Camp Adair Sentn
Friday. August 13, 1943.
Fare Four
History of The 96th Division:
I
unch of Guys Named Joe' Near Their Date With Destiny
Commanding General of the 96th
World War I Division
Reborn; Ends 1st Year
Ry Lt. Orlando R. Davidson
The 96r'n Division is fast approaching its date with des
tiny.
Saturday we celebrate our first birthday. The story of.
cur first 12 months is a modest*
story—one we present simply for Hawaii, Mexico ard Puerto Rico
the record and wholly as a pro and rose to the position of G-3 of
logue.
the old Ninth Corps Area.
For the history of the 96th Divi
Upon activation of the Fourth
sion is yet to be written; where Army. General Bradley became i
we do not know. Perhaps it will G-3, and subsequently was a
be in the fields of Brittany, per pointed Deputy Chief of Staff of
haps up the fiords of Norway, per the Fourth Army ard Western
haps in the rice paddies of Chira. Defense Command. It was this po
It will be scrawled in jagged red sition he left to take command of
let ers by the wits and heroism of the 96th.
a ' .meh of guys named Joe.
This first year has. of course, Ably Assisted
The War Department flar.kt d
been ore of preparation for the
General
Bradley with a trio of able
job atTiand. But before we review
those months, a glance backward assistants—Brigadier General Wil-
M. Miley. Assistant Division Com
is in order.
mander; Brigadier General Paul V.
Glancing Backward
Kane. Division Artillery Command
In the spring and summer of er. and Colonel Hammond M. Mon
1918. a dramatic race was on. Hin- roe. Chief of Staff. Even before
denberg’s Prussian armies were activation. General Miley was
striving desperately to crack the whisked off to another job and
stubborn Allied line before the to replace him came an equally
fresh and unlimited manpower of competent officer, Brigadier Gen
the United States could be moulded eral Claudius M. Easley. The per
into a,fighting force and thrown manent “first team” was complete.
into the battle,
Conferences in Washington fol
It was in this atmosphere that lowed and other key officers were
the 96th Division was conceived. selected. Off they went to the var
It came into being on Sept. 5. 1918, ious service schools. By this time,
at CarnD Wadsworth. S. C., under all but a handful of the Northwest
the command of Major General Guy Reserve Officers once marked for
Carleton, a master tactician who service with the 96th had already
had trained many of the troops al been called to other units and in
ready at grips with the enemy.
addition the War Department had
abandoned
the policy of regional
Division Dies
divisions.
Accordingly,
the officer
But history was too fast for the ‘
young division. Not yet even activ complement emerged as a cosmo
ated. it died for all practical pur politan cross-section of tPié Nation.
poses on Armistice Day. On Janu More on that later.
ary 17, 1919, it was officially
buried—with honor but without
distinction.
Five years passed. Our citizens’
thoughts were far from war. But
in Washington, the men directing
our tiny peacetime military estab
lishment knew that wishing our
selves away from war was a poor
guaranty of peace. Their job was
to keep the powder dry, so, quietly,
they laid the framework for our
next wartime army.
It watein 1923 that the 96th Divi
sion came to life again—on paper.
Regiments (approximate strength:
one man and a telephone i were set
up in Portland, Seattle and Eu
gene. Reserve officers in the Pa
cific Northwest were earmarked
for the 96th. On “M” day it would
be ready to go.
Northwest Division
oceans. California and New York
each have contributed more than
200 men to the Division. Forty of
us are native Oregonians. And we
have 85 New Englanders to give us
respectability. Pan-American sol
idarity is served by our 40 Can
adians, 16 Mexicans and 1 repre
sentative from Peru and Cuba.
If it i« our privilege someday to
march down the Avenues of Rer-
lin, 23 of our men will be walking
on their native soil. Another half
dozen are of Italian birth. We have
one man from indomitable Malta,
and five of us will take a peculiarly
personal satisfaction if this Divi
sion helps in liberating unhappy
Poland.
Basic
MAJOR GENERAL JAMES L. BRADLEY, commanding
general of the 96th Infantry division—which has returned to Camp
Adair, is “glad to be back.” and prepared to celebrate its first
anniversary with a great, all-around anniversary dac. in this can-
tonmen|. tMuorrO.—Signal Corps photo.
THE 96TH DIVISION
”We must have such determination to win that we
are willing to undergo any hardships in preparing our
selves to gain that victory. We will welcome obstacles
that we may glory in overcoming them. We will welcome
the rain and the mud. We will be as tough mentally as
we are physically.
“This is the kind of a Division we are going to be;
well trained, tough physically and mentally, ready and
anxious to fight, not for our own personal glory or ad
vancement. but for the honor of the Division and the
service of our country.”
—Major General James L. Bradley
August 15, 1942
The weeks that followed the ar
rival of the troops were not ex
citing—yet, in a sense, they were.
These were the crucial 13 weeks
the Army allots itself to transform
civilians into soldiers. The paunchy
ones grew lean. The scrawny ones
put on pounds in the right places,
The strong flourished. The weak
fell by the wayside. What had
been a shuffling mob was becom
ing a pyramid of disciplined, func
tioning. fighting men.
Meanwhile, on Armistice Day,
the Division met its commander,
General Bradley, at the first for
mation of the new Division in its
entirety, restated his determina
tion to put a hardened combat team
in the field at the earliest possible
moment, and warned his men:
“We must grasp the thorn in our
hand and prepare our minds and
bodies for the hardships that will
come before final victory. Aroused
and in condition, we are the best
fighting men in the world—a ter
ror to our enemies and eager to
close with them in eombat.”
End of Basic
On February 20, 1943, basic
training was completed so far as
13 brief weeks would permit, the
men of the 96th were trained sol
diers. Now the job was to trans
form the individual soldier into a
w’orking cog.«to mold each unit of
the Division into a single-purposed
team.
This was a big job and another
13 weeks were set aside for it.
But while this was going on, the
picture was constantly changing,
for no military organization is
static.
But in an important sense, the
96th was still to be a Pacific North
wet Division. The site selected for
I its training was a raw cantonment,
still largely in the blueprint stage,
set amidst the fertile farmlands of
MORE — MORE — MORE —
the Willamette Valley. Appropri
ately, it was named Camp Adair
in memory of a youthful Oregon
officer who died heroically in the
Mexican Border campaign.
Promotions
Early in July, 1942, officers and
Men who had but recently been
men began trickling into Camp.
MISSION: To bring the Division to such a state of
privates began wearing sergeant's
For awhile officers outnumbered
proficiency as a fighting unit that it will be selected
stripes. Lieutenants became cap
enlisted men. and second lieuten-
early as a front line combat division.
tains, silver oak leaves sprouted
ants lived in daily terror of find-
where there had been gold. Officers
—Training Memorandum No. 8
ing themselves on the next day’s
who
had seen the Division born
96th Infantry Division
KP roster. The enlisted cadre.
moved on to new assignments.
drawn largely from the Seventh
Others, both officers and men, were
Motorized Division, Camp
time wasted, and we have no time rive October 19, their teachers were called back to school that they
I San Luis Obispo, California. Ap
Reborn In Calamity
I to waste . . .
might return better equipped to do
ready.
There was never an “M" day, proached full strength, by July 16. | “Our enemies are tough, We
their
jobs or to tackle bigger ones.
This is a good place to tell you
but there was Pearl Harbor. Killed and by July 23, most of the officer must be tougher . . .
Officer candidate boards began
where our men are from. The an
in its youth by victory, the 96th personnel was on hand.
“Total war calls for total ef-
to
sift off officer material from
swer is simple—everywhere. Speci
was reborn in calamity. It wasn’t Activation
fort . . .
the
ranks. The army specialized
fically, we were born in every
i
»»
official till a few months later but
“
We
kill
or
we
get
killed
.
.
On July 28, an Army Ground
State in the Union, Alaska. Hawaii, .training program came into being,
the die was cast on that terrible Forces made its visit and the stage
Puerto Rico and 28 foreign coun-f startled soldiers found themselves
Knuckling Down
Sunday.
back at college, while their startled
was set for Activation Day, Aug-
The character of the new division ust 15.
The ceremony was brief, And, tries. No matter where we may superiors quietly went nuts as their
fight, it will almost certainly be
was determined in May, 1942. when
The events of that day were a without further delay, the 96th on homeground for at least one of key men filed off in orderly pro-
Major General James L. Bradley pretty good tipoff that the 96th threw off its party clothes, spit on
cession, never to return.
our soldiers.
was chosen to command. From that was to be no “Fancy Dan”—“Good its hands and got down to work.
Too, the unfit, physically and
Basically, however, the 96th is
moment, the throttle wa3 open time Charlie” outfit, but simply a
The next two months were rug
mentally, were swiftly being weed
a Mid-Continental Division. About
with battle as the destination.
ed out. Also hack to civilian life*
hard-slugging infantry outfit, well ged. You can’t teach what you don’t
85 per cent of us come from the
went a trickle of men more needed
aware that its reason for being was know, so cadre schools sprang up
Talent Recognized
wide belt of states splitting the
The assignment was a fitting to do the dirtiest, nastiest job in from Division down to Battalion.
on their farms and behind their
country from the Michigan and
recognition of abundantly-proven the book of war. General Bradley An Army is supposed to shoot, so
machines.
hours were spent on the range. An Minnesota on the North to Texas
military talent. A native of Mis i set the theme.
and Louisiana on the South. More The Cadre
souri, General Bradley was a mem I “We of the 96th Division have a Officer of NCO won’t last long if
than 2000 of us were born in Illin
In April, the Division suddenly
if
he
’
s
not
a
bit
tougher
than
his
ber of the West Point class of 1914. I clearly-defined task,” he said. “It is
ois
alone,
another
1500
in
Texas
realized
it had grown from child
men, so there were hikes, hikes,
In later years, he was graduated to become a well-trained combat
and more than 1100 in Michigan. hood to maturity when it found it
with distinction from the Army division in the shortest possible hikes and more hikes.
Five other states - Arkansas, self a parent. Trainloads of offi
War College, the Infantry School time. We must keep our eyes, we Fillers Arrive
Louisiana, Oklahoma. Missouri and cers and men pu’led out for Camp
and the Command and General must keep our thoughts on that
When the raw material out of Minnesota—all have more than 500 Shelby, Mississippi, charged v^ith
Staff School and taught at the lat- goal, Any time spent on efforts which a combat division was to be
stars in their windows.
rearing a new division, the 69th.
ter two. He saw foreign service in which do not lead to that goal is moulded—the fillers—began to ar-
But we have deep roots to both
(Continued on Page 6, Col. 1)
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