The 88th Readiness Division is an administrative formation of the United States Army Reserve. It traces its history to the 88th Infantry Division, a infantry division of the United States Army that saw service in both World War I and World War II. It was one of the first of the Organized Reserve divisions to be called into federal service, created nearly "from scratch" after the implementation of the draft in 1940. Previous divisions were composed of a core of either Regular Army or National Guard personnel plus draftees. Much of the experience in reactivating it was used in the subsequent expansion of the U.S. Army.
By the end of the Second World War the division fought its way to the northernmost extreme of Italy. In early May 1945 troops of its 349th Infantry Regiment joined the 103d Infantry Division of the VI Corps of the U.S. Seventh Army, which had raced south through Bavaria into Innsbruck, Austria, in Vipiteno in the Italian Alps.Fifth Army History • Race to the Alps, Chapter VI : Conclusion
History World War I Activated: 5 August 1917, Camp Dodge, Iowa Overseas: 7 September 1918 Casualties: Total-78 (KIA-12; WIA-66) Commanders: Maj. Gen. Edward H. Plummer (25 August 1917) Brig. Gen. Robert N. Getty (27 November 1917) Maj. Gen. Edward H. Plummer (19 February 1918) Brig. Gen. Robert N. Getty (15 March 1918) Brig. Gen. William D. Beach (24 May 1918) Maj. Gen. William Weigel (10 September 1918) Inactivated: 10 June 1919, Camp Dodge, Iowa
Composition Initial personnel for the division were Selective Service men from Illinois, Iowa, Minnesota, and North Dakota, and the division was at full strength of 20,000 by the end of September 1917. The 88th Division, like many National Army divisions, subsequently suffered heavily from transfers to other new units or units that were more advanced in their training and preparing to go overseas, delaying its combat readiness. In October 1917, 3,000 men were transferred to the 34th Division and 1,000 to the 33rd Division, while in November 8,000 went to the 87th Division. The strength of the 88th Division was only 8,000 men in January 1918, but the next month, 12,000 men arrived from Iowa and Minnesota to bring the division to full strength. Subsequently, 16,000 men were transferred from the division, the majority to the 82nd Division, and others to the 30th, 33rd, 35th and 90th Divisions. At the end of April, the 88th Division was left with less than 8,500 men, but during May and June more than 10,000 fresh drafts joined, many from Missouri, Nebraska, and South Dakota, and during July, more fresh drafts and transfers completed the division. The division sailed in stages to England in August and September 1918, and moved to France. Elements of the division participated in training near the front lines with the French Army, and occupied quiet sectors of the front in Alsace beginning in early October 1918. The Armistice of 11 November 1918 ended the war a month later.
The division was composed of the following units:army.mil Order of Battle in the Great War P393
Headquarters, 88th Division 175th Infantry Brigade 349th Infantry Regiment 350th Infantry Regiment 338th Machine Gun Battalion 176th Infantry Brigade 351st Infantry Regiment 352nd Infantry Regiment 339th Machine Gun Battalion 163rd Field Artillery Brigade 337th Field Artillery Regiment (75 mm) 338th Field Artillery Regiment (75 mm) 339th Field Artillery Regiment (155 mm) 313th Trench Mortar Battery Headquarters Troop, 88th Division 337th Machine Gun Battalion 313th Engineer Regiment 313th Field Signal Battalion 313th Train Headquarters and Military Police 313th Ammunition Train 313th Supply Train 313th Engineer Train 313th Sanitary Train 349th-352nd Ambulance Companies and Field Hospitals
Interwar period
The 88th Division headquarters arrived at the port of Newport News, Virginia, aboard the USS Pocahontas on 1 June 1919 and was demobilized on 10 June 1919 at Camp Dodge. Pursuant to the National Defense Act of 1920, the 88th Division was reconstituted in the Organized Reserve on 24 June 1921, allotted to the Seventh Corps Area, assigned to the XVII Corps, and further allotted to the states of Minnesota, Iowa, and North Dakota. The division headquarters was organized on 2 September 1921 at 1684 Van Buren Street in St. Paul, Minnesota. It was relocated to the Kasota Building in Minneapolis, Minnesota, on 29 September 1921, to 835 Palace Building in August 1924, and to the new Post Office Building in July 1937, where it remained until activated for World War II. In the first years after World War I, many officers of the division were chaplains, doctors, engineers, or other men with prior military service commissioned directly from civilian life. As the 1920s turned to the 1930s, many of the World War I veteran officers began to retire, and the single largest cohort of officers in the division became college graduates from the Reserve Officers Training Corps. The primary sources for these new Reserve lieutenants were Coe College, the State University of Iowa, and Iowa State College of Agriculture and Mechanic Arts in Iowa, the University of Minnesota in Minnesota, and North Dakota Agricultural College and the University of North Dakota in North Dakota.
The designated mobilization and training station for the division was Camp Dodge. For annual training the headquarters and staff usually trained with the staff of the 14th Infantry Brigade, either at Fort Crook, Nebraska, or Fort Snelling, Minnesota. The infantry regiments held their annual training primarily with the 3rd Infantry Regiment at Fort Snelling, or with the 17th Infantry Regiment at Fort Des Moines, Iowa. Other units, such as the special troops, artillery, engineers, aviation, medical, and quartermaster, trained at various posts in the Sixth and Seventh Corps Areas, often with the active units of the 7th Division or other Regular Army units. For example, the division artillery trained at Camp McCoy, Wisconsin; the 313th Engineer Regiment trained at Fort Riley, Kansas, with Troop A, 9th Engineer Squadron; the 313th Medical Regiment trained at the medical corps training camp at Fort Snelling; and the 313th Observation Squadron trained with the 16th Observation Squadron at Marshall Field, Kansas. The infantry regiments also rotated responsibility to conduct the Citizens Military Training Camps held at Fort Snelling, Fort Des Moines, and Fort Lincoln, North Dakota, each year. The division sometimes participated in Seventh Corps Area and Fourth Army command post exercises with other Regular Army, National Guard, and Organized Reserve units, but unlike the Regular and Guard units, the 88th Division did not participate in the Seventh Corps Area maneuvers and the Fourth Army maneuvers of 1937, 1940, and 1941 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 bring the units up to war strength for the exercises. Additionally, some were assigned duties as umpires or as support personnel. In the United States Army's precautionary mobilization in 1940-1941 prior to the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, most Organized Reserve officers were ordered to active duty individually and assigned to fill vacancies in existing or newly organized Regular Army and National Guard units. As a result, the 88th Division was almost completely depleted of personnel, particularly company-grade officers (lieutenants and captains).
World War II Ordered into active military service: 15 July 1942, Camp Gruber, Oklahoma Overseas: 6 December 1943 Distinguished Unit Citations: 3 Campaigns: Rome-Arno, North Apennines, Po Valley Days of combat: 344 Awards: Medal of Honor-3; Distinguished Service Cross (United States)-40; Distinguished Service Medal (United States)-2; Silver Star-522; Legion of Merit-66; Soldier's Medal-19; Bronze Star Medal-3,784. Unit citations: Third Battalion, 351st Infantry Regiment (action vicinity Laiatico; 9–13 July 1944). Second Battalion, 350th Infantry Regiment (action on Mt. Battaglia, 27 Sept – 3 Oct 1944). Second Battalion, 351st Infantry Regiment (action vicinity Mt. Cappello, 27 Sept – 1 Oct 1944). Commanders: Maj. Gen. John E. Sloan (July 1942 – September 1944) Maj. Gen. Paul W. Kendall (September 1944 – July 1945) Brig. Gen. James C. Fry (July–November 1945) Maj. Gen. Bryant Moore (November 1945 to inactivation) Inactivated: 24 October 1947 in Italy
Activation and training
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 88th Infantry Division, commanded by Major General John E. Sloan, was ordered into active military service on 15 July 1942 at Camp Gruber, Oklahoma, around a cadre of officers and men from the 9th Infantry Division, National Guard and Organized Reserve officers, and men from infantry replacement training centers at Camp Wheeler, Georgia, and Camp Wolters, Texas. The first group of draftee fillers for the division arrived in early August, coming predominantly from New England and the Mid-Atlantic states. Other groups, mainly from the Great Lakes and Midwest but also hailing from the Southwest and Far West, arrived in October and early November to round out the division.