The 36th Infantry Division 1953 US Army Military History Film; WWI; WWII

• published: 14 Sep 2015
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more at http://quickfound.net/links/military_news_and_links.html "36TH INFANTRY DIVISION RECOUNTS ACTIVITIES OF THE 36TH DURING WORLD WARS I AND II - UNDERSCORES MAJOR BATTLES AT SALERNO, SAN PIETRO, CASSINO, ANZIO, ROME, AND GERMANY." US Army film MF 130-7931 Public domain film from the US National Archives, slightly cropped to remove uneven edges, with the aspect ratio corrected, and one-pass brightness-contrast-color correction & mild video noise reduction applied. The soundtrack was also processed with volume normalization, noise reduction, clipping reduction, and/or equalization (the resulting sound, though not perfect, is far less noisy than the original). http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/36th_Infantry_Division_(United_States) The 36th Infantry Division ("Arrowhead"), also known as the "Texas Division", is a division of the United States Army and the Texas Army National Guard. It was activated for service in World War II on 25 November 1940, and was sent to the European Theater of Operations in April 1943, and returned to the Texas Army National Guard in December of 1945. A unit of the 36th Infantry, the 2nd Battalion, was detached and sent to the Pacific just before the outbreak of war in late 1941. Captured by the Japanese and forced into slave labor, its fate was unknown for most of the rest of World War II, resulting in the name The Lost Battalion. The 36th Infantry was reconstituted in a May 2004 reorganization of the 49th Armored Division... History World War I The 36th Infantry Division was activated as the 15th Division, an Army National Guard Division from Texas and Oklahoma. The new unit also received a new commander, Major General Edwin St. John Greble. The designation was changed to the 36th Division in July 1917... The unit was sent to Europe in July 1918 and conducted major operations in the Meuse-Argonne Offensive. On 9–10 October, the unit participated in heavy combat near the village of St. Etienne. Following this victory, which included the capture of several hundred German men and officers, as well as artillery, the unit launched an assault near an area known as "Forest Farm." During World War I, the division suffered 2,584 casualties, 466 killed in action and 2,118 wounded in action. The unit was inactivated in June 1919. World War II... The 36th was called up again for active federal service on 25 November 1940, at San Antonio, Texas... The division departed the New York Port of Embarkation on 2 April 1943, for North Africa... Combat chronicle The 36th Infantry Division landed in North Africa, 13 April 1943, and trained at Arzew and Rabat. It was assigned to the VI Corps, Fifth Army, but attached to Services of Supply, North African Theater of Operations U.S. Army (NATOUSA), for supply. The division first saw action on 9 September 1943, when it landed by sea at Paestum on the Gulf of Salerno against intense German opposition. The Germans launched counterattacks on 12–14 September, but the 36th repulsed them with the aid of air support and naval gunfire, and advanced slowly, securing the area from Agropoli to Altavilla. After a brief rest the 36th returned to combat, 15 November. It captured Mount Maggiore, Mount Lungo, and the village of San Pietro despite strong enemy positions and severe winter weather. This grueling campaign against the Bernhardt Line was marked by futile attempts to establish a secure bridgehead across the Rapido River, 1 January 1944, to 8 February 1944. The division attacked across the Rapido River January 20, 1944 but was harshly repulsed by the 15th Panzer Grenadier Division... On 15 August 1944, as part of the 6th Army Group, the division made another amphibious assault landing, against light opposition in the Saint-Raphaël-Fréjus area of southern France as part of Operation Dragoon... The 36th Division was reassigned to the XXI Corps on 27 April 1945, and attacked the "National Redoubt" at Künzelsau on the 30th. Members of the Division's 142nd Infantry Regiment arriving as reinforcements on May 5 tipped the Battle for Castle Itter in favor of a combined U.S. Army/Wehrmacht defense against a Waffen SS attack, the only time German and American forces fought side-by-side in World War II. By 8 May 1945, the Division was based in Kitzbühel, Austria where it captured Field Marshal Gerd von Rundstedt, the commander of all German army forces on the Western front, and its final station was at Kufstein, Austria on 14 August 1945. After 400 days of combat, the 36th Infantry Division returned to the United States in December 1945. It was returned to the Texas Army National Guard on 15 December 1945...