History of the 31st Infantry "Dixie" Division

There was no better name for a division whose regiments came from Alabama, Mississippi, Florida, and Louisiana.  From the day in July of 1917 when the 31st Division first was organized at Camp Wheeler, Georgia, it was called the "Dixie" Division. Wherever the division's training program took it, civilians and other outfits were calling it "Dixie", and by the time it had arrived in France in 1918 its baggage and equipment bore the insignia which is its shoulder patch today: Two Red D's, Back-to-Back, on a white disc. After arrival in France, the 31st Division immediately became a replacement unit, sending companies and individual officers and enlistee men into the front lines of the American Expeditionary Forces (AEF). Although 31st Division history began with World War I, the division's three regiments have longer histories, dating as far back as 1798 when today's 155th Infantry Regiment, seventh oldest in the U. S. Army, was organized as the Adams County (Mississippi) Militia.  In 1806 the regiment made the Sabine Campaign, and in 1807 it was mobilized for the Burr Insurrection  It fought in the War of 1812, and the Creek Indian War; in 1846 it took part in the Mexican War, and then, as the First Mississippi Volunteers, it participated in the War Between the States.  When the first World War broke out, it was stationed on the Mexican border, was soon organized and saw overseas service with the 39th Division. On the regimental crest is the unit's motto: "Stand Fast."  When other troops were beginning to fall back in the battle of Buena Vista in the Mexican War, Colonel Jeff Davis, later Confederate President, ordered -- "Stand Fast", Mississippians."  (Now commanded by Colonel Walter J. Hanna, Birmingham, Alabama.) From Alabama comes the 167th Infantry Regiment.  Its origin in 1836 was followed by participation as the 4th Alabama Infantry in the Civil War.  Stationed on the Mexican Border in 1916 and 1917, the regiment was called to Camp McClellan, Alabama where it joined the 42nd "Rainbow" Division and first met the New York 7th "Blueblood" Regiment with which it was to fight so gallantry all through the first World War.  At Camp McClellan the Alabamians found themselves quartered just across the company's street from the New Yorkers, and the old North-South battle flags went up.  Some Johnnie-Reb used the name "Damn Yankees" without smiling, and a thoughtless Yank took the name "Rebel" in vain -- in a flash the two regiments were swarming together, bare fists swinging.  For a solid hour the free-for-all swirled back and forth in the company street and out onto the parade grounds, New York's Father Duffy, now made famous by the moving picture, "Fighting 69th", finally stopped the fighting.  After that clash, the two regiments raised the white flags of truce.  The went to France together, and as a regiment in the brigade commanded by General Douglas MacArthur the 167th distinguished itself in the heavy fighting which is recorded by its six World War I battle streamers: Champagne-Marne, Aisne-Marne, Meuse-Argonne, St. Mihiel, Lorrain, and Champagne. (Now commanded by Colonel LaRoy S. Graham, Alpine, Texas. The 124th Infantry Regiment was organized from companies which date back to 1887, and on its shield is a sheathed sword representing participation in the Spanish War, a catus denoting service on the Mexican Border, and Fluer-de-lis for service in the First World War; a cross of red is from the flag of the state of Florida.  (Now commanded by Colonel Edward M. Starr, Flushing, L. I.) Like the infantrymen, the artillerymen, too, are from the Deep South; the 114th Field Artillery Battalion is from Mississippi, the 116th is from Florida, the 117th is from Alabama, and the 149th is from Florida. It was inevitable, after the 167's melee with the New York guardsmen in 1917, in Camp McClellan, Alabama, that the 31st Division's replacements should be "Damn Yankees", and so they were.  Exclusive of those stated below the Mason-Dixon lines, New York and Pennsylvania now ahve the greatest numbers of men in the division, but there are also men to be found from each of the Forty-Eight in the Dixie Division. In 16 months overseas, infantry men fo the 31st have fought Japs at Aitape, Wakde-Sarmi, Morotai, Mapia, and Mindanao, leaving thousands of the enemy dead in their advance toward Tokyo via the southern route.  Having pushed north up the Sayre National Highway to a juncture with the 40th Division, these infantrymen are now tracking the Japs back into mountains and jungle rails east of the road in the most treacherous, exhausting type of fighting. Warfare of this nature is no novelty to the 31st, which has practically lived in the jungle since its first elements debarked at Goodenough Island off New Guinea after a long ocean voyage from Hampton Roads, Va.  Few men in the Division have seen anything remotely resembling Western civilization since they passed through the Panama Canal in the Winter of 1944. The 31st was one of the very first divisions to be mobilized for World War II.  Its National Guard units were called to Federal Service in November of 1940 at Camp Blanding, Fla., and the division participated in a seemingly endless succession of maneuvers in Louisiana, Mississippi, Texas, and the Carolinas before it entrained for the POE at Camp Patrick Henry, Va. After a brief training period at Oro Bay, British New Guinea, the Division's fighting regiments moved into action.  Oce RCT, the 124th, went to Aitape, and the other two, the 155th and 167th, went to Wakde-Sarmi.  The 124th caught a heavy assignment for its first experience in combat.  In the now-historic fighting along the Druinimor River, the 124th killed more than 3,000 of the enemy to help break the back of the by-passed Japanese 18th Army.  Fighting was much lighter at Wakde-Sarmi, but the 155th and 167th accounted for almost 1,000 Japs in two months on the Maffin Bay perimeter which guarded the 5th Air Force's Wakde Island airstrip. In September, all units staged for the Morotai operation, which came off with slight resistance on Spet. 15.  At this time the 31st was the westernmost division in General MacArthur's command, less than 350 miles from the Philippines, controlling the Halmahera Sea and cutting off 20,000 Japs on the island of Halmahera.  On November 15, a battalion combat team from the 167th Infantry backtracked several hundred miles to the tiny Mapia Island group to knock out a Jap spotter station.  This battalion killed exactly 167 bitterly resisting, well-entrenched Japs in two days with the loss of only 12 American lives.  In the nearby Asia Island group, a reinforced company of the 124th landed to find no Japs. For seven months, while Mindanao was by-passed in favor of the Leyte operation and later Luzon, the 31st maintained the perimeter defense for the 13th Air Force and carried out patrol missions into Mototai's rugged interior continuously.  Companies lived on outpost duty for weeks at a time, supplied by barge and plane; men "on the line" spent their nights on guard in pillboxes; patrols poked constantly into the mountainous jungle in quest of Japs who had been driven to the interior by our invasion.  No headlines in this type of military operation, but it was a grueling job for the infantryman.  Several thousand Japs were killed on the island during the seven months, ferreted out in ones, twos, and small forces.  By the time the Division left for the Mindanao operation, those Japs who had not been killed on Morotai were withered beyond effectiveness by being denied access to food or medical attention. In Mindanao, the 31st welcomed the chance to fight in open country, but its line soldiers found the Sayre Highway no open road.  The 124th, taking the lead in the push northward from Kabacan, had not gone five miles before its point battalion was engaged in a six-hour battle, from midnight to dawn.  The battle, which took place in cogon grass head-high, was described by Major General Martin as "to the best of m knowledge the first meeting engagement in the Pacific war".  The Japs had been met as they marched south on the narrow road to attack Kabacan, and their defeat in this contact prevented them from erecting defenses in the gorge country farther north which might have prove costly both in men and time for the Division. Before the juncture with the 108th RCT took place above Malaybalay, some 100 miles from Kabacan, there was one other bitter fight involving large numbers of men.  This was the fight below the Maramag No. 1 airstrip, where Japs fanatically dug-in beneath tree roots fought for seven days before they were blown out of their little patch of woods which commanded the highway.  To men of the division this battle has come to be known as the "The Battle of Colgan Woods", in memory of beloved Chaplain Thomas A. Colgan, who gave his life in a vain attempt to rescue wounded from the woods' deadly fringe.  (Captain Colgan's father, T. A., Sr., lives at 9502 Horne Ave., Chicago.  He was a Carmelite).  All three battalions of the 124th were involved in this scrap before it was over. The 155th took over the point of the march from Maramag, meeting little resistance the remainder of the distance, but scoring one complete rout when a Jap force was caught sunning itself along a stream and was annihilated.  In all, 96 Japs were killed, 61 by the lead company, when the rushing stream drowned out the shots which killed their outpost guards.  The 155th had but one fatality, an officer. General Eichelberger commanded the 31st and the 108th RCT for their execution of the operation which split all Jap forces in central Mindanao.  This troops, with scarcely any pause, pushed off into the mountainous jungle trails. Among the officers and men of the 31st Division who have been decorated for valor in the Pacific War are many with dramatic stories worth remembering.  Thrice-decorated is Chaplain (Captain) Aidan R. Potter of Chicago who exposed himself to the concentrated fire of six enemy machine guns in order to assist the evacuation of infantrymen who were wounded as they came ashore in an LVT in the Mapia operation, and for which he was awarded the Silver Star Medal. In the dense jungles of Morotai, a litter which held a wounded man was mistaken by a cargo plane for a drop panel, and as the plane dropped a deadly hail of ration boxes, killing and wounding those below, Chaplain Potter risked his life to remain with the man on the litter to comfort and aid him.  For this he received the Bronze Star Medal.  In a later operation through Morotai's rugged mountains, the gallant chaplain was injured and now holds the Purple Heart, his third award. Lieutenant Colonel George D. "Pappy" Williams of Birmingham, Ala., is the only member of the division, with the exception of its commander, Major General Clarence A, Martin, who holds the Distinguished Service Cross.  Along the Druinimor River in Aitape, British New Guinea, Col Williams moved through heavy fire to forward positions in order to direct operations against the Japs, who were attacking both front and rear.  His intrepidity and leadership helped repulse the attack and Col Williams' battalion counted 300 Jap dead. Sergeant Millard Talley of Wilmington, Delaware, is still fighting Japs with his infantry regiment despite having been wounded three different times for four different Jap weapons.  In Aitape, British New Guinea, Sgt Talley was wounded by artillery shrapnel; in Morotai, he was hit by enemy rifle fire; and in Mindanao, Jap mortar and machine-gun fire wounded him, but he has returned to duty and has sworn revenge.  His Purple Heart has two Oak Leaf Clusters. SSgt Walter L. Wallace of Grossville, Ala., although wounded by shrapnel, exposed himself to a withering crossfire of both enemy and friendly weapons to put a machine gun back into position and help repulse a Banzai attack in central Mindanao.  SSgt Wallace was given the Silver Star Medal and Purple Heart. Sgt Clarence Conolley of Oxford, Ala., was the first Dixie Division infantryman to spot a horde of Japs making a fanatical, pre-dawn suicide attack on his battalion's positions along the Sayre Highway in central Mindanao.  After giving the alarm, Sgt Conolley tossed hand grenades and directed machine-gun fire which helped kill 72 Japs and defeated the attack. Chinese-American Pfc Yee Toy of New York City wan the SIlver Star on Morotai.  When a Jap ambush had pinned down his battalion, Yee Toy picked up a light machine-gun and walked into murderous grenade and rifle fire, shooting from the hip, to help destroy the trap, and then carried a wounded comrade over his shoulder through the hail of lead to safety. The Division's best story, told by its best storyteller, Lt Col George Dent "Pappy" Williams of Birmingham, concerns Pfc "Jiggs" Armstrong.  "Jiggs", a handy man and expert at repairing field ranges, is also from Birmingham.  He wrote the President of the United States once in the early days of the 31st's mobilization and what happened is legendary. "Dear Mr. President," Armstrong had written.  "I belong to the best damn division in the United States Army but how can we fight if we can't eat and how can we eat if the stoves don't work.  The stoves don't work unless we can get some parts....." Some days later, Maj Gen John C. Persons, the 31st's CG, called in his G-4.  On the General's desk lay a letter with a sheaf of endorsements.  The first letter was that Jiggs had scrawled to the White House; the second was a note by President Roosevelt, asking General Marshall why a soldier "with such obvious pride in his outfit" had to write him about stove parts; third was from General Marshall to General Somervell, asking hem the same question -- thus it went, through the chain of command. "How did this happen ?" General Persons demanded of his staff officers. "I don't know, sir," replied the G-4, "but we haven't been able to get any stove parts by requisition and now there's a whole boxcar of them out there on the siding with Red Ball priority from Philadelphia Quartermaster to the 31st Division at Blanding !" Favorite pastime in the Dixie Division is "fighting the Civil War over again".  he 31st personnel from the North now outnumbers those from the South, with Pennsylvanians more numerous than those from any other state.  But the South still holds its own.  Said a battalion commander to a young Pennsylvania officer with whom he was disagreeing: "Pennsylvania ! If Longstreet's cavalry had gotten up two hours earlier, you'd be living in North Georgia now !"

Source: J. D. Bowen. 31st Reference # 37

Page last revised 03/26/2009 James D. West - www.Indianamilitary.org