97th Infantry Division (United States)


The 97th Infantry Division was a unit of the United States Army in World War I and World War II. Nicknamed the Trident division because of its shoulder patch, a vertical trident in white on a blue background, it was originally trained in amphibious assaults as preparation for deployment in the Pacific Theater, it was deployed to Europe in 1944 when casualties from the Battle of the Bulge needed to be replaced.

World War I

The 97th Division was one of the divisions planned to be activated in late 1918 and deployed to France in 1919 to reinforce the American Expeditionary Force. The division was organized at Camp Cody, Deming, New Mexico and activated on 5 September 1918. It included the 193rd and 194th Infantry Brigades, and the 172nd Field Artillery Brigade. The 194th was to be organized and trained at Camp Cody, the 172nd at Camp Jackson, South Carolina, and the 193rd was to be organized in France with the AEF. The division's cadre consisted of over 1,000 trained officers and enlisted men, and Colonel Carl A. Martin became its first commander on 26 September.
The division was composed of National Army draftees mainly from Maine, Vermont and New Hampshire. In October, over 5,000 draftees, mainly from Oklahoma and Minnesota, were sent to the division at Camp Cody. Initial instruction at Camp Cody went relatively well, but the 172nd Brigade's training at Camp Jackson was delayed by a lack of personnel. Its regiments were at less than half strength as late as the beginning of November. In late October, the 97th was struck by the 1918 flu pandemic, which sickened over 500 soldiers and killed more than 100. On 25 October, Brigadier General James R. Lindsay became division commander as Martin became its chief of staff. The war ended with the Armistice of 11 November, and the 97th was ordered to be demobilized on 20 November. At the time, it consisted of 402 officers and 7,889 men. The demobilization was completed on 22 December, when the division was inactivated.
Neptune's trident was originally adopted as the division's symbol, to represent the coastal states of Maine, Vermont and New Hampshire, from which recruits were drawn in 1918. The three prongs of the trident represent the three states, the blue symbolizes the states' numerous fresh water lakes, and the white of the border and trident represents the snow that covers these states' mountains.

Composition

172nd Field Artillery Brigade
The brigade was organized at Camp Jackson, South Carolina, under the command of Brigadier General Dennis H. Currie.
Commanders
The division was reconstituted in the Organized Reserve on 24 June 1921 and assigned to the states of New Hampshire, Maine, and Vermont. The headquarters was organized in December 1921.

World War II

In 1942 the headquarters of the 193rd and 194th Infantry Brigades were broken up and the division reorganized in a three-infantry regiment 'triangular' configuration.
The 97th Infantry Division was ordered into active military service on 25 February 1943 at Camp Swift, Texas. Most of the cadre came from the 95th Infantry Division stationed at Fort Sam Houston, Texas. In February 1944 the division was moved to Fort Leonard Wood, Missouri, for additional training. During 1944 approximately 5,000 soldiers were stripped from the division and sent as replacements to other units in Europe. Division strength was eventually restored when the Army Specialized Training Program was terminated and its personnel were reassigned to Army Ground Forces.
In July 1944 the division relocated to Camp San Luis Obispo, California. Under the supervision of the Navy and Marine Corps, the division began amphibious training and exercises at Camp Callan, Coronado Strand, San Clemente Island, San Nicolas Island and Camp Pendleton. In September 1944 the 97th was transferred to Camp Cooke, California, for further amphibious training.
Because of the high number of American casualties during the Battle of the Bulge, several American units earmarked for the Pacific, including the 97th Infantry Division, were ordered to the European Theater of Operations for the final assault on Germany. The strength of the division upon deployment in Europe was 600 officers and 14,000 men.
Commanders
After assembly and training at Camp Cooke in California, the 97th Infantry Division was transported by train to Camp Kilmer, New Jersey. The division embarked on troopships in New York and landed at Le Havre, France on 2 March 1945, then moved to Camp Lucky Strike. After crossing France by troop train, the division passed through Maastricht and crossed the German border west of Aachen on 28 March, taking up a defensive position along the west bank of the Rhine River opposite Düsseldorf. As all bridges over the Rhine had been destroyed and the city was well-defended, the 97th was ordered to move south along the west bank of the Rhine, crossing over it near Bonn on 3 April and taking up a position on the southern bank of the Sieg River at Hennef.

Ruhr pocket

The division then entered the battle of the Ruhr pocket, crossing the Sieg river on 7 April, battling German Wehrmacht troops defending Schloss Allner. According to the after action report:
In two days the 922nd Field Artillery Battalion fired over three thousand 105mm rounds at the area around the castle. Pfc John Hedrick seized an abandoned assault boat while under heavy enemy fire and used the craft to help ferry troops across the river. He was awarded the Silver Star. After crossing the river, elements of the 387th Infantry Regiment assaulted the castle:
Entering Siegburg on 10 April, troops again encountered heavy resistance at the Glockner works.
On 12 April Pfc Joe R. Hastings of Company C, 386th Infantry Regiment, distinguished himself in action at :de:Drabenderhöhe|Drabenderhöhe, Germany while attacking an enemy position. According to his citation:
He received the Medal of Honor posthumously for his actions.
On 14 April, intelligence officers from the 97th Division liberated approximately 800 prisoners of war, including 177 Americans, being held at a POW camp in Hoffnungstal, near Much, Germany.
Pushing on toward Düsseldorf through difficult terrain and heavy resistance in densely wooded areas, the division captured Solingen on 17 April. Düsseldorf fell without much fighting the next day, after the German Resistance launched Aktion Rheinland, and the Ruhr pocket was eliminated by 21 April.

Flossenbürg concentration camp

On 23 April elements of the 97th, together with members of the 90th Infantry Division, liberated Flossenbürg concentration camp near Floß in Bavaria. A military police patrol from the 303rd Infantry Regiment may have been the first U.S. Army unit to reach the camp, although the 2nd Cavalry Group, Mechanized and a colonel from the 90th Infantry Division later took credit for liberating the camp. Members of the 97th Division treated sick and dying prisoners and buried the several hundred corpses discovered in the camp. Brigadier General Milton B. Halsey inspected the camp as did General Sherman V. Hasbrouck, the commanding officer of the division artillery. Members of the Counter Intelligence Corps, which included Robie Macauley, Ib Melchior and Anthony Hecht, interviewed former prisoners and gathered evidence for trials of former camp officers and guards. The 97th also liberated Helmbrechts concentration camp, a sub-camp of Flossenbürg for female prisoners.
The following day a unit of the 97th CIC Detachment led by Captain Oscar M. Grimes captured about two hundred Gestapo officers and men in hiding near Hof, Bavaria. They were in possession of American army uniforms and equipment, but had evidently made the decision to surrender.

Czechoslovakia

On 25 April the division entered Czechoslovakia, moving to protect the left flank of the Third Army on its southern drive. The 97th took Cheb, Czechoslovakia, on 25 April 1945 and attacked the Czechoslovak pocket near Weiden, Germany on 29 April. It had advanced to Konstantinovy Lázně, Czechoslovakia, when it received the ceasefire order on 7 May. Part of the division was in Teplá where the German 2nd Panzer Division had surrendered. The troops used the monastery there as a POW camp for the Germans.
The 97th Infantry Division was credited with firing the last official shot in the European Theatre of Operations during World War II. This shot was fired by Pfc Domenic Mozzetta of Company B, 387th Infantry Regiment, 97th Division, at a German sniper near Klenovice, Czechoslovakia shortly before midnight, 7 May 1945.

Assignments in the ETO

The division left Le Havre on 16 June 1945 aboard the SS Brazil, arriving at Camp Shanks on 24 June. After a 30-day leave, the division reassembled at Fort Bragg, crossed the US by troop train and on 1 September embarked aboard the USS Grundy for redeployment to the Pacific, arriving at Cebu, Philippine Islands on 16 September and then sailing to Japan for occupation duty, the first unit from Europe to arrive in Japan. Arriving at Yokohama on 25 September 1945, the division relieved the 43rd Infantry Division and established its headquarters at Mitsugahara Airfield in Kumagaya. By December the 97th had reached its maximum deployment through six prefectures: Saitama, Gunma, Nagano, Niigata, Fukushima, and Tochigi.
Confiscating and disposing of Japanese military property proved to be the Division's prime task. The 97th returned 198,142,046 pounds of foodstuffs, 670,226 gallons of gasoline, 8,568,857 yards of cloth and 480,343 pairs of boots and shoes to the Japanese government for distribution to civilians.
On 26 October counter-intelligence officers from the 97th Division located $2.5 million worth of stolen radium in the German consulate in Osaka, and another $3 million in silver bullion in a warehouse in Iida, Nagano. On 31 October, Special Agent Robie Macauley of the division's counter-intelligence unit arrested 26 prominent Nazis who were in hiding in Karuizawa.
The division was inactivated on 31 March 1946 in Yokohama.

Command posts in Japan

The lineage of the division's 97th Reconnaissance Troop, Mechanized of World War II was converted and redesignated on 15 July 1962 as Headquarters and Headquarters Company, 193d Infantry Brigade, and relieved from assignment to the 97th Infantry Division; concurrently it was withdrawn from the Army Reserve and allotted to the Regular Army. The unit was reactivated shortly thereafter on 8 August 1962 in the Panama Canal Zone.
On 22 December 1967 the 97th Army Reserve Command was activated at Fort Meade, Maryland. While the 97th ARCOM was allowed to wear the shoulder sleeve insignia of the 97th Infantry Division and use its number, Department of the Army policy does not allow for the lineage of MTOE units, such as infantry divisions, to be perpetuated by TDA units, such as ARCOMs.
Three medical units of the 97th were mobilized and deployed to South Vietnam during the Vietnam War.
In U.S. military Operations in Panama to oust dictator Manuel Noriega in 1989, the 97th deployed troops to neutralize key Panamanian Defense Forces positions on the Pacific side of the Canal Zone; civil affairs soldiers from the 97th later assisted in rebuilding the new Government of Panama.
During operations Desert Shield and Desert Storm, more than 3,000 division troops deployed to missions in the Persian Gulf.
In 1996, as part of the overall force reduction following the end of the Cold War, the 97th Army Reserve Command was inactivated and its units were absorbed into the 99th Regional Readiness Command.
Years later the lineage of the 97th Infantry Division was reactivated as the 97th Training Brigade, a subordinate unit of the 100th Training Division.

Citations