5th Infantry Division (United States)


The 5th Infantry Division —nicknamed the "Red Diamond", or the "Red Devils" —was an infantry division of the United States Army that served in World War I, World War II and the Vietnam War, and with the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and the U.S. Army III Corps. It was deactivated on 24 November 1992 and reflagged as the 2nd Armored Division.

World War I

Organization

On 17 November 1917, the War Department directed the organization of the 5th Division with headquarters at Camp Logan, Texas, around a cadre of Regular Army troops that had been stationed at Camp Logan, Camp Forrest, Georgia, Camp Greene, North Carolina, Camp Johnston, Florida, Camp Stanley, Texas, and Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. Major General Charles H. Muir assumed command on 11 December 1917. The organization was a "square" division with an authorized strength of 28,105 personnel.
Units associated with the division included:
File:3048 Schoup UStroops.original.jpg|thumb|left|November 1918: General Pershing at a review of the 5th Division in Esch-sur-Alzette, Luxembourg.
The entire division arrived in France by 1 May 1918 and components of the units were deployed into the front line. The 5th Division was the eighth of forty-two American divisions to arrive on the Western Front. The 5th Division trained with French Army units from 1 to 14 June 1918. The first soldiers of the unit to be killed in action died on 14 June of that year. Among the division's first casualties was Captain Mark W. Clark, then commanding the 3rd Battalion, 11th Infantry Regiment, who would later become a four-star general.
On 12 September, the unit was part of a major attack that reduced the salient at St. Mihiel and later fought in the Meuse–Argonne offensive, the largest battle fought by the American Expeditionary Forces in World War I. The war ended soon after, on November 11, 1918.
File:American soldiers rejoice at the Armistice, 11th November 1918..jpg|thumb|right|Doughboys of the 6th Infantry Regiment, 5th Division, stationed at Remoiville, rejoice as they receive news of the Armistice on the eleventh day of the eleventh hour of the eleventh month, 1918.
The division then served for the next few months in the Army of Occupation, being based in Belgium and Esch-sur-Alzette, Luxembourg until it departed Europe. The division returned to the United States through the New York Port of Embarkation at Hoboken, New Jersey, on 21 July 1919.

Insignia

The 5th Division adopted a red diamond as its shoulder sleeve insignia. The color red was selected in honor of World War I commander John E. McMahon, who was a member of the Army's Field Artillery branch. The diamond shape was chosen in recognition of the Diamond Dyes company, a maker of fabric coloring products whose ad slogan "It Never Runs" conveyed a martial meaning during war. The shape of the diamond in the 5th Division's insignia represents strength, because in bridge construction the trusses that provide the greatest durability are mutually supporting isosceles triangles.

Interwar period

Upon arrival at Camp Merritt, New Jersey, emergency period personnel were discharged from the service. The division proceeded to Camp Gordon, Georgia, arrived there 26 July, and remained there until October 1920, when it was transferred to Camp Jackson, South Carolina, for permanent station. As a part of the War Department's decision to maintain only three fully-active stateside infantry divisions, the 5th Division was inactivated, less the 10th Infantry Brigade and several smaller units, on 4 October 1921 at Camp Jackson. The 5th Division was allotted to the Fifth Corps Area for mobilization responsibility, and assigned to the V Corps. Camp Knox, Kentucky, was designated as the mobilization and training station for the division upon reactivation. During the period 1921–39, the active elements of the 5th Division consisted of the 10th Infantry Brigade and other assorted divisional elements which formed the base from which the remainder of the division would be reactivated in the event of war.
The division headquarters was organized on 5 May 1926 as a "Regular Army Inactive" unit with Organized Reserve personnel at Fort Benjamin Harrison, Indiana, and functioned in essentially the same manner as the headquarters of an Organized Reserve division. Headquarters, Fifth Corps Area, subsequently ordered the headquarters to cease operations on 1 September 1927, and all Regular Army personnel assigned to the headquarters were relieved. Though the command functions of the division ceased, Reserve personnel remained assigned to the division headquarters for training, mobilization, and assignment purposes. By 1927, most of the inactive elements of the division were also organized with Reserve personnel as RAI units. The RAI units generally trained with the active elements of the division during summer training camps. Several units, such as the 5th Medical Regiment, 19th and 21st Field Artillery Regiments, and the 60th and 61st Infantry Regiments were affiliated with various colleges and universities sponsoring ROTC 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 units of the V Corps, XV Corps, and the 83rd, 84th, and 100th Divisions. The training of those Reserve units was usually conducted at Camp Knox and at the regimental home stations of the 10th and 11th Infantry Regiments. These two regiments also supported the Reserve units’ conduct of the Citizens Military Training Camps held at Camp Knox, Fort Benjamin Harrison, and Fort Thomas, Kentucky.
The 10th Infantry Brigade, reinforced by the active elements of the 5th Tank Company, 19th Field Artillery Regiment, 5th Quartermaster Regiment, and the 6th Division's 3rd Field Artillery Regiment, held maneuvers in those years when funds were available, at Camp Knox. During these maneuvers, the 5th Division headquarters was occasionally formed in a provisional status to train Regular and Reserve officers in division-level command and control procedures. The division headquarters was also provisionally formed for the August 1936 Second Army maneuvers at Fort Knox. For that maneuver, the division was reinforced by the 1st Signal Company and the West Virginia National Guard’s 201st Infantry, in addition to the other active divisional elements.

World War II

On 16 October 1939, the 5th Division was reactivated as part of the United States mobilization in response to the outbreak of World War II in Europe the previous month, being formed at Fort McClellan, Alabama, under the command of Brigadier General Campbell Hodges.
In spring 1940, the division was sent to Fort Benning, Georgia, and then temporarily to Louisiana for training exercises, before being transferred to Fort Benjamin Harrison at the end of May 1940. That December the division relocated to Fort Custer, Michigan. The division received over 5,300 draftees during February and March 1941, chiefly hailing from Michigan and the Great Lakes region. From Fort Custer, the division participated in the Tennessee maneuvers in June 1941. The division went next to Camp Joseph T. Robinson, Arkansas, in August 1941 to stage for both the Arkansas and Louisiana Maneuvers, before returning to Fort Custer that October. The division, having been under the command of Major General Cortlandt Parker from August, was there when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor and Germany declared war on the United States in December 1941, thus bringing the United States into the conflict. As the winter passed, the division was brought up to strength and fully equipped for forward deployment into a war zone. During April 1942, the 5th Division received its overseas orders and departed the New York Port of Embarkation at the end of the month for Iceland. The 5th Division debarked there in May 1942, where it replaced the British garrison on the island outpost along the Atlantic convoy routes and a year later was reorganized and re-designated as the 5th Infantry Division on 24 May 1943.

Normandy

The 5th Infantry Division, now commanded by Major General Stafford LeRoy Irwin, left Iceland in early August 1943 and was sent to England to prepare and train for the eventual invasion of Northwest Europe, then scheduled for the spring of 1944. Upon arrival in England the 5th Division was stationed at Tidworth Barracks in South West England, before moving to Northern Ireland.
After two years of training the 5th ID landed in Normandy on Utah Beach, on 9 July 1944, over a month after the initial D-Day landings, and four days later took up defensive positions in the vicinity of Caumont-l'Éventé. Launching a successful attack at Vidouville 26 July, the division drove on southeast of Saint-Lô, attacked and captured Angers, 9–10 August, captured Chartres,, 18 August, pushed to Fontainebleau, crossed the Seine at Montereau, 24 August, crossed the Marne and seized Reims, 30 August, and positions east of Verdun. The division then prepared for the assault on Metz, 7 September. In mid-September a bridgehead was secured across the Moselle, south of Metz, at Dornot and Arnaville after two attempts. The first attempt at Dornot by the 11th Infantry Regiment failed. German-held Fort Driant played a role in repulsing this crossing. A second crossing by the 10th Infantry Regiment at Arnaville was successful. The division continued operations against Metz, 16 September to 16 October 1944, withdrew, then returned to the assault on 9 November. Metz finally fell 22 November. The division crossed the German border, 4 December, captured Lauterbach on the 5th, and elements reached the west bank of the river Saar, 6 December, before the division moved to assembly areas.
On 16 December, the Germans launched their winter offensive in the Ardennes forest, the Battle of the Bulge, and on the 18th the 5th ID was thrown in against the southern flank of the Bulge, helping to reduce it by the end of January 1945. In February and March, the division drove across and northeast of the Sauer, where it smashed through the Siegfried Line and later took part in the Allied invasion of Germany.