Louisiana Maneuvers The fall of France in June 1940 injected urgency into their training operations, and on 27 August 1940, Congress authorized inducting the National Guard into federal service. Eighteen National Guard divisions were activated, including the 32nd. On 16 September 1940 Congress authorized the first peacetime draft in United States history. During the summer of 1941, the division moved to
Camp Beauregard, Louisiana, as part in the
Third and
Fourth Army maneuvers—nicknamed the
Louisiana Maneuvers—which provided the army high command a good look at the preparedness of the division. The first test, which was held in the vicinity of
Camp Beauregard, was conducted 16–27 June and included the 32nd Division as well as the
37th Division from
Ohio. From 16–30 August, the maneuvers expanded to include the
34th and
38th Divisions. During September, the largest maneuvers were held with the
Seventh Corps of the
Second Army, opposing the
Fourth,
Fifth, and
Eighth Corps of the
Third Army. The Grand Rapids Guard was part of the Fifth Corps. It was the largest maneuver of its kind in the history of the Army and included some 100,000 men. National Guard units were at the time not required to serve active duty outside of the western hemisphere and draftees were inducted for a maximum of one year of service. But on 7 August 1941, by a margin of a single vote, Congress approved an indefinite extension of service for the guard, draftees, and reserve officers, including the Red Arrow Division. During January and February 1942, the division lost one of its infantry regiments when, like all U.S. Army divisions, its "square" infantry division structure was reorganized into a
triangular organization, centered on three instead of four infantry regiments. It was left with the
126th Infantry Regiment,
127th Infantry Regiment, and the
128th Infantry Regiment. The three existing artillery regiments (120th, 121st and 126th) were converted into four separate battalions (120th, 121st, 126th and 129th), and supporting units. The rest of the division was to have three months to prepare for embarkation to the
front in Europe. However,
Japan had rapidly advanced into the South Pacific, progressively occupying an increasing number of islands. Japan was evidently intent on cutting Australia off from its American supply lines, and Australia feared that Japan was planning to invade. Prime Minister
John Curtin demanded the Allies release Australian troops from the
Mediterranean and North Africa front to defend their home. The United States initially sent the
41st Infantry Division, less one regiment, from where it was training at
Fort Lewis, Washington. The 41st Division arrived in Melbourne on 6 April 1942. Though the Allies released the Australian
6th and
7th Divisions, the
9th could not be spared. In a compromise, the 32nd was notified on 25 March, less than six weeks after Harding was placed in command, to turn around and ship out west to the Pacific instead. Harding was told the entire unit was to be ready to board ships in San Francisco in only three weeks. Implementing these orders cost the division's preparedness a great deal. The 35th Division, in lieu of an aborted mission to the Philippines to reinforce American forces there, was designated to replace the 32nd Division for eventual shipment to England. The
114th Engineer Combat Battalion was hurriedly assigned to replace the 107th Engineers, who were already in the middle of the Atlantic bound for Ireland. The division boarded 13 freight trains and 25 passenger trains at Fort Devens near Boston on 9 April 1942 and arrived five days later in
Oakland, California. Portions of the unit were then transported by bus to Pier 7 in San Francisco, where they boarded the U.S. Army ferry for
Angel Island in San Francisco Bay, which was utilized by the Army as
Fort McDowell. The remainder were housed at
Fort Ord near
Monterey, California, at the Dog Track Pavilion in
Emeryville and at the
Cow Palace, where the men slept uncomfortably in stadium chairs and in horse stalls. A monument to the dog still exists at the former entrance to Camp Cable. After a stop in Auckland, New Zealand, the ships entered a zone where two freighters had been sunk by Japanese submarines in recent days. The soldiers stayed fully dressed and wide eyed for the two days to Sydney. Taking a southerly route to avoid the Japanese Navy, they arrived in southern Australia at
Port Adelaide on 14 May 1942, having traveled in 23 days. They were the first American division in World War II to be moved in a single convoy from the United States to the front lines. The division did not begin training again for several weeks.
Japanese assault on Port Moresby The
Battle of Coral Sea in early May followed by the Allied victory at the
Battle of Midway in early June foiled Japan's plans to capture Port Moresby by sea. The Japanese were undaunted. A Japanese convoy conveyed Maj. Gen.
Tomitarō Horii with about 4,400 troops onto the beach at Gona during the night of 21–22 July 1942 on the north-eastern shore of Papua New Guinea. They proceeded inland to Popondetta and then south-westward onto the
Kokoda Trail with the object of capturing
Port Moresby. By 13 August, the Japanese had landed about 11,100 men, which the object of securing a base to dominate the south Pacific. The Allies commonly believed the Japanese intended to invade Australia, whose
Cape York Peninsula was only from
New Guinea. Unknown to the Allies, the Chief of the Imperial Japanese Naval General Staff,
Osami Nagano, had proposed
an invasion, but this plan was rejected in favor of a decision to occupy
Midway Island with the intention of cutting Australia off from United States supply lines, eventually forcing Australia to surrender. General Willoughby continued to believe that the Japanese only intended to build airfields on the northern coast with the intent to attack Port Moresby and Australia by air. But the Japanese fought up the northern side of the
Owen Stanley Mountains and in the middle of September, after weeks of fighting, descended the southern slopes to Ioribaiwa Ridge, within of Port Moresby. At the peak of their effort, the Japanese had 16,000 troops in the region. Japanese engineers remained on the coast to fortify the beachhead and build a system of reinforced and cross-linked bunkers.
Japanese withdrawal from Kokoda Track On
Guadalcanal,
Lieutenant General Harukichi Hyakutake's initial thrust to re-take the island's
Henderson Field had been badly defeated. Meanwhile, a
landing at Milne Bay had also been repulsed. On 28 September, General Horii and his troops began to hastily withdraw northward over the Owen Stanley Mountains to Kokoda and then to Buna–Gona.
Transport to New Guinea General
Douglas MacArthur had repeatedly requested Washington, D.C. to send him additional troops with which to initiate an offensive campaign and had been pointedly told he would have to make do with the troops on hand. The 32nd had arrived in Australia in April 1942, spent several weeks building its first camp, was transported to a new camp in July, and nearly one third of its troops had been in boot camp only five months previously. Nonetheless U.S. officers decided it was the most combat-ready unit in Australia. Even though the division had less than two months of jungle warfare training, MacArthur ordered parts of the 32nd Division to Papua New Guinea on 13 September 1942. Because the situation was critical and time was short,
5th Air Force commander General
George Kenney suggested that he could transport the first regiment by air. This had never been attempted before, so Company E, 126th IR, was used to test the concept. At dawn on 15 September 1942, the unit was flown from
Amberly Field in Brisbane to Port Moresby. The remainder of the 126th IR boarded ships for Port Moresby beginning on 18 September from Brisbane. The 128th IR was from Townsville, Australia to Port Moresby on the same day. These units would become part of the opening ground offensive against Japanese troops in the
Southwest Pacific Area, and MacArthur expected the Americans to quickly and easily advance on and capture the Japanese forward base at Buna. Beginning on 14 October 900 troops of the 2nd Battalion, 114th Engineer Battalion, 19th Portable Hospital, and the 107th Quartermaster Company of
126th Infantry, commanded by Lt. Col. Henry A. Geerds, departed in stages from Karekodobu, nicknamed "Kalamazoo" by the
GIs who had a hard time pronouncing the local name. They were charged with making an extremely difficult trek inland over the Kapa Kapa Trail toward
Jaure, where they were to flank the Japanese on the
Kokoda Trail. The total distance over the mountains to the Japanese positions was over , and most of the trail was barely a goat path. but no machetes, insect repellent, waterproof containers for medicine or personal effects, and it rained heavily every day. The men found themselves utterly unprepared for the extremely harsh conditions found in the jungle. The Kapa Kapa trail across the Owen Stanley divide was a "dank and eerie place, rougher and more precipitous" than the
Kokoda Track on which the Australians and Japanese were then fighting. Lead elements of the 126th finally crossed the gap near Mount Obree, which they nicknamed
Ghost Mountain, where all of the remaining native porters abandoned the Americans, leaving them to carry their own equipment. On 20 November 1942, after almost 42 days on the trail, crossing exceedingly difficult terrain, including
hogback ridges, jungle, and mountainous high-altitude passes, E Company was the first to reach Soputa near the front. The remainder of the battalion trickled in over the next few days. As a result of the extremely difficult march and the decimated ranks of the unit, the battalion earned the nickname of
The Ghost Battalion. Harding saved himself by diving overboard and swimming to shore. The attack destroyed all five vessels and the supplies Harding was relying on for the upcoming attack. More were sunk over the following days or ran aground. General
George Kenney wielded a great deal of influence over MacArthur, and although he had no knowledge of jungle warfare, insisted that tanks had no role in ground action in the jungle, but that the "artillery in this theater flies." Harding reluctantly accepted MacArthur's decision to go ahead with the attack and to rely on
direct air support in place of tanks or heavy artillery.
Japanese defenses The Japanese were now commanded by Maj. Gen.
Kensaku Oda, who succeeded
General Horii, who had drowned in the Kumusi River Other intelligence he received led him to believe that Buna was held by about 1,000 sick and malnourished soldiers. Unfamiliar with the state of Japanese defenses, Lieutenant General
Richard K. Sutherland, MacArthur's chief of staff, glibly referred to these fortifications as "hasty field entrenchments." The division's performance in battle under the circumstances was not surprising. It was unprepared for offensive operations against what turned out to be some of the strongest Japanese fortified positions in the South Pacific, and was severely hampered by completely inadequate fire support. The Ghost Mountain Boys of the 2/126th were especially hard hit. When Buna was taken they finished the fight with only six officers and 126 troops standing out of the 900 plus who had started out from Kapa Kapa. The extremely difficult
march by the U.S. 2/126th from Kapa Kapa to Jaure and the brutal combat at Buna-Gona taught the Allied armies important lessons that they applied throughout the Pacific Theater and remainder of the war in the Pacific.
Refit and retrained in Australia After the 32nd Division wrapped up operations at Buna, the men were slowly transported to Australia for rest, rehabilitation and training. The first units arrived in Brisbane, Australia on 1 March 1943. The complete move took several weeks because of the limited number of planes available to transport the troops over the Owen Stanley Mountains and the few ships available to get the men from Port Moresby to Australia. The last units arrived in April. Upon arrival, some men spent a few days camped near Brisbane and went into town to get drunk. The division then returned to Camp Cable where it had been stationed before it left for New Guinea. During March, the 107th Quartermaster Battalion was reorganized as the 32nd Quartermaster Company, and the ordnance detachment was redesignated the 732nd Ordnance Company. The 121st Field Artillery Battalion's 155 mm howitzers were replaced with 75 mm howitzers.
Return to New Guinea By October 1943 the division was ready for combat and moved back to New Guinea.
Landing at Saidor Elements of the 32nd's
126th Infantry Regimental Combat Team landed at Saidor on the north coast of New Guinea and helped to end enemy resistance there on 14 April 1944. By 31 August, Aitape was secured and the division rested. Elements
landed on Morotai on 15 September. The 32nd's command post opened at
Hollandia,
Dutch New Guinea on 1 October, setting the stage for the advance into the Philippines.
Philippines battles Battle of Leyte The Battle of
Leyte was the invasion and conquest of Leyte in the Philippines by American and Filipino guerrilla forces under the command of MacArthur. The U.S. forces fought Japanese Army forces led by General
Tomoyuki Yamashita. The battle took place from 17 October to 31 December 1944 and launched the Philippines campaign of 1944–45, the goal of which was to recapture and liberate the entire
Philippine Archipelago and to end almost three years of Japanese occupation. The 32nd was in reserve and was not deployed to Leyte until 14 November when it was assigned to the
US X Corps. It relieved the
24th Infantry Division and went into action along the Pinamopoan-
Ormoc highway, taking
Limon and smashing the Yamashita line in bitter hand-to-hand combat. The division linked up with elements of the
U.S. 1st Cavalry Division in the vicinity of
Lonoy, on 22 December, marking the collapse of Japanese resistance in the upper
Oromoc Valley. The division remained on the front lines until the Japanese resistance on Leyte was broken near the end of December.
Battle of Luzon (right) and his aide Captain William F. Barres on
Luzon,
Philippines in February 1945. From Leyte the division moved to
Lingayen Gulf, Luzon, on 27 January 1945. In the
Battle of Villa Verde Trail, the 32nd navigated a narrow track through the
Caraballo Mountains against heavy Japanese resistance and after 100 days of fighting, it took Imugan and the crossroads town of
Santa Fe, Nueva Vizcaya.
End of the war Operations officially ceased on 15 August 1945 when
Japan surrendered, although A Company beat off a
banzai charge during the morning that killed one soldier and wounded two others, and another 18 hours later in which another soldier died and seven were wounded. On 9 October, the 32nd Division left Luzon for Japan and
occupation duty in a convoy of 31 ships. They arrived on 14 October at
Sasebo, Japan on the island of
Kyushu. The 32nd stayed in Kyushu until the division was inactivated on 28 February 1946. and the very last to cease fighting, the 32nd was in combat for 654 days, more than any other United States Army unit during World War II, and eleven of its men were awarded the
Medal of Honor. It was estimated the division had killed over 32,000 Japanese soldiers during the war.
Many firsts The 32nd Division was the first division to deploy as an entire unit from the United States and the first division to be shipped as a single convoy overseas. Once in the
South West Pacific Area, portions of the 128th Infantry were the first to be airlifted into combat, from Australia to Port Moresby, New Guinea. On 16 November the 32nd became the first U.S. forces to launch a ground assault against Japanese forces. On the Atlantic front, the first units to engage in a ground assault were the
1st Infantry,
3rd Infantry,
9th Infantry,
1st Armored and the
2nd Armored Divisions in
North Africa on 8 November. In another first, the four gun sections of Battery A of the 129th Field Artillery became the first howitzers flown into a war, first carried to
Port Moresby by a
B-17 bomber. Then one half of Battery A, 129th Field Artillery, a single
105 mm howitzer, was air-lifted in pieces by three
Douglas C-47 Skytrain aircraft over the
Owen Stanley Range to Buna, becoming the first U.S. Army artillery flown into combat in World War II. in the Southwest Pacific. Finally, elements of the 32nd Division were among the first American occupation troops to land in Japan.
Division march Theodore Steinmetz wrote and conducted the words to a march song about the unit's origins and tenacity.
Post-war criticism In 1949, U.S. Air Force General
George Kenney published
General Kenney Reports, a personal history of the air war he commanded from 1942 to 1945. In it he praised Australian Generals
George Vasey and
George Wootten, commanders of the
7th and
9th Divisions, but he also criticized Australian Lieutenant General
Sydney Rowell, who was dismissed by General
Edmund Herring for insubordination. He said Rowell had a "defeatist attitude." Of the U.S. 32nd Division, he said the troops "were green and the officers were not controlling them." He quoted General Herring and
Major General Sir
Thomas Blamey as critical of the 32nd's efforts. Kenney said the 32nd sat in the jungle for 10 days "doing nothing but worrying about the rain and the strange noises at night." In a letter to General
Herring in 1959, General
Eichelberger responded to criticism about Herring's dismissal of General Rowell and his dismissal of General Harding:
Decorations and citations At the conclusion of the Buna Campaign in April 1943, the division was sent to Australia for recuperation, replacement, and re-training. On 6 May 1943, the 32nd Division was awarded the
Distinguished Unit Citation, a streamer embroidered
Papua, for "outstanding performance of duty in action during the period 23 July 1942 to 23 January 1943." The citation read: It was also recognized by the Philippine government for its efforts in the battles for Leyte and Luzon with the
Philippine Presidential Unit Citation, the streamer embroidered, "17 OCTOBER 1944 TO 4 JULY 1945". == Recent history ==