The 79th Infantry Division (formerly known as the 79th Division) was an infantry formation of the United States Army Reserve in World Wars I and II.
Since 2009, it has been active as the 79th Theater Sustainment Command.
World War I
Activated: August 1917 Overseas: July 1918 Major operations: Meuse-Argonne Casualties: Total-6,874 (KIA-1,151; WIA-5,723) Commanders: Maj. Gen. Joseph E. Kuhn (25 August 1917), Brig. Gen. William Jones Nicholson (26 November 1917), Maj. Gen. Joseph E. Kuhn (17 February 1918), Maj. Gen. Joseph E. Kuhn (16 April 1918), Brig. Gen. W. J. Nicholson (22 May 1918), Maj. Gen. Joseph E. Kuhn (8 June 1918), Brig. Gen. W. J. Nicholson (28 June 1918), Maj. Gen. Joseph E. Kuhn (23 July 1918), Brig. Gen. Evan M. Johnson (29 December 1918), Maj. Gen. Joseph E. Kuhn (31 December 1918), Brig. Gen. Evan M. Johnson (19 January 1919), Brig. Gen. John S. Winn (2 February 1919), Brig. Gen. Andrew Hero Jr. (3 February 1919), Brig. Gen. Evan M. Johnson (9 February 1919), Maj. Gen. Joseph E. Kuhn (28 February 1919), brig. Gen. Evan M. Johnson (16 March 1919), Maj. Gen. Joseph E. Kuhn (30 March 1919), Brig. Gen. John S. Winn (4 May 1919), Maj. Gen. Joseph E. Kuhn (8 May 1919). Returned to U.S.: May 1919 Inactivated: June 1919
Order of battle
Headquarters, 79th Division 157th Infantry Brigade 313th Infantry Regiment 314th Infantry Regiment 311th Machine Gun Battalion 158th Infantry Brigade 315th Infantry Regiment 316th Infantry Regiment 312th Machine Gun Battalion 154th Field Artillery Brigade 310th Field Artillery Regiment (75 mm) 311th Field Artillery Regiment (75 mm) 312th Field Artillery Regiment (155 mm) 304th Trench Mortar Battery 310th Machine Gun Battalion 304th Engineer Regiment 304th Field Signal Battalion Headquarters Troop, 79th Division 304th Train Headquarters and Military Police 304th Ammunition Train 304th Supply Train 304th Engineer Train 304th Sanitary Train 313th, 314th, 315th, and 316th Ambulance Companies and Field Hospitals
Combat chronicle
The division was first activated under the command of Major General Joseph E. Kuhn at Camp Meade, Maryland in August 1917, four months after the American entry into World War I, composed primarily of draftees from Maryland and Pennsylvania.
After almost a year of training the division sailed overseas in July 1918. The 79th Division saw extensive combat in the Meuse-Argonne offensive, which began in late September, area where it earned the name of "Cross of Lorraine" for their defense of France.
The division returned to the United States and was inactivated in June 1919, several months after the Armistice with Germany on November 11, 1918.
Throughout its entire World War I campaign, the division suffered 6,874 casualties with 1,151 killed and 5,723 wounded.
Private Henry Gunther, the last soldier of any nationality to be killed in action during World War I, served with the 313th Infantry Regiment of the 79th Division.
Interwar period
The 79th Division was reconstituted in the Organized Reserve on 24 June 1921, allotted to the Third Corps Area, and assigned to the XIII Corps. The eastern half of Pennsylvania was allotted to the division as its home area. The headquarters of the “Lorraine Division” was originally organized on 29 September 1921 at the Schuylkill Arsenal, 2620 Gray's Ferry Road in Philadelphia. It was later relocated in 1930 to the Gimbal Building at 35 South Ninth Street. It was again relocated in 1935 to the New Custom House Building at Second and Chestnut Streets and remained there until activated for World War II. After activation, the division's recruiting efforts were such that by 1926, the division was at 85 percent of its authorized strength. To maintain communications with the officers of the division, the division staff published a newsletter, the “79th Division Bulletin.” The newsletter informed the division's members of such things as when and where the inactive training sessions were to be held, what the division's summer training quotas were, where the camps were to be held, and which units would be assigned to help conduct the Citizens Military Training Camps (CMTC). The designated mobilization and training station for the division was Camp George G. Meade, the location where much of the 79th's training activities occurred in the interwar years. The division headquarters usually conducted its summer training there, and on a number of occasions, participated in command post exercises there as well. During these camps, the 79th Division headquarters occasionally trained with the staff of the 16th Infantry Brigade, 8th Division. In May 1929, the 79th Division conducted a "contact camp" at Conneaut Lake, Pennsylvania, and almost 500 of the division's officers attended. The highlight of the camp was an aerial demonstration performed by the 99th Division’s 324th Observation Squadron.
The subordinate infantry regiments of the division held their summer training primarily with the units of the 16th Infantry Brigade. Other units, such as the special troops, artillery, engineers, aviation, medical, and quartermaster trained at various posts in the Second and Third Corps Areas usually with units of the 1st Division or the active elements of the 8th Division. For example, the division's artillery trained with the 16th Field Artillery at Camp Meade; the 304th Engineer Regiment usually trained with the 1st Engineer Regiment at Fort DuPont, Delaware, or the 13th Engineer Regiment at Camp Humphreys, Virginia; the 304th Medical Regiment trained with the 1st Medical Regiment at Carlisle Barracks, Pennsylvania; and the 304th Observation Squadron trained with the 99th Observation Squadron at Bolling Field, Washington, D.C. In addition to the unit training camps, the infantry regiments of the division rotated responsibility to conduct the CMTC training held at Camp Meade each year. On a number of occasions, the division participated in Third Corps Area or First Army CPXs in conjunction with other Regular Army, National Guard, and Organized Reserve units. Perhaps the division's most ambitious CPX was a division-level exercise conducted around the clock for almost 2 weeks from 31 July to 12 August 1938. In January 1940, many officers of the 79th Division headquarters attended a week of additional annual training performed by the 28th Division; the training was part of a War Department-directed effort to increase the readiness of National Guard units that winter. The 79th Division officers voluntarily participated in the training without pay. Unlike Regular Army and National Guard units in the Third Corps Area, the 79th Division did not participate in the Third Corps Area maneuvers and the First Army maneuvers of 1935, 1939, and 1940 as an organized unit due to lack of enlisted personnel and equipment. Instead, the officers and a few enlisted reservists were assigned to Regular and Guard units to fill vacant slots and bring the units up to war strength for the exercises. Additionally, some were assigned duties as umpires or as support personnel.
World War II Ordered into active military service: 15 June 1942 at Camp Pickett, Virginia Trained at Camp Laguna in California in 1943. Overseas: 7 April 1944 Campaigns: Normandy, Northern France, Rhineland, Ardennes-Alsace, Central Europe Days of combat: 248 Distinguished Unit Citations: 8 Awards: Medal of Honor-3; Distinguished Service Cross (United States)-13; Distinguished Service Medal (United States)-1; Silver Star-962; Legion of Merit-11; Soldier's Medal-27; Bronze Star-4,916; Air Medal-78 Commanders: Major General Ira T. Wyche (June 1942 – May 1945), Brigadier General Leroy H. Watson (May–July 1945), Major General Anthony C. McAuliffe (July–August 1945), Brigadier General Leroy H. Watson (August 1945 to inactivation). Returned to U.S.: 10 December 1945. Inactivated: 20 December 1945, Camp Kilmer, New Jersey. Reactivated: (Organized Reserve division 29 November 1946).
Order of battle
Headquarters, 79th Infantry Division 313th Infantry Regiment 314th Infantry Regiment 315th Infantry Regiment Headquarters and Headquarters Battery, 79th Infantry Division Artillery 310th Field Artillery Battalion (105 mm) 311th Field Artillery Battalion (105 mm) 312th Field Artillery Battalion (155 mm) 904th Field Artillery Battalion (105 mm) 304th Engineer Combat Battalion 304th Medical Battalion 79th Cavalry Reconnaissance Troop (Mechanized) Headquarters, Special Troops, 79th Infantry Division Headquarters Company, 79th Infantry Division 779th Ordnance Light Maintenance Company 79th Quartermaster Company 79th Signal Company Military Police Platoon Band 79th Counterintelligence Corps Detachment
Combat chronicle
Before Organized Reserve infantry divisions were ordered into active military service, they were reorganized on paper as "triangular" divisions under the 1940 tables of organization. The headquarters companies of the two infantry brigades were consolidated into the division's cavalry reconnaissance troop, and one infantry regiment was removed by inactivation. The field artillery brigade headquarters and headquarters battery became the headquarters and headquarters battery of the division artillery. Its three field artillery regiments were reorganized into four battalions; one battalion was taken from each of the two 75 mm gun regiments to form two 105 mm howitzer battalions, the brigade's ammunition train was reorganized as the third 105 mm howitzer battalion, and the 155 mm howitzer battalion was formed from the 155 mm howitzer regiment. The engineer, medical, and quartermaster regiments were reorganized into battalions. In 1942, divisional quartermaster battalions were split into ordnance light maintenance companies and quartermaster companies, and the division's headquarters and military police company, which had previously been a combined unit, was split.
The 79th Infantry Division was ordered into active military service at Camp Pickett, Virginia on 15 June 1942, around a cadre of officers and enlisted men from officer candidate schools and the 4th Infantry Division, with the general staff selected by the War Department and Army Ground Forces. The initial enlisted fillers for the division arrived over a period of about two weeks after activation, and were principally Selective Service men from reception centers in the Third, Fourth, Fifth, Sixth, and Seventh Corps Areas, comprising the Mid-Atlantic, Southern, Great Lakes, and Midwestern states (the District of Columbia, Maryland, Pennsylvania, Virginia, Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, North and South Carolina, Indiana, Kentucky, Ohio, West Virginia, Illinois, Michigan, Wisconsin, Arkansas, Iowa, Kansas, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, North and South Dakota, and Wyoming)
After basic training, it participated in exercises in the Tennessee Maneuver Area, after which it moved to Camp Laguna near Yuma, Arizona, where it trained in the desert. It was then ordered to Camp Phillips, Kansas for training in winter conditions. At the beginning of April 1944, the division reported to the port of embarkation at Camp Myles Standish, Massachusetts.