. Major General Keating ordered that the nearby civilian population be forced to view the site and to disinter and rebury the victims in a new cemetery. After digging the graves and burying the bodies, they erected a Christian Cross or a Jewish Star of David over each grave and enclosed the site with a white fence. Today both the former crime scene and the Cemetery of Honour are parts of the Isenschnibbe Barn Memorial Gardelegen. The division patrolled and maintained defensive positions until the end of hostilities in Europe, then moved to
Gotha for occupation duty.
Casualties •
Total battle casualties: 4,922 •
Killed in action: 932 •
Wounded in action: 3,668 •
Missing in action: 185 •
Prisoners of war: 137
Assignments in the European Theater of Operations • 28 August 1944:
Ninth Army,
12th Army Group. • 5 September 1944:
III Corps. • 10 October 1944:
XVI Corps. • 3 November 1944:
XIX Corps. • 7 November 1944:
XIII Corps. • 20 December 1944: XIII Corps, Ninth Army (attached to the
British 21st Army Group), 12th Army Group. • 1 April 1945: XIII Corps (for administration), Ninth Army, but attached for operations to the
Fifteenth Army. • 4 April 1945: XIII Corps, Ninth Army, 12th Army Group. == Post-war History (1946–1965) ==