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The 86th Chemical Mortar Battalion presents its battle history
Get PDFEveryone knows of the infantry and the air corps, the tankers and the engineers, the quartermaster and ordnance. And they know all about Chemical Warfare: they picture us playing with test tubes in white laboratories, a thousand miles behind the lines, discovering new war gases and atomic bombs.
Some within the Chemical Warfare Service do bring new methods of warfare from their labs, but most of us are ordinary soldiers -- very like the infantry and all other troops who fight on the ground, for keeps.
Originally, our mortar was designed for firing chemical shells. Then one day someone discovered that you could fire a TNT-filled shell from the same muzzle -- and that day you said goodbye forever to clean labs and pretty colored chemicals, and became a soldier.
So we toted a 4.2 mortar from the beaches of France to the heart of fortress Germany. We went where the infantry had to go, a few times arriving before they did. Our ways of life were alike: same wariness by day. same fear by night, same boredom and despair. And some died in the fight-just as the infantrymen.
Neither for the glory nor the medals, the press releases nor the newsreels -- but with a vague consciousness we sensed that we had to be part of this mighty juggernaut that was crushing the Nazis. Beneath our blusters and disdain of flighty words we were proud of being soldiers. We originated a favorite maxim that we used as a wisecrack all over Europe -- Don\u27t fool with the fighting troops!
Yet there are few -- soldiers and civilians alike -- who know what a 4.2 chemical mortar is and what it can do. Here is the answer, and it has nothing to do with chemicals or chemists except in a very abstract way. This is the historical account of a fighting odyssey, the simple facts of where and with whom we fought.
Everyone knows of the infantry and the engineers. This is about mortar men, who also fought a war.https://digicom.bpl.lib.me.us/ww_reg_his/1083/thumbnail.jp
A Regiment in Action
Get PDFThe work which follows is by no means a thorough or complete history of the Twenty First Infantry Regiment in World War II. To my knowledge no such history has yet been written. I have, however, a number of official accounts of some of our actions. These I have edited and put together with whatever other information available in order to have at least some form of published record. I am publishing this work in response to numerous requests from members and former members of the 21st Infantry as a chronicle of our days together in combat.
Most of the description concerning the Hollandia Operation was submitted by Lieut. Colonel Roy W. Marcy. The sketches after Page 37 and Page 52 were drawn by Mr. Lawrence E. Hickman another former 21st Infantryman. Great thanks are due to Lieut. Colonel Judson MacIvor Smith for the material on Pages 3, 4, 5 and 6 which were taken from his book The Story of a Regiment -- a history of the 21st Infantry. Thanks are also due to Mr. Arthur Amos, Jr. for the cover, Miss Ruth Middleton for typing the manuscript and to Mr. T. L. Tuggle for supervising the multilith operations of reproduction.
I would be glad to receive information from anyone who can furnish more complete data for inclusion in a future, more complete work. Also any corrections or suggested changes will be very welcome.
William J. Verbeck, Colonel, Infantry, Commanding Officer of Troops, U.S.M.A., West Point, N.Y.https://digicom.bpl.lib.me.us/ww_reg_his/1092/thumbnail.jp
Blue infantrymen: the combat history of the Third Battalion, 310th Infantry Regiment, Seventy-eighth Lightning Division
Get PDFThis book is dedicated to the men of the Third Battalion 310th Infantry who gave their lives for their country in World War II. It is the intent that the material contained herein will serve as an everlasting picture of the deeds and the courage of those who have gone, but whom we will never forget. It is hoped that their bereaved families will find comfort in this book and that it will enable them to know of the comrades of their sons, husbands or brothers who died so that others might live.https://digicom.bpl.lib.me.us/ww_reg_his/1026/thumbnail.jp
Combat history of the 119th Infantry Regiment
Get PDFThis is a history of the 119th Infantry Regiment from June 13, 1944, when it landed on the coast of France, to its actions around the Elbe River, and the formal collapse of Germany on May 8, 1945. Each man who fought in the Regiment had his personal memories. If all the memories of our men, living and dead, could be gathered together here, a complete, exact story of our suffering, sacrifice, courage, and victories could be told.
The passing of time, however, leaves only the War Department records and the memories of our survivors. An attempt has been made to fortify the official record with the lore of the Regiment. If any deviation from actual fact has been made in the attempt, it can only be attributed to the telling and retelling, and the fatigued minds of the handful of us left.https://digicom.bpl.lib.me.us/ww_reg_his/1052/thumbnail.jp
389th Bombardment Group: a pictorial review of operations in the ETO
Get PDFDedication
This book is dedicated to those men who so gallantly and unselfishly gave all they had to give -- their lives -- so that all men might breathe the pure air of freedom.
Author unknownhttps://digicom.bpl.lib.me.us/ww_reg_his/1133/thumbnail.jp
Big Ben, the flat top: the story of the U.S.S. Franklin
Get PDFForeword
We who had the privilege of serving in, and with, the flat-tops of our Navy have always known them to be fighting ships. The story of the Franklin is the story of one of these fighting ships; one that dealt out destruction from The Marianas to the home islands of Japan; one that veritably returned from the jaws of what seemed certain destruction; their stubborn will to win; the American tenacity and reluctance to give in no matter what the odds; these were the pulsating characteristics of our ships and men, characteristics that will always keep our way of life, our freedoms, inviolate. Our enemies who survived this past war will never forget the flat-tops of our powerful fleets. We who knew these graceful ships and knew the men who fought and lived them shall forever honor their bravery and achievements.
William F. Halsey, Fleet Admiral U.S. Navyhttps://digicom.bpl.lib.me.us/ww_reg_his/1139/thumbnail.jp
Log of the U.S.S. Oglethorpe
Get PDFThe U.S.S. Oglethorpe (AKA-100), was built by the Federal Shipbuilding and Dry Dock Company, Kearny, New Jersey, for the U. S. Maritime Service, and converted to the U. S. Naval Service under current emergency war acts. The keel of the vessel was laid on December 26, 1944, and the ship was launched April 15, 1945. Mrs. Ellsworth Buck, wife of Representative Buck of New York, sponsored the ship at launching. The ship is named for Oglethorpe County, Georgia, which in turn, was named in honor of James Oglethorpe, founder of the State of Georgia. The vessel was completed on June 4, 1945, made its trial runs on 4 and 5 June, 1945, was accepted by the U. S. Navy on June 5, 1945, and commissioned for duty on June 6, 1945, at Pier J , Berth 15, U.S. Navy Yard, Brooklyn, New York. The ship\u27s company was on board at the time of commissioning.https://digicom.bpl.lib.me.us/ww_reg_his/1153/thumbnail.jp
Contrast: the story of the the Fifth Special Naval Construction Battalion
Get PDFThis is the story of a Seabee Special Battalion, a rigger or stevedoring battalion, whose principal function in the Navy of World War II was the working of the vital cargo and materiel necessary for the prosecution of the War.
Special battalions were not permanently employed on Stateside duty; that was a job for civilians. Like all Seabee units, the Specials were rigidly trained and indoctrinated for overseas duty and the inevitable hazards of war. They became the life blood, the dominating force of the supply lines, radiating from Allied ports of loading to the front lines of the farthest theaters of war. Participating in actual invasions, they helped conquer new territory for their supply line, then maintained those extensions as our forces pushed forward toward the enemies\u27 homelands. Ships and craft of every size and denomination, flying the flags of every Allied nation, were worked by the Seabee stevedores, the Special battalions.
This, then, is the story of one of those stevedoring battalions, and it chronicles its wanderings from its birthplace in Virginia across the United States; its duty in the frozen wastelands of the Aleutian Islands and the farthest Arctic outpost at Point Barrow; its return to the States for rehabilitation and re-assignment; and finally, its tour of duty in the South and Central Pacific. From Point Barrow to New Guinea, from Virginia to the Philippines-thousands of miles, months that stretched into years, are written into this history, a story not only of the battalion but of the men, the individuals themselves, who loaned that part of their lives to the service of their country that this history might be written.
It is to them, then, the men of the Fifth Special Naval Construction Battalion, that this history of their outfit is dedicated.
Frank L. Holland, Lieutenant-Commander, USNR, Officer-in-Chargehttps://digicom.bpl.lib.me.us/ww_reg_his/1168/thumbnail.jp
U.S.S. Takanis Bay
Get PDFOpening Passage of History of the Takanis Bay :
The tale of the U.S.S. Takanis Bay (CVE 89) begins long before the keel of Hull 89 was laid by the Kaiser Shipbuilding Company. Like so many of the Casablanca Class carriers, the T.B. was named for a peaceful little bay in Southeastern Alaska.
Author: E.G. Hines, USNRhttps://digicom.bpl.lib.me.us/ww_reg_his/1204/thumbnail.jp
Log of the U.S.S. Oglethorpe
Get PDFThe U.S.S. Oglethorpe (AKA-1 00), was built by the Federal Shipbuilding and Dry Dock Company, Kearny, New Jersey, for the U. S. Maritime Service, and converted to the U. S. Naval Service under current emergency war acts. The keel of the vessel was laid on December 26, 1944, and the ship was launched April 15, 1945. Mrs. Ellsworth Buck·, wife of Representative Buck of New York, sponsored the ship at launching. The ship is named for Oglethorpe County, Georgia, which in turn, was named in honor of James Oglethorpe, founder of the State of Georgia. The vessel was completed on June 4, 1945, made its trial runs on 4 and 5 June, 1945, was accepted by the U. S. Navy on June 5, 1945, and commissioned for duty on June 6, 1945, at Pier J , Berth 15, U. S. Navy Yard, Brooklyn, New York. The ship\u27s company was on board at the time of commissioning.https://digicom.bpl.lib.me.us/ww_reg_his/1211/thumbnail.jp