Tag Archives: 1st Infantry Division

The old in-and-out

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A familiar job for any cannon cocker going back to the 1300s for sure.

40 years ago today, 23 February 1983: Members of A Battery, 1/7th Field Artillery, 1st Infantry Division, swab the 20-foot-long 39 caliber M185 Cannon tube of an M109A2 155mm self-propelled howitzer. As was common in the early 1980s, as the Army was switching from the old olive drab OG-107 to the new M81 Woodland “cammies,” there is a mix of both uniforms being used.

An update to the 1960s M109/A1 series guns, the A2 version was much improved from the Vietnam-era models of the SPG, and upped internal shell stowage from 28 to 36 rounds while deleting the rarely-used hull flotation feature. It was by far the most popular model seen in the 1980s.

While the U.S. Army is currently fielding the long-barreled M109A6/A7 Paladin, at least until the M1299 howitzer reaches full-rate production, the Reagan-era M109A2 remains in the arsenals of Austria, Greece, Egypt, Jordan, Morocco, Pakistan, Taiwan, and Tunisia.

And their crews probably hate “punching the bore” as well.

Scraping horses

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Found this interesting for anyone curious about U.S. Army Great War-era veterinary and farrier services for transport, cavalry, and artillery horses.

22 January 1919, U.S. Army of Occupation in Montabaur, Rhineland, Germany (official caption):

Horses from 1-7th Field Artillery [part of the 1st Infantry Division at the time] being led to “Dipping Vat” constructed by 1st Engineers for the Veterinary Dept. The animals take a plunge in a bath composed of sulfur, lime, carbolic acid, and creosote. The bath is kept at a temperature of 100 degrees fahr. After the plunge, the animals are “scraped.” This is the method of treating these animals for the mange [probably rain rot] and cooties. Horses are bathed at a rate of one a minute.

U.S. Army Signal Corps Photo 111-SC-51250 by SGT J.A. Marshall, via NARA

“Ready to Plunge.” 111-SC-51252 by SGT J.A. Marshall, via NARA

“Scraping Horses.” 111-SC-51251 by SGT J.A. Marshall, via NARA

103 Years Ago Today (ish?), Pulling the 75s

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September 9, 1918: Six-horse artillery caissons of the U.S. 1st Infantry Division, “The Big Red One,” moving up through the woods in Mandres aux Tours (Mandres-aux-Quatre-Tours?), in north-east France’s Lorraine region. The guns should be famed “French 75s” (Canon de 75 modèle 1897) of which the American Expeditionary Forces used some 1,900 during 1917-18, dubbed the more GI “75 mm Gun M1897.”

Note the consistency of the horse’s coats and the doughboys smoking cigarettes as they ride. Photo via the Society of the First Infantry Division 

However, a 1936 Christmas Card for the veterans of the 1st ID’s 76th Field Artillery Regiment, signed by John J. Waterman, Lieutenant Colonel, reads:

Battery B moving through the woods, Mandres aux Tours, France, August 9, 1918. 

A copy of this picture enlarged by two by three feet hung in the office of the Chief of Field Artillery. The regiment spent a little over two weeks at Mandres, re-equipping, and training for the St. Michel offensive.

Of note, the commander of the regiment’s Battery D should be familiar to students of military history.

Besides St. Mihiel, the regiment fought during the Champagne-Marne, Aisne-Marne, and Meuse-Argonne offensives in the Great War, for which it was presented the Croix de Guerre with Gold Star, and completed occupation duty in Germany.
 
During WWII, it was converted from horse-drawn to motorized operation then landed in France (again) at Utah Beach in 1944, then fought assigned in elements to the 7th, 8th, 3rd, and 1st Infantry Divisions (the regiment had five battalions). 
 
The last active element of the regiment, 1st Battalion, was part of the Massachusetts Army National Guard and carried its 105mm howitzers to Iraq three times and once to Afghanistan before inactivation in 2015.

Herr groundhog does not count at Grafe

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M1 Abrams tanks of the 2nd Battalion, 70th Armor Regiment, 2nd Armored Brigade Combat Team, 1st Infantry Division move to firing points before the start of live-fire training at 7th Army Training Command’s Grafenwoehr Training Area, Germany Feb. 12, 2018, where it is always guaranteed to get “six more weeks of winter.”

Merry Christmas, and remember those downrange today

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50 years ago today: Official Christmas card from the “Big Red One” U.S. Army 1st Infantry Division, 1967, then in the Republic of Vietnam.

official-christmas-card-from-the-1st-infantry-division-1967