The 76th Operational Response Command (76 ORC) is a military formation of the United States Army Reserve. It draws the majority of its history from the 76th Infantry Division which served during the First World War, Second World War and the 1950s. It then became a training division. It was inactivated in 1996 and was reconstituted as the 76th U.S. Army Reserve Operational Readiness Command in 2013.
World War I The War Department established the 76th Division on 5 August 1917, to be organized at Camp Devens, Ayer, Massachusetts; drafts anticipated for 1917, from Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New York, Rhode Island, and Vermont, furnished the division's first enlisted personnel. On 13 August, the organization of the division headquarters is directed, and its commissioned personnel are ordered to report on or before 15 August. On 16 August, the commander of Camp Devens was directed to organize the division in accordance with the tables of organization of 8 August 1917. On 25 August, Major General Harry F. Hodges assumed command of the division, and the program for the movement of Selective Service men to camps is announced. The 76th Division was nicknamed the "Liberty Bell" Division due to Independence Day being July 4, 1776.
During the last week in August 1917, organization begins from a cadre of officers and men of the Regular Army, and from Officers' Reserve Corps and National Army officers of the First Officers Training Camps. From 5–10 September, the initial draft of 2,000 Selective Service men arrived at camp, and from 19 to 24 September, an additional 17,500 arrived. In September, systematic training began. From 3–8 October, the last drafts of 1917 furnished the camp with 17,500 men. On 31 October, the 76th Division numbered about 22,000 personnel. During the winter, fresh drafts and transfers arrived, but are exceeded by the losses which include, in November alone, 3,600, the majority of whom were transferred to the 82nd Division. On 31 March 1918, the 76th Division aggregated less than one-half the authorized strength. In April and June 1918, new drafts and transfers completed the division.
On 28 June, the division's Advance Detachment sailed from New York and arrived on 10 July at Liverpool, United Kingdom. On 14 July 1918, the 76th Division, less the 151st Field Artillery Brigade, 301st Engineers and Train, and 301st Field Signal Battalion, was designated as a depot division, reduced to a cadre strength and used to receive, equip, train, and forward replacements and hospital returnees to combat units of the American Expeditionary Forces.
Overseas: August 1918 Commanders: Maj. Gen. H. F. Hodges (5 August 1917), Brig. Gen. William Weigel (28 November 1917), Maj. Gen. H. F. Hodges (13 February 1918) Inactivated: May 1919
Order of battle
Headquarters, 76th Division 151st Infantry Brigade 301st Infantry Regiment 302nd Infantry Regiment 302nd Machine Gun Battalion 152nd Infantry Brigade 303rd Infantry Regiment 304th Infantry Regiment 303rd Machine Gun Battalion 151st Field Artillery Brigade 301st Field Artillery Regiment (75 mm) 302nd Field Artillery Regiment (4.7 inch) 303rd Field Artillery Regiment (155 mm) 301st Trench Mortar Battery 301st Machine Gun Battalion 301st Engineer Regiment 301st Field Signal Battalion Headquarters Troop, 76th Division 301st Train Headquarters and Military Police 301st Ammunition Train 301st Supply Train 301st Engineer Train 301st Sanitary Train 301st-304th Ambulance Companies and Field Hospitals
Interwar period
The 76th Division was reconstituted in the Organized Reserve on 24 June 1921, allotted to the First Corps Area, and assigned to the XI Corps. The division was further allotted to the states of Connecticut and Rhode Island as its home area. Headquarters of the “Onaway” Division was organized on 1 September 1921 at the State Armory in Hartford, Connecticut. The headquarters was subsequently relocated on 18 January 1928 to Room 411, Donaghue Building at 535 Main Street in Hartford, and finally to the Federal Building at Church and High Streets on 28 February 1933, and remained there until activated for World War II. The 373rd-375th Infantry Regiments, part of the provisional 94th Division in World War I which was intended to be composed of Puerto Rican soldiers, were allotted to Puerto Rico's 211th Infantry Brigade as part of a hypothetical division which was never organized, and the unorganized 376th Infantry was assigned to the 94th Division, which was allotted to Massachusetts. To flesh out the rest of the 94th Division's infantry, the 301st and 302nd Infantry Regiments (part of the 76th Division in World War I) were assigned, along with the newly constituted 419th Infantry. The 76th Division retained only its World War I-era 304th Infantry, taking the 385th Infantry from the 97th Division and adding the newly constituted 417th and 418th Infantry Regiments, while the 97th Division took the 76th Division's 303rd Infantry and retained the 386th-388th Infantry Regiments.
Upon reorganization after the Great War, the 76th Division was slow to build its strength. By 1926, the division was still only about 67 percent complete with 605 officers assigned out of 905 authorized. This slow progression was due, in part, to the small number of ROTC programs located in the First Corps Area from which the division could draw its officers. To maintain communications with the officers of the division, the division headquarters published a newsletter named “The Spirit of ‘76” in keeping with division's numerical designation and the military, geographical, and historical background of the region from which it drew its personnel. 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 Devens, Massachusetts, the location where much of the 76th Division's training activities occurred in the interwar years. For the few summers when it was called to duty for training as a unit, the headquarters often trained with the staff of the 9th Division's 18th Infantry Brigade at Camp Devens. The summer training for the personnel assigned to the division headquarters was varied and included staff training, branch-specific training, and command post exercises (CPXs). For several summers, however, the division headquarters conducted its summer training at the Connecticut Agricultural College in Storrs, Connecticut. The camp at Storrs was also designated the “Special Officers Camp” and consisted of training for unassigned officers, officers who could not attend training with their assigned units, and basic training for recent ROTC and CMTC commissionees. The division's subordinate units trained all over the First Corps Area. Divisional infantry regiments, for example, held their summer training primarily with the units of the 18th Infantry Brigade at Camp Devens, Fort Ethan Allen, Vermont, and Fort Adams, Rhode Island. Other units, such as the special troops, artillery, engineers, aviation, medical, and quartermaster, trained at various posts in the First, Second, and Third Corps Areas, usually with Regular Army units of the same branch. For example, the 301st Engineer Regiment usually trained with the 1st Engineer Regiment at Fort DuPont, Delaware; the 301st Medical Regiment trained with the 1st Medical Regiment at Carlisle Barracks, Pennsylvania; and the 301st Observation Squadron trained with the 5th Observation Squadron at Mitchel Field, New York. In addition to the unit training camps, the infantry regiments of the division rotated the responsibility for conducting the CMTC held at Camp Devens each year.
On a number of occasions, the 76th Division participated in First Corps Area or First Army CPXs in conjunction with other Regular Army, National Guard, and Organized Reserve units. These training events gave division staff officers an opportunity to practice the roles they would be expected to perform in the event the division was mobilized. Unlike the Regular and Guard units in the First Corps Area, the 76th Division did not participate in the First 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 support personnel.
World War II Ordered into active military service: 15 June 1942 at Fort George G. Meade, Maryland Overseas: 10 December 1944 Campaigns: Ardennes-Alsace, Rhineland, Central Europe Days of combat: 107 Distinguished Unit Citations: 2 Awards: MH-2; DSC-13; DSM-1; SS-176; LM-5; SM-19; BSM-1,312; AM-58 Commanders: Maj. Gen. Emil F. Reinhardt (June–December 1942), Maj. Gen. William R. Schmidt (December 1942 – July 1945), Brig. Gen. Henry C. Evans (August 1945 to inactivation) Inactivated: 31 August 1945 in Europe
Training and activation
Order of battle
Headquarters, 76th Infantry Division 304th Infantry Regiment 385th Infantry Regiment 417th Infantry Regiment Headquarters and Headquarters Battery, 76th Infantry Division Artillery 302nd Field Artillery Battalion (105 mm) 355th Field Artillery Battalion (105 mm) 364th Field Artillery Battalion (155 mm) 901st Field Artillery Battalion (105 mm) 301st Engineer Combat Battalion 301st Medical Battalion 76th Cavalry Reconnaissance Troop (Mechanized) Headquarters, Special Troops, 76th Infantry Division Headquarters Company, 76th Infantry Division 776th Ordnance Light Maintenance Company 76th Quartermaster Company 76th Signal Company Military Police Platoon Band 76th Counterintelligence Corps Detachment
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.