The 2nd Infantry Division (2ID, 2nd ID) ("Indianhead") is a formation of the United States Army. Since the 1960s, its primary mission has been the defense of South Korea in the event of an invasion from North Korea. Approximately 17,000 soldiers serve in the 2nd Infantry Division, with 10,000 stationed in South Korea, accounting for about 35% of the United States Forces Korea personnel. Known as the 2nd Infantry Division-ROK/U.S. Combined Division (2ID/RUCD), the division is bolstered by rotational Brigade Combat Teams (BCTs) from other U.S. Army divisions.

The 2nd Infantry Division is unique as the only U.S. Army division to incorporate South Korean soldiers through the Korean Augmentation to the United States Army (KATUSA) program, which began in 1950 with the agreement of South Korean President Syngman Rhee. By the end of the Korean War, around 27,000 KATUSAs had served with U.S. forces. As of May 2006, roughly 1,100 KATUSA soldiers are assigned to 2ID. Between 1950 and 1954, over 4,748 Dutch soldiers also served with the division.

History

World War I The 2nd Division was first constituted on 21 September 1917 in the Regular Army.In World War I, there was only one type of division in the US Army, the infantry division, and all divisions were called simply "Division". It was organized on 26 October 1917 at Bourmont, Haute Marne, France.

Order of battle

Headquarters, 2nd Division 3rd Infantry Brigade 9th Infantry Regiment 23rd Infantry Regiment 5th Machine Gun Battalion 4th Marine Brigade 5th Marine Regiment 6th Marine Regiment 6th Machine Gun Battalion 2nd Field Artillery Brigade 12th Field Artillery Regiment (75 mm) 15th Field Artillery Regiment (75 mm) 17th Field Artillery Regiment (155 mm) 2nd Trench Mortar Battery 4th Machine Gun Battalion 2nd Engineer Regiment 1st Field Signal Battalion Headquarters Troop, 2nd Division 2nd Train Headquarters and Military Police 2nd Ammunition Train 2nd Supply Train 2nd Engineer Train 2nd Sanitary Train 1st, 15th, 16th, and 23rd Ambulance Companies and Field Hospitals

Twice during World War I the division was commanded by US Marine Corps generals, Brigadier General Charles A. Doyen and Major General John A. Lejeune (after whom the Marine Corps Camp in North Carolina is named), the only time in U.S. military history when Marine Corps officers commanded an army division.

The division spent the winter of 1917–18 training with French and Scottish veterans. Though judged unprepared by French tacticians, the American Expeditionary Forces (AEF) was committed to combat in the spring of 1918 in a desperate attempt to halt a German advance toward Paris. Brigadier General Edward Mann Lewis commanded the 3rd Brigade as they deployed to reinforce the battered French along the Paris to Metz road. The division first fought at the Battle of Belleau Wood and contributed to shattering the four-year-old stalemate on the battlefield during the Château-Thierry campaign that followed.

On 28 July 1918, Marine Corps Major General Lejeune assumed command of the 2nd Division and remained in that capacity until August 1919, when the unit returned to the US. The division went on to win hard-fought victories at Soissons and Blanc Mont. Finally the Indianhead Division participated in the Meuse-Argonne Offensive which ended any German hope for victory. On 11 November 1918 the Armistice was declared, and the 2nd Division entered Germany, where it assumed occupation duties until April 1919.

The 2nd Division was three times awarded the French Croix de guerre for gallantry under fire at Belleau Wood, Soissons, and Blanc Mont. This entitles current members of the division and of those regiments that were part of the division at that time (including the 5th and 6th Marine Regiments) to wear a special lanyard, or fourragère, in commemoration. The Navy authorized a special uniform change that allows hospital corpsmen assigned to 5th and 6th Marine Regiments to wear a shoulder strap on the left shoulder of their dress uniform so that the fourragère can be worn.

The division lost 1,964 (plus USMC: 4,478) killed in action and 9,782 (plus USMC: 17,752) wounded in action.

Major operations

Third Battle of the Aisne Belleau Wood Château-Thierry campaign St. Mihiel Meuse-Argonne Offensive Aisne-Marne offensive Source for World War I data and information: United States Army Center of Military History, The Army Almanac: A Book of Facts Concerning the Army of the United States, U.S. Government Printing Office, 1950, pp. 510–592.

Interwar years

The 2nd Division arrived at Hoboken, New Jersey, on 3 August 1919 after completing 8 months of occupation duty near Koblenz, Heddesdorf, and Dierdorf, Germany. It moved to Camp Mills, New York, where all emergency period personnel were discharged from the service, and the 4th Marine Brigade was relieved from assignment to the division. It proceeded to Camp Travis, in San Antonio, Texas, on 16 August 1919 where it remained until Camp Travis was absorbed into Fort Sam Houston in 1922. The 4th Infantry Brigade (consisting of the 1st and 20th Infantry Regiments) was assigned to replace the 4th Marine Brigade in the division structure, and was activated in October 1920 at Camp Travis. The division was allotted to the Eighth Corps Area and the VIII Corps in 1921. The 2nd Division was the most combat-ready division stationed in the continental United States during most of the interwar period, given that the majority of the unit was stationed at a single post and the division headquarters staff was not allowed to atrophy like those of the 1st or 3rd Divisions, the other two nominally active stateside Regular Army divisions.

During the early post-World War I period, the division's time was spent rebuilding and training on a limited scale. The slow pace left time for the division to assist Hollywood in making movies about the Army. Division units participated in Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer's movie The Big Parade in May and June 1925 and in Wings in April 1926. By 1926, however, maneuver training of divisional units was becoming more frequent, leaving little time for movies. The maneuvers generally took place in May, before the division's units assisted the training of Organized Reserve units, Citizens Military Training Camps (CMTC), and ROTC cadets during the summer. Typically, the division would deploy to Camp Bullis, Texas, or areas west of San Antonio, and perform field training, usually at company and battalion level. The division deployment would culminate in brigade-versus-brigade maneuvers near the end of the field training period.

After transfer of the 4th Infantry Brigade to Fort D.A. Russell, Wyoming (later renamed Fort Francis E. Warren), in 1927, the 1st Cavalry Division's 1st Cavalry Brigade began to road-march over from Fort Clark, Texas, to participate in combined arms maneuvers each May. Once the division maneuvers were complete, the division shifted to training the Reserve components. The 3d Infantry Brigade usually trained Reserve officers of the 90th Division, Infantry CMTC, and ROTC cadets. Units of the 2nd Field Artillery Brigade trained the artillery officers of the 90th Division, the XVIII Corps, and several General Headquarters Reserve (GHQR) artillery units in the Eighth Corps Area. After transferring to Fort Francis E. Warren, the 4th Infantry Brigade conducted their maneuver training at the Pole Mountain Military Reservation where they also trained their affiliate Reserve units of the 104th Division. In 1936, the division participated in the Third Army command post exercise (CPX) at Camp Bullis to prepare army, corps, and division staffs for future large-scale army maneuvers. The next major training event for the division came in September 1937 when it participated in the Provisional Infantry Division (PID) tests at Camp Bullis. The “Indianhead” Division was temporarily reorganized with three regiments to test the concept of the “triangular” division. The exercise was apparently very successful as further tests were called for after analysis of the results by Army planners. The following year, units of the Eighth Corps Area including the 2nd Division were assembled at Camp Bullis for the Third Army maneuvers. In January 1939, the division was reorganized for the second time as a triangular division, this time for the Provisional 2nd Division (P2D) tests. These tests finalized the decision to adopt the new triangular organization for Regular Army divisions. As a result, in October 1939, the division's 4th Infantry Brigade was disbanded, the 1st and 20th Infantry Regiments were relieved from assignment, and the 38th Infantry Regiment was assigned to the division to make its transition to the triangular concept complete.

In May 1940, the “Indianhead” Division deployed to the vicinity of Horton, Texas, to train under the new organization in preparation for the next Third Army maneuver. The 1940 Third Army maneuvers were held in west-central Louisiana in August 1940 and were primarily performed with the Regular Army and National Guard divisions stationed in the Fourth and Eighth Corps Areas. After the exercises in Louisiana, the “Indianhead” Division returned to Fort Sam Houston. The following June, the division moved to Brownwood, Texas, to participate in the VIII Corps maneuver held there that month. In August 1941, the division, now redesignated as the 2nd Infantry Division, returned to the Louisiana Maneuver Area for the GHQ maneuvers between the Second and Third Armies, after which it returned to its home station.

On 27 July 1942, the division was again transferred to the Louisiana Maneuver Area, remaining there until 22 September 1942, whereupon the formation again returned to Fort Sam Houston. It then moved to Camp McCoy at Sparta, Wisconsin, on 27 November 1942. Four months of intensive training for winter warfare followed. In September 1943 the division received its staging orders, and moved to the Camp Shanks staging area at Orangeburg, New York on 3 October 1943, where it received port call orders. On 8 October the division officially sailed from the New York Port of Embarkation, and started arriving in Belfast, Northern Ireland on 17 October. It then moved to England, where it trained and staged for forward movement to France.

World War II

Assignments in European Theater of Operations Source: 22 October 1943: Attached to First Army 24 December 1943: XV Corps, but attached to First Army 14 April 1944: V Corps, First Army 1 August 1944: V Corps, First Army, 12th Army Group 17 August 1944: XIX Corps 18 August 1944: VIII Corps, Third Army, 12th Army Group 5 September 1944: VIII Corps, Ninth Army, 12th Army Group 22 October 1944: VIII Corps, First Army, 12th Army Group 11 December 1944: V Corps 20 December 1944: Attached, with the entire First Army, to the British 21st Army Group 18 January 1945: V Corps, First Army, 12th Army Group 28 April 1945: VII Corps 1 May 1945: V Corps 6 May 1945: Third Army, 12th Army Group

Narrative

After training in Northern Ireland and Wales from October 1943 to June 1944, the 2nd Infantry Division crossed the channel to land on Omaha Beach on D plus 1 (7 June 1944) near Saint-Laurent-sur-Mer. Around 150 men from the 9th & 23d Infantry Regiments and 2nd Combat Engineer Battalion volunteered to assist the operations of the Special Engineer Task Force on June 6th. These men were dispersed into the Assault Gap Teams of the 146th & 299th Combat Engineer Battalions and landed with them at H-Plus 3 at Omaha Beach. It's estimated that 13 of these volunteers were killed in action supporting SETF on 6 June 1944. These were the division's first casualties since World War I.