4th Infantry Division (United States)


The 4th Infantry Division is a division of the United States Army based at Fort Carson, Colorado. It is composed of a division headquarters battalion, three brigade combat teams, a combat aviation brigade, a division sustainment brigade, and a division artillery.
The 4th Infantry Division's official nickname, "Ivy", is a play on words of the Roman numeral IV or 4. Ivy leaves symbolize tenacity and fidelity which is the basis of the division's motto: "Steadfast and Loyal". The second nickname, "Iron Horse", has been adopted to underscore the speed and power of the division and its soldiers.

World War I

On 19 November 1917, about seven months after American entry into World War I on 6 April 1917, the War Department directed the organization of the 4th Division at Camp Greene, North Carolina, around a cadre of Regular Army troops that had been stationed at Camp Greene, the Presidio of Monterey, California, Vancouver Barracks, Washington, and other posts. It was at Camp Greene where the division originally adopted its distinctive insignia of four ivy leaves. The ivy leaf came from the Roman numerals for four and signified their motto "Steadfast and Loyal."
On 10 December 1917, Major General George H. Cameron assumed command. At the end of December, with 13,000 men, systematic training began. During and subsequent to the latter part of February 1918, men who had been inducted from all sections of the United States are sent to the division, while from 1–21 March, drafts aggregating 10,000 men from Camps Custer, Michigan, Camp Grant, Illinois, Camp Lewis, Washington, Camp Pike, Arkansas, and Camp Travis, Texas, completed the division. The division sailed overseas from late April to early June 1918.

Organization

For the Battle of Saint-Mihiel, the division moved into an area south of Verdun as part of the First United States Army. General John Pershing, commander of the American Expeditionary Force on the Western Front, had gotten the French and British to agree that the AEF would fight under its own organizational elements. One of the first missions assigned to the AEF was the reduction of the Saint-Mihiel salient. The 4th Division, assigned to V Corps, was on the western face of the salient. The plan was for V Corps to push generally southeast and to meet IV Corps who was pushing northwest, thereby trapping the Germans in the St. Mihiel area.
The 59th Infantry Regiment moved into an area previously occupied by the French, deploying along a nine kilometer front. On 12 September, the first patrols were sent forward by the 59th. The 4th Division attack began on 14 September with the 8th Brigade capturing the town of Manheulles. All along the front, the American forces pressed forward and closed the St. Mihiel salient.

Occupation duty

Under the terms of the Armistice, Germany was to evacuate all territory west of the Rhine. American troops were to relocate to the center section of this previously German-occupied area all the way to the Koblenz bridgehead on the Rhine. The 4th marched into Germany, covering 330 miles in 15 days where it was widely dispersed over an area with Bad Bertrich as division headquarters. The division established training for the men as well as sports and educational activities. In April 1919 the division moved to a new occupation area further north on the Rhine.
The division went north to Ahrweiler, Germany, in the Rheinland-Pfalz area. In July the division returned to France and the last detachment sailed for the United States on 31 July 1919.

Interwar period

The 4th Division arrived at Camp Merritt, New Jersey, on 1 August 1919, after completing 8 months of occupation duty near and in Bad Bertrich and Bad Breisig, Germany. Emergency period personnel were discharged from the service at Camp Merritt after arrival. The division proceeded to Camp Dodge, Iowa, and arrived 8 August. The division took up temporary station until January 1920, when it was transferred to Camp Lewis, Washington, for permanent station.
As a part of the War Department's decision to maintain only three fully-active stateside infantry divisions, the 4th Division was inactivated on 21 September 1921, less the 8th Infantry Brigade and several other divisional elements. The remaining division personnel and equipment were transferred to the 3rd Division. Concurrently, the inactive units were assigned to "active associate" units for mobilization purposes; the active associate units would provide the cadre from which the inactive units would be formed in the event of war. For mobilization responsibility, the division was allotted to the Fourth Corps Area and assigned to the IV Corps. Camp McClellan, Alabama, was designated as the mobilization and training station for the division upon reactivation. During the period 1921–39, the 4th Division was represented by the 8th Infantry Brigade and other assorted active elements, which formed the base force from which the division would be reactivated in the event of war. In 1926, the War Department abandoned the active associate concept and authorized the manning of inactive Regular Army units with Organized Reserve personnel. The division headquarters was organized by June 1927 as a "Regular Army Inactive" unit at Fort McPherson, Georgia, and many of the inactive elements of the division were also organized as such after mid-1927.
The RAI units generally trained with the active elements of the division during summer training camps. Several units, such as the 4th Signal Company, 4th Engineer Regiment, and the 39th Infantry Regiment, were affiliated with various colleges and universities the sponsored the Reserve Officers Training Corps and organized as RAI units with the Regular Army cadre and commissionees from the schools’ programs. The active elements of the division also maintained habitual training relationships with many Organized Reserve units in the Fourth Corps Area, including the IV Corps, XIV Corps, and the 81st, 82nd, and 87th Divisions. The training of the Reserve units was usually conducted at Camp McClellan, and frequently, at the regimental home stations of 4th Division units. The 8th and 22nd Infantry Regiments also supported the Reserve units’ conduct of the Citizens Military Training Camps held at Camp McClellan and Fort McPherson. The 8th Infantry Brigade, reinforced by the active elements of the 4th Tank Company, 83rd Field Artillery Regiment, and 4th Engineer Regiment held annual maneuvers at Fort Benning, Georgia.
The division headquarters was occasionally formed in a provisional status during summer camps or command post exercises to train Regular and Reserve officers in division-level command and control procedures. It was provisionally formed on 5 September 1936 for the Third Army CPX held that month at Camp Bullis, Texas. The division headquarters was also provisionally formed for the August 1938 Third Army Maneuvers in the DeSoto National Forest in Mississippi. For that maneuver, the division was reinforced by the 17th Ordnance Company, a detachment of the 51st Signal Battalion, and the Georgia National Guard’s 122nd Infantry Regiment, in addition to the active divisional elements.

World War II

The 4th Division was reactivated on 1 June 1940 at Fort Benning, Georgia, under the command of Major General Walter Prosser. The division was brought to full strength first by voluntary enlistments, and after the passage of the Selective Training and Service Act, the assignment of 5,300 draftees in February and March 1941, who primarily hailed from New York, New Jersey, and Delaware. Commencing in the summer of 1941, the formation was reorganized as a motorized division for the upcoming Louisiana Maneuvers, and assigned to I Armored Corps. It was first given its motorized title in parenthesized style, and then as the “4th Motorized Division” effective 11 July 1941. The division participated in the Louisiana Maneuvers held during August–September 1941 and then in the Carolina Maneuvers of October–November 1941, after which it returned to Fort Benning. The division transferred to Camp Gordon, Georgia, in December 1941, the month America entered World War II, and rehearsed training at the Carolina Maneuver Area during the summer of 1942.
The division, now under the command of Major General Raymond O. Barton, then moved on 12 April 1943 to Fort Dix, New Jersey, where it reorganized as a standard infantry division and was redesignated the 4th Infantry Division on 4 August of that year. The division participated in battlefield maneuvers and instruction in Florida starting in September and after this fall training exercise arrived at Camp Jackson, South Carolina, on 1 December 1943. At this station the division was alerted for overseas movement and staged at Camp Kilmer, New Jersey, beginning 4 January 1944 prior to departing the New York Port of Embarkation on 18 January 1944. The 4th Infantry Division sailed to England where it arrived on 26 January 1944.

England

Once in England the 4th Infantry Division became absorbed in "an incredible degree of rugged and realistic training" for the amphibious assault on continental Europe. Soldiers rehearsed every step of the coming invasion in detail, starting with small-unit exercises and working up to the scale of the entire Utah force, including the 4th and numerous attachments. It was during this final dress rehearsal for the D-Day landings, Exercise Tiger, that the division would actually suffer its greatest losses in connection with the D-Day landings. German E-boats infiltrated the exercise area and torpedoed several of the landing ships, killing at least 749 of the force. The incident was little acknowledged until long after the war.