Texans go to war
WW-I The Thirty-sixth United States Infantry Division, also known as the Texas Division, saw action in Europe during both world wars. At the outset of its federal service the division was composed mostly of Texas National Guard troops and was therefore nicknamed “Texas Division.” According to some sources, the arrowhead (point down) on the division’s shoulder patch was thought to stand for Oklahoma, while the superimposed capital block-letter “T” was thought to stand for Texas. The “T-Patchers” mobilized at Camp Bowie, Tarrant County, in response to orders of the United States War Department dated July 18, 1917. Some national guardsmen from Oklahoma supplemented the division.
After a period of training in Texas, initially under Maj. Gen. Edwin St. John Greble, the division was ordered overseas under the command of Maj. Gen. William R. Smith and arrived in France in stages between May 31 and August 12, 1918. The division completed additional training in September and engaged in the Allied Meuse-Argonne offensive during most of the month of October, fighting in the Aisne valley. The Thirty-sixth advanced thirteen miles against German resistance and suffered 2,601 casualties before being relieved on October 28–29, 1918. The division returned to America between April and June 1919 and was demobilized in June from federal service.
WW-I The Ninetieth Division, known as the “Tough ‘Ombres,” “Texas’ Own,” or the “Alamo” division, was activated at Camp Travis on August 25, 1917, under command of Maj. Gen. Henry T. Allen. Texas and Oklahoma furnished the original division, although all states were later represented. The monogram T-O insignia was adopted in France. The division left the United States between June 13 and July 6, 1918, set up headquarters at Aignayle- Duc, France, and saw action in the Villers-en-Haye and Puvenelle sectors of Lorraine and in the St. Mihiel and Meuse-Argonne operations. Total casualties suffered were 310 officers and 9,400 enlisted men. After the armistice in November 1918, the division moved into Germany for occupation duty. It was sent home for demobilization in May 1919.
WW-II The Thirty-sixth United States Infantry Division again entered federal service on November 25, 1940, a little more than a year before the United States entered World War II. Training began at the new Camp Bowie in Brown County under the command of Maj. Gen. Claude V. Birkhead. Additional soldiers came from several other states, but most top officers were Texans. Maj. Gen. Fred L. Walker, a regular army officer from Ohio, was posted to command the division in September 1941 and led the T-Patchers in maneuvers in Louisiana from September 15 to 28, 1941. One unit of the division, which became known as the “lost battalion,” was shipped off to the Pacific soon after Pearl Harbor and was captured at the fall of Java. The men of the battalion spent the war in Japanese prison camps, and many died building the Burma Railroad. After more months of training, the division was sent to Africa, leaving New York for Oran, Algiers, in April 1943.
The Thirty-sixth participated in hard fighting between September 9 and 18, 1943, with other units of the United States Fifth Army under Gen. Mark W. Clark at a vulnerable beachhead at Salerno, Italy. The division was withdrawn after casualties considerably reduced its effectiveness. Subsequent personnel changes reduced the percentage of Texans to less than half. The Thirty-sixth made significant contributions to the Allied campaign in Italy and fought in two of the most controversial American actions of the war at San Pietro and the Rapido River. In December 1943 two battalions of the division attacked the German-held town of San Pietro.
Director John Huston photographed some of this combat for his grim 1945 documentary film, The Battle of San Pietro. Historian Martin Blumenson concluded that the Thirty-sixth was “close to exhaustion” by the end of 1943; nevertheless, units of the Texas Division were selected to undertake one of the most difficult of all military operations: crossing a strongly defended river at night. General Clark needed pressure on the German defensive line below Rome to prevent the Germans from counterattacking the projected Allied beachhead at Anzio.
Further advantage would be obtained if the attack could achieve an Allied breakthrough into the Liri valley and open the push on Rome itself. General Walker had serious doubts about the Rapido operation, given the current of the river, its muddy banks and approaches, and the lack of adequate boats or bridging equipment.
One source called the attempts to cross the Rapido between January 20 and 22, 1944, a “two-day nightmare.” The attack met stout German defenses, and the T-Patchers suffered heavy casualties, including 143 killed, 663 wounded, and 875 missing, but managed to participate in the continuing Italian campaign, including the capture of Rome. Subsequently, the T-Patchers were designated one of three infantry divisions to go ashore in Operation Anvil-Dragoon, the invasion of southern France, scheduled for August 1944. General Walker was relieved in late June and replaced by Maj. Gen. John E. Dahlquist.
In contrast to the bitter battles in Italy, the “French Riviera Campaign” seemed fast-moving and met with considerable success. In the spring of 1945 the division entered Germany, where it served for six months as an occupation garrison; it returned to America in December 1945 to be demobilized. According to official reports the Texas Division ranked seventh in casualties among all United States divisions; totals of killed, wounded, and captured exceeded 19,000.
When the War Department made national guard units available to the governors of the states in 1946, the Thirty- sixth Division was reactivated. The division grew until the Texas National Guard was reorganized in 1959, when the Thirty-sixth and Forty-ninth were exchanged to achieve better geographic alignment. The Thirty-sixth was called to active duty for twelve months during the Cuban Missile Crisis (1961–62).
In 1965 a separate Thirty-sixth Infantry Brigade was formed, primarily of Thirty-sixth Infantry Division units, to serve as a high-priority unit of the selected reserve force with capability of mobilizing in seven days. With reorganization of the reserve forces, however, the Thirty-sixth Infantry Division was eliminated by January 1968. A portion became part of the Seventy-first Infantry Brigade (Airborne), the only reserve-forces air brigade in the United States Army.
Both the Thirty-sixth Infantry Brigade (Separate) and Seventy-first Brigade (Airborne) succeeded the Thirty- sixth Infantry Division. Lineage and honors of the division are continued by the Thirty-sixth Brigade of the Fiftieth Armored Division of New Jersey in Houston. In 1946 veterans of the unit founded the Thirty-sixth Division Association, which still meets annually.
WW-II the Ninetieth Division was reactivated at Camp Barkeley on March 25, 1942. Motorized in September 1942, but again designated as an infantry division in May 1943, the unit embarked for overseas duty from New York on March 23, 1944, and landed in England on April 5. It saw action on D-Day (June 6) in Normandy. Later it participated in campaigns in Normandy, Northern France, the Ardennes, the Rhineland, and Central Europe. Tentative casualty figures compiled late in 1945 reported 2,963 killed, 14,009 wounded, 1,052 missing, and 442 captured. The division was on occupation duty in Germany until November 1945.
The Ninetieth Division was deactivated on December 27, 1945, at Camp Shanks, New York, and reactivated at Dallas on August 4, 1947, as a part of the Organized Reserve Corps. With headquarters at Dodd Field, Fort Sam Houston, San Antonio, the Ninetieth Army Reserve Command is composed of approximately 9,000 reservists who in 1994 served in 110 units in 50 communities in Texas and New Mexico.
The Ninetieth ARCOM soldiers, still known as the “Tough ‘Ombres” or “Texas’ Own,” were not mobilized during the Vietnam War. They were used in civil affairs and psychological operations in Grenada and in post invasion humanitarian-relief efforts in Panama. In 1990–91 the Ninetieth ARCOM played a major role in the Persian Gulf, where twenty-eight units with more than 2,500 soldiers were deployed to provide combat and service support to the Allied coalition. In 1994 the Ninetieth ARCOM was engaged in a comprehensive drug-demand-reduction program designed to help children in Central America and to support humanitarian work in the construction of roads, schools, and water wells in Honduras, Guatemala, and Belize. Also in 1994 the unit planned and hosted a series of ceremonies commemorating the fiftieth anniversary of the Normandy invasion in France, culminating in 1995 in events recognizing the fiftieth anniversary of VE Day.
By: Joseph G. Dawson III & Dorman H. Winfrey TSHA