| Unit Name: | 85th Division 85th Infantry Division (85th "Custer" Army Reserve Support Command (West)) |
| Dates: | 1917 – 1919 1921 – 1945 1946 – 2007 2008-present |
| Country: |  United States |
| Type: | Infantry |
| Size: | Division |
| Nickname: | Custer (special designation)[1] |
| Battles: | World War I Russian Civil War World War II |
| Notable Commanders: | MG Joseph T. Dickman MG James Parker MG Chase Wilmot Kennedy MG Wade Haislip MG John B. Coulter MG Angelo M. Juarez MG Wilbur J. Bunting MG George M. Woywod MG William Cockerham MG George Hillard MG William Allen MG Michael Corrigan[2] |
| Identification Symbol Label: | Distinctive unit insignia |
The 85th Infantry Division also known as "Custer Division"[1] (named after the cavalry commander George Armstrong Custer) was an infantry division of the United States Army in World War I and World War II. It currently exists as the 85th Support Command.
[3] The division was first activated 25 August 1917 at Camp Custer, Michigan, and comprised the 169th and 170th Infantry brigades and the 160th Field Artillery Brigade. After a year of training the division left the United States for England.[4] The Division was composed of the following units:[2]
From England the 339th Infantry Regiment sailed to Archangel, Russia to fight along the White Army in the Russian Civil War against Bolshevik forces as part of the Polar Bear Expedition. Accompanying the 339th were the 1st Battalion, 310th Engineers, the 337th Ambulance Company, and the 337th Field Hospital.[2] After arrival in France as part of the American Expeditionary Forces, the remainder of the division was broken up to support other units. The Headquarters was stationed in Lorraine as a depot division and therefore did not participate in any combat operations. Doughboys of the Division served in other Divisions at the Battles for St. Mihiel, Marbache and in the Meuse-Argonne on the Western Front.After the war the division remained on occupation duty in Germany and by August 1919, the last elements of the division returned to the United States.[5]
The 85th Division headquarters arrived at the port of Hoboken, New Jersey, aboard the RMS Aquitania on 29 March 1919 after 6 months of overseas service and was demobilized on 18 April 1919 at Camp Custer, Michigan. The 85th Division was reconstituted in the Organized Reserve on 24 June 1921, allotted to the Sixth Corps Area, and assigned to the XVI Corps. The division was further allotted to the state of Michigan as its home area. The division headquarters was organized on 10 September 1921 in Room 304, Old Customhouse Building in Detroit, relocated on 27 July 1922 to the Marquette Building, and moved again on 6 July 1923 to the New Telegraph Building. It was moved twice more before 1941; once to the Book Building at Washington and Grand River Avenues in 1926, and finally to the Federal Building in 1935, and remained there until activated for World War II. To maintain communications with the officers of the division, the division staff published a newsletter named “The 85th Division Bulletin.” The newsletter informed the division’s members of such things as when and where the inactive training sessions were to be held, what the division’s summer training quotas were, where the camps were to be held, and which units would help conduct the Citizens Military Training Camps (CMTC).
The designated mobilization and training station for the division was Camp Custer, the location where much of the division's training occurred in the interwar years. The division headquarters was called to active duty for training there as a unit on a number of occasions, the first time being in April 1926. Oddly, the division headquarters was ordered to active auty for a second time (5–19 July) that same summer. The headquarters attended summer training as a unit, other than for corps area and army-level command post exercises (CPXs), only twice more before World War II: once in the summer of 1928 and again in 1937. The headquarters and staff usually trained with the staff of the 12th Infantry Brigade, 6th Division, either at Camp Custer or at Fort Sheridan, Illinois. The infantry regiments of the division held their summer training primarily with the 2nd Infantry Regiment at Camp Custer beginning in June 1923. Other units, such as the special troops, artillery, engineers, aviation, medical, and quartermaster trained at various posts in the Sixth and Seventh Corps Areas. For example, the division’s artillery trained with the 1st Battalion, 14th Field Artillery at Camp Custer; the special troops trained with the special troops of the 32nd Division at Camp Grayling, Michigan, or Camp Sparta (later McCoy), Wisconsin; the 310th Medical Regiment trained at Fort Snelling, Minnesota; and the 310th Observation Squadron trained with the 15th Observation Squadron at Chanute Field, Illinois. In addition to the unit training camps, the infantry regiments of the division rotated responsibility to conduct the CMTC training held at Camp Custer each year.
On a number of occasions, the division participated in Sixth Corps Area or Second Army CPXs in conjunction with other Regular Army, National Guard, and Organized Reserve units. Unlike the Regular and Guard units in the Sixth Corps Area, the 85th Division did not participate in the various Sixth Corps Area maneuvers and the Second Army maneuvers of 1935, 1939, and 1940 as an organized unit due to lack of enlisted personnel and equipment. Instead, the officers and a few enlisted reservists were assigned to Regular and Guard units to fill vacant slots and bring the units up to war strength for the exercises. Additionally, some were assigned duties as umpires or support personnel.[6]
Before Organized Reserve infantry divisions were ordered into active military service, they were reorganized on paper as "triangular" divisions under the 1940 tables of organization. The headquarters companies of the two infantry brigades were consolidated into the division's cavalry reconnaissance troop, and one infantry regiment was removed by inactivation. The field artillery brigade headquarters and headquarters battery became the headquarters and headquarters battery of the division artillery. Its three field artillery regiments were reorganized into four battalions; one battalion was taken from each of the two 75 mm gun regiments to form two 105 mm howitzer battalions, the brigade's ammunition train was reorganized as the third 105 mm howitzer battalion, and the 155 mm howitzer battalion was formed from the 155 mm howitzer regiment. The engineer, medical, and quartermaster regiments were reorganized into battalions. In 1942, divisional quartermaster battalions were split into ordnance light maintenance companies and quartermaster companies, and the division's headquarters and military police company, which had previously been a combined unit, was split.[7]
On 15 May 1942, five months after the United States entered World War II, the 85th Infantry Division was ordered to active duty at Camp Shelby, Mississippi, under the command of Major General Wade H. Haislip, a veteran of World War I. The division was organized around a cadre of officers and men from the 2nd Infantry Division, and training began in June 1942 at Camp Shelby. In April 1943, it participated in large-scale army training in the Louisiana Maneuvers near Leesville, Louisiana. In August, the division was moved to Camp Coxcomb, California for desert warfare training. In October, the division was transferred to Fort Dix, New Jersey, for final preparations before shipment overseas. Major General John B. Coulter succeeded Haislip as the 85th's commander and retained this position throughout the war. The Assistant Division Commander (ADC) throughout the war was Brigadier General Lee S. Gerow, the younger brother of General Leonard T. Gerow.[8] [9] [10] [11]
The 85th Infantry Division left the United States on 24 December 1943 and arrived in Casablanca, French Morocco on 2 January 1944. It received amphibious training at Port aux Poules near Arzew and Oran, Algeria, 1 February to 23 March, then embarked for Naples, Italy, arriving on 27 March. The 339th Regimental Combat Team was the first division element to depart Port-Aux-Poules for movement to the Italian Campaign. Arriving in Italy on 14 March, the 339th RCT was attached to the 88th Infantry Division and became the first regiment of the 85th to see combat during World War II on the Minturno-Castelforte front north of Naples, 28 March. The 85th Division, under II Corps of the U.S. Fifth Army under Mark W. Clark, was committed to action as a unit, 10 April 1944, north of the Garigliano River, facing the Gustav Line, and held defensive positions for a month.
On 11 May, it launched its attack, taking Solacciano, Castellonorato, and Formia. Itri fell, 19 May, and the 85th continued to mop up the Gaeta Peninsula. Terracina was taken and the road to the Anzio beachhead was opened. The division pursued the enemy to the hills near Sezze until pinched out by friendly forces from Anzio. The Gustav Line had been smashed and the 85th started for a rest area on 29 May, but was ordered to the Lariano sector which the division cleared by the 31st. Driving on Rome, the 85th pushed through Monte Compatri and Frascati, entered the Italian capital of Rome on 5 June 1944, and advanced to Viterbo before being relieved on 10 June.
After rehabilitation and training, the 85th took over the defense of the Arno River line from 15 to 26 August. The division attacked the mountain defenses of the Gothic Line on 13 September, and broke through, taking Firenzuola on the 21st. The 85th advanced slowly through mud and rain against heavy resistance taking La Martina and gaining the Idice River Valley road on 2 October, and reaching Mount Mezzano on the 24th overlooking the Po River Valley. From 27 October to 22 November 1944, defense areas near Pizzano were held. On the 23d, the division was relieved for rest and rehabilitation.
The 85th Division relieved the British 1st Infantry Division on 6 January 1945, and limited its activities to cautious patrols until 13 March. After a brief training period, the 85th, now under the command of Major General Willis D. Crittenberger's IV Corps, during the final offensive in Italy, thrust southwest of Bologna on 14 April, pushing through Lucca and Pistoia into the Po Valley as enemy resistance collapsed. The Panaro River was crossed on the 23rd and the Po the next day. The division mopped up fleeing Germans until their mass surrender on 2 May 1945, in the Belluno-Agordo area. The end of World War II in Europe came six days later. Three soldiers from the 85th Infantry Division earned the Medal of Honor.
The division returned to the United States and was disbanded at Camp Patrick Henry, Virginia on 26 August 1945. It was then reconstituted and reactivated at Chicago, Illinois on 19 February 1947 in the U.S. Army Reserve. On 1 June 1959, the division's mission was changed to training and it was named the 85th Division (Training).[13]
Upon reactivation in the Army Reserve, the division was organized with a division headquarters, three training brigades and a training group, with division headquarters located in Chicago, Illinois. In 1983, the Division Headquarters was moved to Arlington Heights, Illinois, with subordinate brigade headquarters located in Waukegan, Illinois (1st Brigade); St. Louis, Missouri (2nd Brigade); Rockford, Illinois (3rd Brigade); Fort Sheridan, Illinois (4th Brigade); and Aurora, Illinois (Training Group).
In 1992, the division was reorganized into the 85th Division (Exercise) with the mission of conducting lanes training for combat, combat support, and combat service support units and combat simulation, computer supported exercises for company/battalion and higher units for Army Reserve and Army National Guard units in the First Army area. Additionally, the division was tasked to assist First Army units at mobilization to validate their readiness for deployment. The division was reorganized as follows:
In 1999 the division was further reorganized as the 85th Division (Training Support). Its four brigades were headquartered as follows:
Commanders within the division who became U.S. Army general officers include:
In September 2007, the 85th Division (Training Support) was formally inactivated and its remaining assets folded into the 75th Division (Training Support) and the 88th Regional Readiness Command. In December 2008, the 85th Division was reactivated as the 85th Support Command to provide training and logistical support to First Army.[14]
| Conflict | Streamer | Year(s) |
|---|---|---|
| World War I | No Inscription | |
| World War II | Rome-Arno | 1944 |
| North Apennines | 1944-1945 | |
| Po Valley | 1945 |