National Guard or Army? How did they work together?

Hi all, I know some of my questions are going to seem trivial, but I want to understand.
My father was born and raised in Chagrin Falls Ohio, near Cleveland. He graduated Chagrin Falls HS in 1935, traveled, had a job in shipping, worked in a dairy, then sometime between 1939 and 1941 he went into the service. I have sent for his records, but they were part of the ones destroyed in some fire. The family story is that he was just about to finish his enlistment, was driving his car home, (Which I have believed to be from Biloxi Mississippi- but no documentation,) on December 7th and he had to return to duty. I have an enlistment date of Feb 1942. I have another paper with an Enlistment date of 1940. I am thinking enlistments were for 2 years, so the first date would be for the Ohio National Guard, and the 42 once was "you're in the Army now"? I have the address card saying he was off to the Pacific. I think he was in Fiji, because I have lots of $$$ from there, and a picture of some of the native women, with a story from Dad that the soldiers gave the women their T-shirts, only to have the women cut holes out of the front.

With all due respect, my father seemed to have a negative opinion of the Marines and their publicity about the battle of Guadalcanal. He would often say there had to be someone there to take the pictures of them landing. Can anyone explain where this feeling would originate?

Thank you for anyone who can help fill in the gaps.

 

Welcome to the Forum, Russellli00. Do you know what unit served with?

 

Welcome to the forums!

 

A lot of National Guard units were activated following Dec. 7 1941 and federalized shortly there after. Many units had already been Federalized, placed under the direct control of the US Army, prior to Dec. 7th.

As far as the comment about the Marines, that's just he way it was with the Army and Marine rivalry. My Dad who was in the Army during WW2 always said: "The Army only had 12 men in each squad, the Marines had 13 because a photographer was added to each squad". He would often follow that story up by showing the scar, between his eyes, he received from the buckle of a Marine garrison belt. The last time my Dad ever laid a hand on me is when I asked him what he was doing so close to a Marine's belt buckle....funny stuff.

Anyway ...welcome to the forum

 

The story of the Guard in WWII is curious. To begin with, the Guard was not highly respected by the regular army before WWII. Guardsmen were regarded as sunday soldiers, amateurs with experience only as strikebreakers in the labor wars. The regular army was particularly supicious of Guard officers because many of them were tied up in local state politics and owed their rank to pull rather than ability. When war broke out, George Marshall was quick to replace Guard division commanders with West Pointers. Only one Guard general, Beightler of the 37th Division, served through the war with his outfit, and many colonels and other officers were also purged and replaced. After Pearl Harbor, the army gave priority to Europe and most of the regular divisions went there. The Pacific was second in priority, and so the Guard was considered good enough for duty there. Of the 20 US Army divisions that fought the Japanese, half belonged to the National Guard (Americal, 27th, 31st, 32nd,33rd, 37th, 38th, 40th, 41st, 43rd) and two regular divisions in the Pacific (7th, 25th) included Guard regiments. Walter Krueger, commander of 6th Army and MacArthur's top field leader, complained to Marshall about getting Guardsmen rather than regulars or draftees. Marshall told him to quit complaining and make do. Tensions continued, though. I have a combat memoir by an officer in the 161st Infantry (Guard unit in the 25th Division) and another by an officer in the 164th Infantry of the Americal. The former was a West Pointer who complained constantly about the lazy, ineffcient "Old Boy" Guard officers in his outfit, while the latter was a Guardsman who complained constantly about the arrogant West Pointers he had to deal with.

The feeling that the Marines were over-publicized was widespread among the army troops, and with all due respect to the Marines' great acheivements I think there was some justice in the complaint. This was not of course the fault of individual Marines so much as it was the fault of the command structure in the Pacific. Most army divisions fought under MacArthur, but Mac hogged all the publicity in his theater for himself so his outfits got practically none. (He was very fond of the Marines, actually, and fought to keep the 1st Marine Division with him.) In the South and Central Pacific the commanders were naval officers and the army took third place to the USN and USMC. All this is unfortunate, and has tended to obscure the army's very impressive record in the Pacific theater. I think service rivalry was and is a destructive force, but it wasn't inevitable. Much depended on who was in charge. Roy Geiger, who led the III MAC on Guam and Okinawa, always worked smoothly with the army. Holland Smith of V MAC did not work well with anyone, army or navy, and I share Harry Gailey's opinion (and Gailey is a Marine) that Smith should not have been trusted with a field command. By the way, the Saipan controversy was aggravated by the fact that the 27th Division was not only an army outfit but a National Guard outfit.

 

I think that the Army-Marine rivalry goes back to WW1, to the 3rd Battle of the Aisne in particular. Two Army divisions were committed to blunt the German 1918 Spring Offensive. One division, the 2nd US Infantry was composed of one brigade of 2 regular army regiments and the other was a Marine brigade of 2 regiments. The part of the battle that the Marines were involved in was the bloody fight at Belleau Wood. The Marines got a lot of press out of that fight, and the Army's contribution in the rest of the battle was a bit overlooked. Not saying that the Marines didn't earn their laurels there (they also earned the Devil Dog nickname by the Germans in that fight), but I believe that the bad blood between to two services began there and continued through WW2 and beyond.

 

In 1940, Congress passed the Selective Training and Service Act. This was actually a draft to increase the personnel in the military in case there was a war. If no war was declared by October 1941, the term of enlistment was over and they could go home. Many men volunteered to serve their "one" year and get it over with so they could return to civilian life.

In the summer of 1941 the war in Europe was getting worse and it was obvious the U.S. Would be getting involved, so Congress passed the Service extension Act, which extended the enlistment of these men to eighteen months. Of course Pearl Harbor happened during this time and the draft was extended for the duration of the war.

Looks like your father was about to finish his enlistment when the war broke out and he volunteered to returned to service. Many men volunteered so they could pick a particular branch or unit instead of being assigned by the Army.

Since the papers that you have say "enlisted" I believe he volunteered instead of being drafted- which would have happened regardless.

 

If your father was an Ohio Guardsman who spent time in Fiji, then he was almost certainly a member of the 37th (Buckeye) Infantry Division. The 37th spent time in Fiji before it saw its first action on New Georgia in 1943. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/37th_Infantry_Division_%28United_States%29#World_War_II

 

This can be nitpicked to death, but by 44 there was no real difference between regular army and National Guard in terms of quality. Trained men from both arms were transferred to form the cadres of new divisions coming online as the army doubled and quadrupled prior to entry in the war. And those men were retrained again with new arms and new tactics (often based on the British experience) that were coming online. All of these units took on enormous amounts of green conscripts and volunteers to replace those lost to form new units. It was a volunteer army, not an army of seasoned regulars.

As someone mentioned above, most of the political hacks in the top leadership of the NG units were replaced with regular army officers. In Normandy, another purge happened when an enormous amount of heads rolled in the upper and mid-level leadership in both types of units. Those regiment and battalion commanders that didn't perform were dropped and replaced without a second thought. The same was happening at lower levels, right down to the company level.

By early summer, the army (both NG and regular) were fighting on par with each other.

There were several performance ratings at the end of the war. The most respected was done by SHAEF historians who prepared a very comprehensive study including ground taken, casualties inflicted, prisoners taken, performance against other Divisions on the flanks and so on. They rated the 30th Division (national guard) as the finest division in the ETO. The 1st Division (regular army) and the 29th (national guard) rated very highly as well.

 

Thank you all for sharing your wealth of information! and for not making me feel foolish for asking. The rivalry makes sense, and I suppose a little bit of competition might not be all that bad. I really am glad to hear my father was just participating in a rivalry and not holding a grudge.

Can anyone share how often or even if the soldiers returned to their hometowns during the 1942-1944/5 years. I suspect he did have liberty in New Zealand, maybe Australia, but I have pictures of him in uniform around home town. Guessing they were taken before he shipped overseas, but would like to have someone else's view.

Thank you!

 

If you were a US serviceman serving overseas in WWII your chances of home leave were slim, and if you were an infantryman in the Pacific you could just about kiss any such chances goodbye. The Pacific theater was tighter on manpower than Europe, the distance and travel time back to the States were far greater, and Douglas MacArthur in particular was notorious for virtually imprisoning anyone who wound up in his theater. If you were in the navy you might get liberty if your ship went back home, and many ships did return to the US for one reason or another (repair, reassignment to duty in the Atlantic, etc). After 1943 most of the USMC was in the Central Pacific, and some guys got leave in Hawaii when their units returned there to train. Navy and USMC air units sometimes rotated around and experienced airmen might go back to the States for reassignment to training or other duty after they had seen enough combat. The USAAF sometimes sent people back, but a full system of personnel rotation was not introduced in the Pacific air force until about 1944. The army had it worst. Barring extraordinary circumstances, if you were a GI in the Pacific you were stuck there until the Japs gave up. Leave was available if you were in Fiji or New Caledonia, though neither was exactly a hot place to be. Australia and New Zealand were the best you could hope for, or Hawaii again if you were in one of the army outfits in the Central Pacific. None of those were home, but they weren't bad deals. Some army divisions spent a very long time training or rehabilitating between campaigns in those places, and on days off you could get to the bright lights. The 25th Division spent about 3 months in New Zealand after leaving New Georgia, and another 10 in New Caledonia. The 32nd Division spent 6 months in Australia after the Buna campaign. To be brutally honest, if you were an infantryman in the Pacific your best chance of getting home was to be wounded so badly or get so sick that only care in a stateside hospital could keep you alive. (See James Jones' novel Whistle, which deals with this situation.)

 

On a side note, the only Army unit that I know of that served in both the PTO and the ETO was the FSSF (aka The Devil's Brigade). It landed on the recently evacuated Kiska in the Aleutians. It was then transferred to the Mediterranean and saw action in Italy and Southern France before being de-activated.

 

From what you have told us so far, I think Terry is correct that your father was in the 37th Infantry Division. BTW, you have tagged this topic with "137th Infantry Camp Shelby". Did you mean "37th Infantry Division"? The 137th Infantry Regiment was a Kansas NG unit that served in the ETO.

Why do you suspect that he was in NZ or Australia? If he was, that may slightly narrow down which element of the 37th Division he was in. I've posted elsewhere that the 37th Division was originally intended to go to New Zealand. An advance team was sent ahead in April 1942 to make preparations. However, the plans changed and most of the 37th was sent to Fiji instead. The 145th Infantry Regiment continued on to New Zealand and arrived at Auckland on June 12, 1942. Additional elements of the 37th that went to Auckland with the 145th Infantry were: 37th Signal Company; 117th Engineer Battalion; 637th Tank Destroyer Battalion; 135th Field Artillery; 136th Field Artillery. They eventually rejoined the 37th Division in Fiji on July 15th, 1942.

 

I am so confused- I never would have made it in the Army!! I get numbers mixed up, and am not very detailed oriented. Now- the address card that said my dad had arrived at his destination has "Company "D" 145th Infantry" typed in above where it says My New Address is: then APO 37 with the 37 being in red ink. Then it says c/o Postmaster, (something is crossed off) San Francisco Calif.

I guess I must have gotten the 37th Division and the 145th Infantry mixed up- One is a subdivision of the other? Can someone explain the difference? About how many are in a Division? in the 145th Infantry?

I guessed he was in New Zealand because there are some "postcards" which are smaller than postcards today, but seem to be landmarks.

I did find his Separation Qualifications Record- (It says right on it: "Save this Form" Guess he took that literally!)
He had 3 months of Infantry Basic Training; 20 months as Heavy Mortar Crewman; 6 months as a Military Policeman: then 22 months as Athletic Instructor. Each of these titles has a number after it. In the description: it says he was with the 37th Division in Australia, New Zealand, and Guadalcanal. But I have pictures of FIJI. He did the athletic instructor on Guadalcanal, and a reconditioning program in a "General Hospital in the Zone of the Interior"(what does that mean?) Then he was assigned to guard the POW stockade on Guadalcanal.

Now is there a way that I can correct the tag? I got a little bit of everything in the tag- I knew he went to Camp Shelby- So glad you are all helping- I really am getting a better picture of what he might have experienced. Three or four years away from home- no wonder he never was excited about picnics and wanted to eat at a table!

Thank you to all!

 

During WWII in the Pacific, the 37th Division was made up of 3 infantry regiments: 129th, 145th, and 148th. Each regiment had 3 battalions (numbered 1-3), which each had 4 companies which were identified by letters. Companies A thru D belonged to the 1st Battalion.

That means that your father was in D Company, 1st Battalion, 145th Infantry Regiment, 37th Infantry Division. To simplify things, the battalion was often left out because the Company would indicate which Battalion they were in. The first three companies (A, B, & C) were rifle companies, while Company D was a heavy weapons company. That fits with your father being a Heavy Mortar Crewman.

If you would post a copy of the Separation Record, we might be able to tell you more about his service.

I am not certain, but I believe "zone of the interior" means within the United States. Perhaps someone else will be able to confirm or correct that.

 

The 81st Field Artillery Bn also participated in both theaters being stationed in the Aleutians and awarded the Asiatic Pacific Ribbon without inscription and then transferring to Western Europe and being awarded with the European Theater Ribbon with Rhineland, Ardennes, and Central Europe inscriptions.

See their Bn history in the following thread: http://www.ww2f.com/topic/52202-help-request-81st-field-artillery-battalion/

Shane

 

Always good to learn something new. Thanks for the post.