42nd Infantry Division (United States)


The 42nd Infantry Division is a division of the United States Army National Guard. It was nicknamed the Rainbow Division because, during rapid mobilization for service in WWI, it was formed from 27 National Guard units from across the US. The division was engaged in four major operations between July 1918 and the armistice in November 1918, and demobilized in 1919. Since World War I, the 42nd Infantry Division has served in World War II and the global war on terrorism.
The division is currently headquartered at the Glenmore Road Armory in Troy, New York. The division headquarters is a unit of the New York Army National Guard. The division currently includes Army National Guard units from fourteen different states, including Connecticut, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Rhode Island, and Vermont., 67 percent of 42ID soldiers are located in New York and New Jersey.

World War I

Rainbow Division

When the United States entered World War I by declaring war on Germany in April 1917, it federalized the National Guard and organized many of its units into divisions to quickly build up the Army. Douglas MacArthur, then a major, suggested to Major General William Abram Mann, the head of the Militia Bureau, that he form a division from the units of several states that had not been assigned to divisions. Secretary of War Newton D. Baker approved the proposal, and recalled MacArthur saying that such an organization would "stretch over the whole country like a rainbow."
On 1 August 1917, the War Department directed the formation of a composite National Guard division, comprising units from 26 states and the District of Columbia. As a result, the 42nd Division came to be known as the "Rainbow Division". The name stuck, and MacArthur was promoted to colonel and became the division's chief of staff, with Mann as its commander.
The 42nd Division was assembled in August 1917 at Camp Mills, New York, four months after the American entry into World War I. The 42nd arrived at the Western Front of Belgium and France in November 1917, one of the first divisions of the American Expeditionary Forces to do so, under the command of Mann, although he was soon to be replaced by Major General Charles T. Menoher, who remained in this position for the rest of the war. Colonel Douglas MacArthur was the division's chief of staff until assigned command of its 84th Brigade.
After initially landing at St. Nazaire, France, the 42nd was temporarily located at Vaucouleurs, Lorraine, from 7 November – 7 December 1917, to preliminarily train before transferring to another training area between Lafauche and Rimaucourt. The day after Christmas, the 42nd, along with other divisions it had now linked up with, departed for another training area near Rolampont, Langres. French officers had been attached to the 42nd at Lafauche, Rimaucourt, and Rolampont as instructors in trench warfare who "...seemed, from Menoher and MacArthur's view, to think more highly of the Rainbow's performance than did AEF commander General John Pershing and his Chaumont staff".
"On February 13, 1918, the day that the inspection headquarter's staff from Chaumont was completed, Pershing ordered the 42nd division to move to the Lunéville sector of southern Lorraine for a month's training at the front with the French VII Corps". "Rainbow division entrained for the Lunéville sector on February 16, 1918, and it was joined by the 67th Field Artillery Brigade shortly thereafter. Rainbow's soldiers were distributed over the entire sixteen-mile front of the sector, from Lunéville past St. Clément to [Baccarat">Headquarters">headquarter's staff from Chaumont was completed, Pershing ordered the 42nd division to move to the Lunéville sector of southern Lorraine for a month's training at the front with the French VII Corps". "Rainbow division entrained for the Lunéville sector on February 16, 1918, and it was joined by the 67th Field Artillery Brigade shortly thereafter. Rainbow's soldiers were distributed over the entire sixteen-mile front of the sector, from Lunéville past St. Clément to [Baccarat. As far as administration, supply, and discipline were concerned, the division was part of Major general Hunter Liggett's I Corps, A.E.F., but for combat and training purposes it was under Major General Georges de Bazelaire, of the French 7th Army Corps, with each of the 42nd's regiments assigned to one of the French Divisions holding the sector. Each American battalion served one week at a time on the front line, then spent the next week on the second line of defense, and the third week in reserve Acute shortages of some types of equipment still existed, as evidenced, for example, by Menoher's order that
troops of a battalion leaving the front line were to yield their pistols to the men of the relieving battalion".
On 16 June 1918, General Pershing ordered the 42nd to entrain to "the Champagne region east of Rheims to be assigned to General Henri Gouraud's Fourth Army"; relinquishing the current Baccarat sector "to the relieving American 77th and French 61st divisions".
During 1918, Rainbow division, specifically with the 67th Field Artillery's "1650 projectiles" in the Bois des Chiens, engaged German forces with and experienced bombardment by German forces with deadly, poison-gas bombardments, specifically with German 75-mm. and 105-mm. shells filled with palite and yperite. The 42nd took part in four major operations during the last four months of World War I: the Champagne-Marne, the Aisne-Marne, the Battle of Saint-Mihiel, and the Meuse-Argonne Offensive. In total, it saw 164 days of combat, third behind only the 1st Infantry Division and 26th Infantry Division.
  • Casualties: total 14,683.
  • Commanders: Maj. Gen. W. A. Mann, Maj. Gen. Charles T. Menoher, Maj. Gen. Charles D. Rhodes,, Brig. Gen. Douglas MacArthur, Maj. Gen. C. A. F. Flagler, Brig. Gen. George G. Gatley, Maj. Gen. George Windle Read.
The 42nd Division was demobilized in May 1919 at Camp Upton, New York, Camp Grant, Illinois, Camp Dix, New Jersey, and Camp Dodge, Iowa.

Rainbow unit insignia

The 42nd Division adopted a shoulder patch and distinctive unit insignia acknowledging the nickname. Division lore includes the story that division commander Charles T. Menoher approved the patch after observing a rainbow shortly before a battle, deciding this was a favorable omen. The original version of the patch symbolized a half arc rainbow and contained thin bands in multiple colors. During the latter part of World War I and post war occupation duty in Germany, the patch was changed to a quarter arc. According to the division's official history, Colonel William N. Hughes Jr., who had succeeded MacArthur as chief of staff, was credited with modifying the design to a quarter arc in an attempt to standardize it. According to World War I veterans of the 42nd Division, soldiers removed half the original symbol to memorialize the half of the division's soldiers who had been killed or wounded during the war. They also reduced the number of colors to just red, gold and blue bordered in green, to standardize the design and make the patch easier to reproduce.
Description: The 4th quadrant of a rainbow with three bands of color: red, gold and blue, each 3/8-inch in width, outer radius 2 inches ; all within a 1/8-inch Army green border.
Background: The shoulder sleeve insignia was originally authorized by telegram on 29 October 1918. It was officially authorized for wear on 27 May 1922. It was reauthorized for wear when the division was reactivated for World War II. On 8 September 1947, it was authorized for the post-World War II 42nd Infantry Division when it was reactivated as a National Guard unit.

Order of battle

  • Headquarters, 42nd Division
  • 83rd Infantry Brigade
  • *165th Infantry Regiment
  • **Notable members: Major William "Wild Bill" Donovan, Chaplain Francis P. Duffy, Sergeant Joyce Kilmer
  • **Significant events: Rouge Bouquet
  • *166th Infantry Regiment
  • * 150th Machine Gun Battalion
  • 84th Infantry Brigade
  • *167th Infantry Regiment
  • *168th Infantry Regiment
  • * 151st Machine Gun Battalion
  • 67th Field Artillery Brigade
  • * 149th Field Artillery Regiment
  • *150th Field Artillery Regiment
  • * 151st Field Artillery Regiment
  • * 117th Trench Mortar Battery
  • 149th Machine Gun Battalion
  • 117th Engineer Regiment
  • 117th Field Signal Battalion
  • Headquarters Troop, 42nd Division
  • 117th Train Headquarters and Military Police
  • * 117th Ammunition Train
  • * 117th Supply Train
  • * 117th Engineer Train
  • * 117th Sanitary Train
  • ** 165th Ambulance Company
  • ** 165th Field Hospital
  • ** 166th Ambulance Company
  • ** 166th Field Hospital
  • ** 167th Ambulance Company
  • ** 167th Field Hospital
  • ** 168th Ambulance Company
  • ** 168th Field Hospital (formerly 1st Field Hospital, Colorado National Guard

    Interwar period

As the 42nd was a composite division, it was not contemplated for reorganization after World War I, and all of its former elements were assigned to other National Guard divisions or remained demobilized.

World War II

  • Activated: 14 July 1943
  • Overseas: November 1944.
  • Campaigns: Ardennes-Alsace, Rhineland, Central Europe.
  • Days of combat: 106.
  • Prisoners of war taken: 59,128.
  • Presidential Unit Citation: 2.
  • Awards: MH-1; DSC-14 ; DSM-1; SS-622; LM-9; SM-32; BSM-5,325; AM-104.
  • Commanders: Maj. Gen. Harry J. Collins commanded the 42ID during its entire period of federal service in World War II.
  • Deactivated: 29 June 1946 in Europe.

    Order of battle

  • Headquarters, 42nd Infantry Division
  • * 222nd Infantry Regiment
  • * 232nd Infantry Regiment
  • * 242nd Infantry Regiment
  • Headquarters and Headquarters Battery, 42nd Infantry Division Artillery
  • * 232nd Field Artillery Battalion
  • * 392nd Field Artillery Battalion
  • * 402nd Field Artillery Battalion
  • * 542nd Field Artillery Battalion
  • 142nd Engineer Combat Battalion
  • 122nd Medical Battalion
  • 42nd Cavalry Reconnaissance Troop
  • Headquarters, Special Troops, 42nd Infantry Division
  • * Headquarters Company, 42nd Infantry Division
  • * 742nd Ordnance Light Maintenance Company
  • * 42nd Quartermaster Company
  • * 132nd Signal Company
  • * Military Police Platoon
  • * Band
  • 42nd Counterintelligence Corps Detachment
When reconstituted in the Army of the United States on 5 February 1943, the 42ID was a unique unit, as it continued the lineage of the Rainbow Division from World War I. The officer and enlisted cadre came from the 102nd Infantry Division and from personnel stationed at bases in Hawaii and Newfoundland, while the enlisted fillers came from every state; from the division's activation until it stood down in Austria, the division displayed not only the national and divisional colors, but all 48 state colors at every formal assembly. To emphasize the 42ID's continued lineage from the 42ID of World War I, division commander Major General Harry J. Collins issued the orders that activated the unit on 14 July, the eve of the twenty-fifth anniversary of the Champagne-Marne campaign in France.
From January to September 1944, the 42nd Infantry Division was subject to large-scale removals of personnel to adhere to War Department policies stating that the greatest possible proportion of men sent overseas as replacements should have at least six months of training, prohibiting the sending of soldiers who were younger than nineteen or who had children conceived prior to Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor overseas as replacements unless men could be found from other sources, to supplement the capacity of replacement training centers, and to build up a reserve of replacements for Operation Overlord.
From January to September, a cumulative total of 15,000 men were transferred out of the division, its three infantry regiments losing 5,600 men from January to April. Beginning in the latter month, "when the initial age rules began to have a substantial effect" on manpower utilization, and until September, the division lost 3,936 infantrymen, 840 field artillerymen, and 45 cavalrymen. Major withdrawals ceased in July, and the division was ordered to start an abbreviated training program from the ground up. In mid-October 1944, 25% of the men in the division's regiments had been members since January 1944 or before, 20% had joined from replacement training centers during the past thirty days, 20% were former Army Specialized Training Program students or aviation cadets with approximately five months of training in the division, and 35% were men from other arms, principally antiaircraft, with approximately four months of training in the division.
On 14 October 1944, the three infantry regiments were alerted for imminent overseas movement, and the entire division was restricted to Camp Gruber. The disruption caused by the withdrawal of personnel and advancement of readiness dates meant that the division did not get the chance to participate in major division-versus-division maneuvers.