The 43rd Infantry Division finally got overseas in 1943 and was staged at Guadalcanal after some preliminary staging points in the pacific. The Divison is credited with a campaign star for Guadalcanal and recieved 10 injuries as result of bombing, but the unit did not participate in ground combat while there.
The Division officers used the time to interview other units who had fought there to improve their knowledge of Japan’s fighting abilities.
When the 26th and 43rd Infantry Divisions were activated during World War Two they both were used as sources of recruits for other functions in the Army to include officer canidates and pilots.
So when the 26th detached the 182nd Infantry combat team it had only 8oo original Massachusetts Guardsmen in it. So how is it considered to be a regional divison then?
The answer is simple, the 1941 draft for the Army orginally placed men in the National Guard Divisons closest to where they lived. The 26th and 43rd where both full of New Englanders until 1942 when it no longer became practical to run that system.
When I went to the National archives in College Park, MD a while back, I reviewed the official after action reports and lineage documents pertaining to the 26th Recon Troop. In them it declared that the Troop was a detached company of the 181st Infantry and thererfore was part of that regiments lineage. Today I saw where a veteran of World War II declared it was a newly formed unit made up of volunteers from Yankee Division. I will have to look into that.
The other thing I found out was that when Yankee Divison was given coast watching duty prior to going to Europe in 1944 it was assigned the east coast. The 26th Recon Troops area was Ellsworth, Maine and patrolled from Bar Harbor to Canada.
The Recon Troops as a whole have a different history. Even though they had tank platoons attached the doctrine was from out of Fort Riley not Fort Knox. Riley was still the home of the horse cavalry and was tasked with applying the skills of that to mechanized units designated as cavalry.
In Massachusetts National Guard history June 17th is the Battle of Bunker Hill in 1775, that was the birth of the Continental Army.
But for the 110th Cavalry June 17th has another signifgance as well. In Virginia during the 1863 cavalry campaign leading up to Gettysburg was the Battle of Aldie.
This was the most costly battle for the regiment, and there is a monument to the men on the Snickersville Turnpike. Heading around the bend pursuing rebel forces the Virginia Cavalry dismounted behind two stone walls that ran besides the turnpike.
The volley wiped out half the regiment in less than 5 minutes, the corpses of the horses and men blocking further advancement.
In 1891 the veterans association got together and had the memorial installed.
Michael J. O’Conner was the chaplain for the 101st Infantry Regiment, the old Irish 9th of Civil War fame,during the First World War in Yankee Division. He was essentially the Boston equivalent of Father Duffy of New York.
After the war he was assigned to St Bridgett’s in Framingham, where he had regimental insignia of the Yankee Division put in the stain glass of the church.
Those crests are still there today.
