| Unit Name: | 49th Armored Division |
| Dates: |
|
| Type: | Armor |
| Role: | Armored warfare |
| Size: | Division |
| Garrison: | Camp Mabry |
| Nickname: | "Lone Star" |
| Battles: | Operation Iraqi Freedom |
| Notable Commanders: | Clayton P. Kerr |
| Identification Symbol Label: | Distinctive unit insignia |
| Identification Symbol 3 Label: | NATO Map Symbol |
The 49th Armored Division —nicknamed the "Lone Star"— was an armored division of the Texas Army National Guard during the Cold War.
Active from 1947, the division formed part of the Texas Army National Guard together with the 36th Infantry Division. It was called up for active duty between 1961 and 1962 during the Berlin Crisis. In 1968 both Texas divisions were inactivated and used to form separate units. The 49th Armored was reformed in 1973 as the sole Texas division. When reflagged as the 36th Infantry Division in 2004, it was the last armored division remaining in the United States Army National Guard.
After the end of World War II, the United States National Guard was reorganized and expanded from its prewar size. Initial War Department unit allocations submitted to states for review in early February 1946 gave the 49th Armored Division to Texas and New Mexico, with the latter receiving one combat command headquarters and its subordinate units as well as field artillery and engineer battalions. As the governor of New Mexico desired to continue his state's prewar antiaircraft units, the 49th Armored Division was made all-Texas and New Mexico received the 111th Antiaircraft Artillery Brigade.[1] The division, whose units were accepted by the Texas adjutant general on 2 July 1946, included two combat commands and a reserve command with the 145th, 146th, and 147th Tank Battalions and the 145th, 146th, and 147th Armored Infantry Battalions. The division artillery included the 105 mm howitzer-equipped 645th, 646th, and 647th Armored Field Artillery Battalions. Division troops included the 49th Mechanized Cavalry Reconnaissance Squadron and the 386th Armored Engineer Battalion as well as other support units. It and the New Jersey 50th Armored Division were the only armored divisions in the National Guard at the time. A number of the original divisional units received federal recognition from the National Guard Bureau on 27 February 1947, a date used thereafter as the formation's "birthday", including the division headquarters at Camp Mabry in Austin. In 1947, all four battalions of the 144th Infantry Regiment were placed into the Division as mechanized infantry units. The division headquarters location changed to Fort Worth on 4 August 1949 and to Dallas on 31 August 1950. Beginning in the northern and northeastern areas of the State, there were 111 units in 56 Texas cities by 1952.[2] In September 1961, an executive order alerted the division for mobilization at Dallas due to the 1961 Berlin Crisis. The 49th Armored and the Wisconsin 32nd Infantry Division were mobilized in order to replace active divisions scheduled to be deployed from the strategic reserve. On 15 October the division entered federal service and soon afterwards concentrated at Fort Hood. It subsequently deployed to Fort Polk, Louisiana, where it remained for ten months. In May 1962, the division staged the large-scale Exercise Iron Dragoon, still remembered among National Guard armor exercises. Also while at Fort Polk the division's missile unit became the first Army National Guard unit to fire the Honest John nuclear-tipped surface-to-surface missile. The 49th Armored Division reverted to Texas State control in August 1962 after the newly reformed active duty 1st Armored and 5th Infantry Divisions were ready to take the place of it and the 32nd Infantry Division in the strategic reserve.
The 49th Armored reorganized under the Reorganization Objective Army Division (ROAD) structure in March 1963. Under the ROAD structure, the division included four mechanized infantry battalions and five armor battalions.
The 49th Armored was inactivated in 1968. Their units were used to form the 71st Airborne Brigade, the 72nd Infantry Brigade (Mechanized), and the 49th Armor Group. The 49th Armor Group became the 49th Armored Brigade on 1 September 1971. A Department of Defense directive to the army to convert six National Guard brigades from infantry to armor in order to act as reinforcements for troops in Europe in event of war resulted in the reactivation of the division, headquartered at Camp Mabry, on 1 November 1973. The reorganized 49th Armored consisted of five mechanized and six armor battalions; it and the 50th Armored were once again the only National Guard armored divisions. For the rest of its existence, the 49th, as the only Texas Army National Guard division, formed the bulk of the force. The division accounted for 14,854 personnel out of the 17,643 authorized for the Texas Army National Guard in 1976. The 1st Battalion, 200th Air Defense Artillery of the New Mexico Army National Guard was added as the divisional anti-aircraft gun battalion on 1 September 1975.
In January of 2004, Alpha Company of 1st Squadron, 124th Cavalry Regiment (United States), 180 Soldiers, were mobilized to serve in Operation Iraqi Freedom. They saw action in and around Baghdad, and served as security for the 89th Military Police Brigade. For their actions while deployed, they would be awarded the Texas Cavalry Medal, several Texas Purple Heart Medals, as well as an Army Meritorious Unit Commendation. They would remain in Iraq until May of 2005, after they had been re-flagged to the 36th Infantry Division. For the time before the de-activation of the 49th Armored Division, these soldiers were the first and only soldiers to see action in the Division's history.
The division was reorganized as a heavy division in 1985 under the Army of Excellence structure together with the 50th Armored and the 35th and 40th Infantry Divisions. Thus, the division included four mechanized and six armor battalions by 1989. Due to equipment security concerns, the Army Reserve 549th Military Intelligence Battalion fulfilled the electronic warfare and intelligence role for the division, as in all but one of the National Guard divisions. On 1 June 1988 the division ceded some of its units, including the 1st Battalion, 133rd Field Artillery to the 36th Brigade, 50th Armored Division, which had been activated on that day.[3] [4] [5] [6] 3rd Battalion, 132nd Field Artillery was reactivated at El Paso to replace the 1st Battalion, 133rd Field Artillery.[7]
The brigade's armor battalions were equipped with M60A3 TTS main battle tanks. M48A5 Patton tanks had been replaced by M60A3 TTS tanks by May 1987 and by the end of 1989 the National Guard fielded 3,072 M60A3 TTS.[46] [47] [48] The 410 M1 Abrams[46] tanks of the National Guard were issued to round-out units of army divisions.[49] The division's infantry battalions were equipped with M113 armored personnel carriers, of which the National Guard had 6,870 at the end of Fiscal Year 1987, with a further 1,411 due to be taken in service in 1988.[46] The standard helicopters of National Guard units were the AH-1S Cobra, of which the National Guard had approximately 350 by 1989,[50] the OH-58C Kiowa and the UH-1H Iroquois helicopters.[51] Cavalry Reconnaissance units fielded 19 × M60A3 TTS, 8 × AH-1S Cobra, 12 × OH-58C Kiowa and 1 × UH-1H Iroquois helicopters; attack battalions fielded 21 × AH-1S Cobra, 13 × OH-58C Kiowa and 3 × UH-1H Iroquois helicopters,[52] while the assault aviation company fielded 15 × UH-1H Iroquois helicopters and the command support aviation company UH-1 helicopters in various configurations.
In 2000 elements of the division were deployed to take over the command and control of Multi-National Division (North) (MND-N) of the Stabilization Force in Bosnia (SFOR) as well as fulfill support missions for the MND-N troops. The division headquarters, aviation brigade headquarters, 249th Signal Battalion headquarters, the headquarters and Companies A and C of the 111th Engineer Battalion, the 649th Military Intelligence Battalion, the 149th Military Police Company, 1149th CID Detachment, 149th Personnel Services Battalion, 1104th Movement Control Team, and Company H, 149th Aviation (Air Traffic Support) were deployed.[53]
On 23 January 2004, 180 Soldiers, mostly from the 124th Cavalry Regiment (United States) out of Waco, Texas, left for deployment. They reported in to Fort Dix for pre-deployment training, then deploying to the Sunni Triangle in Iraq.
On 18 July 2004 the division was re-flagged and again designated as the 36th Infantry Division. Prior to its redesignation, the 49th was cap-stoned to the U.S. Army III Corps and stood as the only fully functional, reserve component, armored division in the United States Army. (The 50th Armored Division in the north eastern states had been eliminated by consolidation with the 42nd Infantry Division in the early 1990s.)
The Newly designated Troops came home after a year of deployment, with only a few wounded, and fortunately, no dead. They were the first Texas National Guardsmen to deploy since WWII. They are the last soldiers that were allowed to wear the 49th Armored patch as a battle patch. They would also be awarded the coveted Texas Cavalry Service Medal, as well as the wounded receiving the Texas Purple Heart Medal, the 3rd highest decoration awarded by the State of Texas.
| Start Date | End Date | Commander | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1946-07-02 | 1947-06-05 | MG Richard B. Dunbar | |
| 1947-06-06 | 1958-10-31 | MG Albert S. Johnson | |
| 1958-11-01 | 1959-10-13 | MG Clayton P. Kerr | |
| 1959-10-14 | 1961-06-30 | MG John L. Thompson Jr. | |
| 1961-07-01 | 1964-03-31 | MG Harley B. West | |
| 1964-04-01 | 1967-05-31 | MG Luther E. Orrick | |
| 1967-06-01 | 1968-01-14 | MG James D. Scott | |
| 1973-11-01 | 1976-10-31 | MG James L. Moreland | |
| 1976-11-01 | 1979-11-02 | MG Delmer L. Nichols | |
| 1979-11-03 | 1982-10-31 | MG John B. Garrett | |
| 1982-11-01 | 1984-11-01 | MG Elmer L. Stephens | |
| 1984-11-02 | 1985-02-20 | MG James T. Dennis | |
| 1985-02-21 | 1987-11-12 | MG James B. McGoodwin | |
| 1987-11-13 | 1989-05-22 | MG Charles H. Kone | |
| 1989-05-23 | 1992-08-23 | MG Don O. Daniel | |
| 1992-08-24 | 1995-09-25 | MG Wm. Edgar Murphy | |
| 1995-09-26 | 1998-09-30 | MG Federico Lopez III | |
| 1998-09-30 | 2002-03-23 | MG Robert L. Halverson | |
| 2002-03-23 | 2004-05-01 | MG Michael Taylor |