Army & Navy – Case History

At the southern end of the Japanese line on Leyte last week a division of U.S. troops hacked a path to Hill 1525, an enemy key position. Their work was expert—and with reason. The 32nd Division was one of the best in the Pacific, and it had learned its art in the hardest possible way.

There was a time when the 32nd was less distinguished. Its story was a case history of the hard way in which many another U.S. outfit has grown battlewise.

War for the 32nd (Red Arrow Division) started early in 1942, when they were dispatched in haste to reinforce the Allies’ faltering Pacific frontier. Behind the 32nd was a good history. It had fought in World War I, where its men had earned from the French the nickname, “Les Terribles.” It was made up of National Guard units from Michigan and Wisconsin, draftees, regular officers. It had had some field training, a little tutoring in jungle fighting under simulated conditions in Louisiana. But training in those days was not up to post-Pearl Harbor standards, and the 32nd—though it did not know it then—was headed for the toughest battlefront in the world. Major General Edwin Forrest Harding, a regular, was in command.

The Hell of Buna. In May 1942, the 32nd was dumped into Australia. Douglas MacArthur, beginning his New Guinea campaign, picked it for his onslaught on Buna.

Some units were flown over the Owen Stanley range. Others walked, lugging their equipment—a terrible trek which took Company E of the 126th Infantry 49 days. On the other side of the range they slogged through mangrove swamps and jungles up the coast to Buna.

Men sickened with malaria, scurvy, dysentery, collapsed from hunger and sheer fatigue. Food and ammunition had to be carried to them by air. The ghostly jungles closed around them. Snipers potted them and fanatical Japs jumped them from trees. Corpses of haggard-faced, bearded U.S. soldiers bobbed in the flooded rivers. Officers as well as men dropped like flies. Brigadier General Hanford MacNider was wounded. Entrenched on high, dry ground around Buna, the Japs held on & on.

Harding was relieved. MacArthur sent Lieut. General Robert L. Eichelberger to take command of all the Buna forces, which included the 41st Infantry Division—as green as the 32nd—and units of the 6th and 7th Australians. MacArthur’s instructions to Eichelberger: don’t come back until Buna is taken. Brigadier General Albert Whitney Waldron, put in command of the 32nd, was wounded. Brigadier General Clovis Byers succeeded him and he was wounded. Buna finally fell.

The Moppers-Up. What was left of the 32nd was taken back to Australia. Of 172 men in Company E of the 126th Infantry who had started the campaign, only seven were still standing. Medics said the 32nd was through.

But MacArthur had to have men if he was going to carry on his New Guinea campaign. The malaria-ridden men of the 32nd were isolated to be cured. The rest of the Division licked its wounds and waited—until lean, tough Major General William H. Gill, now their commander, stood them up and proclaimed that he was going to put the outfit together again. A year later the 32nd was back in the war.

Employed as an all-round good division now, the 32nd was thrown in by bits and pieces where they were needed. One regiment was sent into Saidor, some 230 miles northwest of the old bloody Buna battleground. They attacked from landing craft this time, marveling at the air and naval support. There had been nothing like this at Buna. A regiment fought at Aitape.

They mopped up. They followed along after the first hoorah and performed the dirtiest chore of the New Guinea campaign—securing defenses, beating off counterattacks, stopping infiltrations, keeping isolated, starving Jap troops from breaking out of traps. Names like Tumleo, Seleo, Ali, Angel bristled in the 32nd’s growing battle record. The Division slogged on, fighting the bitterest, most hardening kind of warfare.

Then, a fortnight ago, after the first fanfares over the Philippines landing had quieted down, MacArthur called for them again. They landed in Leyte.

Less than half of those who had fought at Buna were still in the ranks. Gill was still in command. They marched into the kind of terrain they knew so well—rain-drenched jungles. In the Ormoc valley they took up positions. Last week MacArthur’s communiqué announced exuberantly: “The 32nd crushed the enemy’s Limon bastion and drove south to the Leyte River.”