In a case of not realizing the knife in your back has your own fingerprints on it, the Army posted a rare public-facing document noting its end strength will drop to 445K (against 466K authorized) by the end of FY23 and noted that:
Only 23 percent of Americans aged 17-24 are qualified to serve due to a mixture of poor physical fitness, serious juvenile crimes, or bad ASVAB scores (which fell 9 percent with schools using remote learning during the overly long COVID shutdown).
And the fact that young Americans just don’t want to join.
The Army found three “gaps” are the reason:
Not noted is the fact that the country just came out of a 20-year morass in Afghanistan/Iraq that accomplished little but scarring two generations of Soldiers while hollowing out the reserves and Guard and increasing wait times at the VA by months, at the same time ROTC/JROTC is increasingly asleep at the wheel stateside, recruiting duty is seen by many as a bitter pill that has to be swallowed as its the only way to jump from JNCO to SNCO and actually making the Army a career, all the while toxic leadership is concentrating on meeting BS administrative goals so they can advance, all as the organization downshifts from being operational over the past two decades back to Micky Mouse garrison life. Then you throw the very spooky question marks of Ukraine and China out there, which isn’t going to get the purple-haired kids just interested in finding a way to pay for college off the bench, especially when they know they can get a student loan that will seemingly never have to be paid back.
But that’s just me.
Anyway, the feedback via the 850~ comments on the original post is enlightening.
Activated 15 July 1943 at Camp Carson, Colorado– some 79 years ago this week– the U.S. Army’s 71st Light Division (Pack, Jungle) was a rarity when it came to WWII infantry divisions as it was not descended from units that had a Great War history. Formed from two regiments of regulars– the 5th and 14th– that had long been assigned to defend the Panama Canal, augmented with new units such as the 66th Infantry Regiment, it was originally meant to fight in the triple canopy green hell of the South Pacific.
With a TO&E that included hundreds of horses and mules to carry and support 75mm pack guns– rather than the more standard 105mm howitzers and trucks– it had a small footprint, just 9,000 men, only about two-thirds the size of a traditional “leg” infantry division.
“7200 rounds of 75mm pack how. Ammunition is required per battery for operations of the 609th F.A., 71st Div. (L), atop a ridge on firebreak trail near hill #3905 during mountain maneuvers. Here are men of Hq and Service Batter, 609th, 71st L. Div., unloading dummy ammunition after a long 5-mile haul up the steep firebreak trail. 900 rounds a day is a good haul, as one mule can carry only 9 rounds. HLMR Mtn. Man. 168-9-44-593.’ Army Signal Corps photograph Photographer: J. P. Johnson. 22 March 1944
However, the 71st (L) never did make it to New Guinea or the Philippines.
Proving a bad idea in stateside tests in California, the 71st (L) was recast as a standard 14,000-man infantry division, sent to Fort Benning for additional training, and left its 75mm guns and beasts of burden behind.
This put it late to mature and the outfit only reached the European Theatre of Operation (still with jungle-trained Panama regulars of the 5th and 14th Inf Rgts making up two-thirds of its combat force, because this is the Army we are talking about!) in the Winter of early 1945.
The 71st ID’s patch had a red circle around it, earning the unit the easy nickname of “The Red Circle.” This uniform, of WWII combat veteran Staff Sergeant Harold R. George, is in the American Legacy Museum.
Hitting France on 6 February 1945, some 245 days after D-Day, it would enter combat on 10 March and spend 49 days engaged, suffering 1,879 total casualties in that short period, some 13.3 percent of its strength. The division earned two battle streamers, for the Rhineland and Central Europe Campaigns, and notably took 107,406 enemy POWs, including bagging most of the battered stragglers of the dreaded “Black Edelweiss” of the 6th SS Mountain Division Nord.
In doing so, the men of the 71st earned over 800 individual awards including 166 Silver Stars and 651 Bronze Stars. In the final days of the war, on 4 May 1945, the Division liberated Gunskirchen, one of the many subcamps of the Mauthausen concentration camp in Austria. Three days later they made contact with advancing Soviet Red Army elements near Waidhofen after capturing Steyr and were already making merry by the time VE-Day hit on the 8th.
The most excellent war chronicle map below, drawn by T4s Emil Albrecht and Roland Wille, covers the 71st 49-day war with the Seventh and Third Armies from Limesy, France to Sierning, Austria.
“Private Lloyd Culuck, Company A, 1st Battalion., 172nd Infantry Regiment, eats chow from a can of Ration B on New Georgia Island, SW Pacific during the New Georgia Campaign against Imperial Japanese military forces. He uses the can lid in lieu of fork or spoon. On the island since the first beachhead was established on July 2, 1943, he hasn’t changed clothes in 12 days.”
Signal Corps Photo: 161-43-2537 (DiPaola)
The 172nd was then and is now a unit of the Vermont National Guard, and has since the 1980s specialized in mountain warfare.
For more on its involvement in the New Georgia campaign and the grueling push up the Munda Trail, see Operation Toenails.
There have been lots of interesting combat swimmer news bits in the past week.
For starters, check out this photo dump from Saventa, Aruba (June 19, 2022) showing Marines with 2d Reconnaissance Battalion conducting a dive during Exercise Caribbean Coastal Warrior in conjunction with Dutch Korps Mariners marines. “This bilateral training exercise allows 2d Recon to expand its knowledge and proficiency when operating in littoral and coastal regions.”
(U.S. Marine Corps photo by Lance Cpl. Ryan Ramsammy)
(U.S. Marine Corps photo by Lance Cpl. Ryan Ramsammy)
(U.S. Marine Corps photo by Lance Cpl. Ryan Ramsammy)
Of course, you see rubber duck M4s, because why waste a good weapon in saltwater immersion training. But this post isn’t about rubber rifles with droopy barrels. Check out that last image and you will see a STIDD Diving Propulsion Device or DPD.
This thing:
STIDD also makes a cargo pod for the DPD, which is now in its third generation.
The DPD is rare, but the Marine Recon community has been using them in small numbers for a decade. Check out this image from 2014:
JAN 31, 2014. Cpl. Peter E. Kober, left, and Sgt. Scott A. Hulsizer carry their diver propulsion device into the water to begin their dive Jan. 22, during a certification course at Marine Corps Base Kaneohe Bay, Hawaii. The DPD is a battery-powered vehicle capable of carrying two divers and their equipment while submerged out of sight. The course was a part of Exercise Sandfisher 2014. Kober and Hulsizer are reconnaissance men with Company B, 3rd Reconnaissance Battalion, 3rd Marine Division, III Marine Expeditionary Force. Photo by Cpl. Brandon Suhr
“The (DPD) gives the combat divers an amazing benefit over the normal combat diving operational limitations they have,” said Petty Officer 1st Class Donald R. Miner, a medical deep-sea diver and instructor for the course with Headquarters Company, 3rd Recon. Bn., 3rd Marine Division, III Marine Expeditionary Force. “It can defeat high currents and high tides using its battery. It also gives the divers more relaxation time as they’re not swimming for extended periods. They can go without expending all their energy trying to get to shore.”
Jet Boots!
Meanwhile, 10th Group’s base paper recently profiled a three-week ODA combat dive requalification at Key West’s very tough SFUWO school. To be validated, a dive team must perform six closed-circuit dives using a rebreather, one open-circuit search dive, and an Over the Horizon inflatable boat move of at least 15 nautical miles.
The group used Jet Boots for part of the requal. Simple twin scooter fans that strap to your legs, they can push you at up to 4 knots underwater.
KEY WEST, Fla. — Special Forces operators with 2nd Battalion, 10th Special Forces Group (Airborne), carry a simulated stinger missile on shore near Key West, Florida, during a three-week dive requalification on May 6, 2022. Combat divers performed a closed-circuit dive to rehearse undersea wartime operations. The things strapped to their legs are Jet Boots (Photo by Staff Sgt. Anthony Bryant)
Said the team leader:
“We’re incorporating (the Jetboots Diver Propulsion System) on our dives to extend our range. With dive operations, we’re limited to about 2 kilometers of diving. With the Jetboots capability SFUWO provides, we can do (infiltrations) of up to 7 or 8 kilometers.”
B-roll of the 10th Group guys sunning in the Keys:
The Marines have also used Jet Boots, which they simply term a “diver propulsion vehicle” or DPV.
Finally, just to remind folks they have the best toys, the SEALs (or at least SDV/DDS support guys) dropped this image just in time for July 4th reposts, albeit with open-circuit gear.
Military members from Naval Special Warfare Group Eight display the national ensign as they perform dive operations while underway on a Virginia Class fast-attack submarine USS New Mexico (SSN 778). Naval Special Warfare organizes, mans, trains, equips, deploys, sustains, and provides command and control of NAVSPECWAR forces to conduct full-spectrum undersea special operations and activities worldwide in support of Geographic Combatant Commands and national interests. (U.S. Navy photo by Chief Mass Communication Specialist Christopher Perez).
U.S Army Maj. Gen. JP McGee, right, commanding general, 101st Airborne Division (Air Assault), and Command Sgt. Maj. Veronica Knapp, left, case the division colors during a color casing ceremony at McAuliffe Hall, Fort Campbell, Ky., July 5, 2022. The ceremony was held to officially mark the Screaming Eagle’s deployment to the European Command theater of operations to assure NATO allies and deter Russian aggression in the region. The casing of the colors symbolizes their departure from Fort Campbell, Ky. Their colors will remain cased until they redeploy the European Command theater of operations. (U.S. Army photo by Sgt. 1st Class Sinthia Rosario, 101st Airborne Division Public Affairs)
While the 101st famously started their 1944-45 European vacation at Normandy– including the capture of Carentan– and ended 214 days later at the Eagle’s Nest, suffering 11,548 battle casualties along the way, the division’s post-WWII logs have seen it stay more Asia-way.
Earning 12 battle streamers in Vietnam as well as two for Southwest Asia service (along with a Meritorious Unit Commendation), the unit as a whole has kept out of Europe with the exception of exercises. However, that has changed as the division headquarters and the 2nd Brigade as a whole are headed there for the next several months.
From the Army:
Elements of the 101st Airborne Division (Air Assault) began arriving to the Mihail Kogalniceanum Airbase in Romania June 20, and are scheduled to continue arriving during the next several days.
Headquarters, 101st Airborne Division (Air Assault) and the 2nd Brigade Combat Team, will support the U.S. Army V Corps’ mission to reinforce NATO’s eastern flank and engage in multinational exercises with partners across the European continent in order to reassure allies and deter further Russian aggression.
The deploying 101st Soldiers do not represent additional U.S. forces in Europe, but are taking the place of Soldiers assigned to 82nd Airborne Division Headquarters and the 3rd Infantry Brigade Combat Team of the 82nd Airborne Division.
Considering Fort Campbell soldiers haven’t been deployed to Europe in 80 years, to put that in perspective – in 1942, gas was 20 cents.
The most-watched film that year was Bambi, and Bing Crosby released “White Christmas” in July 1942, which would be the Billboard top hit for three months that year.
The 4,700 soldiers from the 101st Airborne Division began deploying to Europe in late June.
The latest troop will depart Fort Campbell at 10:30 Wednesday night.
In related news, it is almost ironic that Bradford Freeman, the last survivor of the Easy 506th’s famed “Band of Brothers,” died on Sunday in Columbus, Mississippi. He was 97.
Soldiers of the New York National Guard’s 105th Infantry Regiment on Saipan during World War II.
(New York State Military Museum)
Formerly the 2nd New York Volunteer Infantry of the 19th Century, the 105th had a long and distinguished record in federal service including the Civil War, the Spanish-America War, the Mexican Border dispute of 1916, World War I, and finally World War II.
Assigned to the 27th “New York” Infantry Division on 15 October 1940, after training at Alabama’s Fort McClellan, the New Yorkers shipped out for the Pacific and cleared Butaritari Island in the Makin Atoll campaign before landing on Saipan 17 June 1944.
The fighting on the long-held Japanese territory continued up Mount Tapotchau where the 1st and 2nd Battalions of the 105th in the predawn hours of 7 July “bore the brunt of the largest Banzai charge of the entire war,” standing their ground against 4,300 fanatical Japanese, an action that resulted in three of the New Yorkers earning the Medal of Honor for the price of some 918 men from the two battalions listed on the casualty rolls, more than half of their effective strength.
MAJ Edward McCarthy, then in command of 2-105 and one of the few officers of the regiment to survive the 15-hour attack, described the scene as follows:
“It reminded me of one of those old cattle-stampede scenes of the movies. The camera is in a hole in the ground and you see the herd coming and they leap up and over you and are gone. Only the Japs just kept coming and coming. I didn’t think they’d ever stop”.
The 105th, after rest and refit, was thrown into the hell that was the Shuri Line at Okinawa and was bled white once more. It was disbanded back home in December 1945 and has never been reformed.
Enjoy your BBQ today but remember those who made it possible.
80 years ago today. Official caption: “American prisoners of war celebrate the 4th of July in the Japanese prison camp of Casisange in Malaybalay, on Mindanao, Philippine Islands. It was against Japanese regulations and discovery would have meant death, but the men celebrated the occasion anyway. 7/4/1942.”
Signal Corps Photo: 111-SC-333290. National Archives Identifier: 531352
New Hampshire-based Sig Sauer recently picked up a nine-figure award from the U.S. Army Contracting Command for .300 and .338 Norma Magnum ammunition.
Announced by the Pentagon on June 7, the $157.3 million firm-fixed-price contract covers the production of .300 Norma Magnum 215-grain M1163 ball ammunition and .338 NM 300-grain armor-piercing M1162 cartridges for the Army. Although not a standard round for most U.S. military small arms – that’s reserved for 5.56 and 7.62 NATO along with the new 6.8 NGSW Common Cartridge – the Army and Marines are both using .300 NM and .338 NM in the MK22 Advanced Sniper Rifle program.
The MK22, a variant of the Barrett MRAD, is a modular system that will be fielded with three separate calibers, .338 Norma Magnum, .300 Norma Magnum, and 7.62 NATO, with the user able to swap calibers through barrel changes based on mission operating environments. Above is the Mk22 Mod 0 ASR including a Precision Day Optic. It is fed from a 10-round detachable magazine. (Photo: Tonya Smith/Marine Corps Systems Command).
A popular trope is that on U.S. military bases the flagpole’s finial– the golden ball at the top of the pole–contains a razor, a match, and a bullet, just in case the base falls, so that the banner doesn’t fall into enemy hands.
This artifact in the West Point Museum collection rotates on and off exhibit. Following his graduation, Bunker served 40 years in the Army. During World War Two he was on the island of Corregidor when it was captured by Japanese forces, becoming a prisoner of war. On 6 May 1942, Colonel Bunker was ordered to remove the U.S. Flag from its pole for destruction and raise a white sheet (signifying the American surrender). Prior to the U.S. Flag’s destruction, he cut a piece out of the red stripe. On 10 June he cut this piece of the flag into two segments giving one piece to fellow POW Colonel Delbert Ausmus and holding on to the other. Bunker would not survive his time in captivity and died of starvation and illness on 16 March 1943. He was cremated with the segment of the flag he kept. Ausmus kept Bunker’s war diary, as well as this segment of the flag through his time in captivity.
Ausmus said, “On several occasions, the shirt and all of my possessions were examined by the Japanese without the piece of flag being discovered”. Upon liberation, Ausmus presented this segment of the U.S. Flag at Corregidor to the Secretary of War.
Colonel Bunker’s cremated remains were recovered in 1948 and re-interned at West Point. His legacy still lives as an inspiration in the West Point Community. During his time at West Point Bunker was an outstanding football player, contributing to three victories over Navy. He was inducted into the National Football Foundation and College Football Hall of Fame in 1969, as well as the Army West Point Athletics Hall of Fame in 2013.
On 12 June 1942 five transports landed the 145th Infantry Regiment of the U.S. Army’s 37th Infantry “Buckeye” Division, composed largely of men of the Ohio Army National Guard, at Auckland (after having first reinforced Fiji the month before), complete with wool uniforms and brand-new M1 helmets and M1 Garands as four military bands stood on Prince’s Wharf ready to greet them. New Zealand’s own forces, at the time, some 100,000-strong, were heavily engaged at sea as well as in the Middle East– and London would not let them leave– meaning the country was wide open to Japanese domination.
As the ships berthed, another interesting exchange occurred. The Americans threw down oranges, cigarettes and money; the waiting Kiwis picked up the gifts and threw back New Zealand coins. When some of the visitors wondered where they were, an American on the wharf, one of the advance guard, told them all they needed to know: ‘No Scotch, two per cent beer, but nice folks.’ Some evidently did know what country they had reached, for the first of the newcomers to land on New Zealand soil was Sergeant Nathan E. Cook, chosen as a namesake of the explorer Captain James Cook.
The 37th would, in April 1943, start moving out for Guadalcanal, and fight its way across the Northern Solomons and Luzon before the war was out, earning 9 unit citations and 7 MOHs. Not a lot of overcoats and fresh milk there.
The next day, 1st Marine Division elements arrived in Wellington aboard USS Wakefield, moving into hastily constructed camp facilities.
In all about 100,000 Americans served in New Zealand, averaging between 15,000 and 45,000, peaking at 48,200 in July 1943, with the numbers declining well below that amount in late 1944. Besides the 37th, the Army’s 25th as well as the Marine 2nd and 3rd Divisions would spend significant time in the islands, with Joes remaining based around Auckland and Devils at Wellington. In addition, many thousands of other American sailors, merchant seamen, made visits to the country.
Dean Cornwell, Have a “Coke” = Kia Ora, c. 1943-1945 (Archives New Zealand, AAAC 898 NCWA Q392)
A memorial to the Americans in NZ during the conflict is located at the Pukeahu National War Memorial Park in Wellington.
It is also noted that American “bedroom commandos” managed to take an estimated 1,500 Kiwi women back to the U.S. as war brides. Thus goes the spoils of war.
