The 106th Infantry Division was a division of the United States Army formed for service during World War II. Two of its three regiments were overrun and surrounded in the initial days of the Battle of the Bulge, and they were forced to surrender to German forces on 19 December 1944. The division was never officially added to the troop list following the war, despite having been almost completely organized in Puerto Rico by 1948; subsequently, the War Department determined the division was not needed and inactivated the division headquarters in 1950.
Relieved from assignment to VIII Corps, and assigned on 20 December to XVIII Airborne Corps, First Army, 12th Army Group, with attachment to the 21st Army Group.
Relieved from attachment to 21st Army Group on 18 January 1945, and returned to XVIII Airborne Corps, First Army, 12th Army Group.
On 23 April, the Frontier Command segment of the German Occupation started.
106th Infantry Division entered Germany on 25 April.
On 8 May 1945, Germany signed its surrender.
With the termination of the Central Europe Campaign, German hostilities ceased on 11 May.
106th Infantry Division became responsible for guarding around 1,5 million German prisoners in so-called Rheinwiesenlager in very bad conditions. For this task, the 106th was reinforced to a strength of 40,000 men. [1]
106th Infantry Division was located at Bad Ems, Germany on 14 August.
106th Infantry Division returned to New York Port of Embarkation on 1 October.
Inactivated 2 October 1945 at Camp Shanks, New York.
Inactivated 12 October 1950 at San Juan, Puerto Rico.
World War II
The 106th Infantry Division's Headquarters and Headquarters Company was constituted in the Army of the United States on 5 May 1942, five months after the United States entered World War II. The division's numbering followed in sequence with the 105th Infantry Division, a planned African American infantry division that would be constituted on the Army's troop list, but never ended up being activated. The 106th Infantry Division was activated on 15 March 1943 at Fort Jackson, South Carolina, with a cadre from the 80th Infantry Division. Following basic and advanced infantry training, the Division moved on 28 March 1944 to Tennessee to participate in the Second Army No. 5 Maneuvers. The 106th Infantry Division was one of twenty-two lower-priority divisions that saw extensive withdrawals of personnel during 1944 to comply with War Department rulings that all units not scheduled for early shipment could be used as sources of replacements (with the greatest possible proportion of men taken having six months or more of training), and that no eighteen-year-olds or men with children conceived prior to the Attack on Pearl Harbor who had less than six months of training be taken as replacements unless men were available from other sources. From April to September 1944, 5,050 infantry, field artillery, and cavalry privates and noncommissioned officers were withdrawn from the division. They were replaced chiefly by former Army Specialized Training Program students, aviation cadets-in-waiting transferred to the ground forces, men from disbanded antiaircraft and tank destroyer units, and men who had volunteered for transfer to the infantry from other branches of the Army.
The 106th Infantry Division relieved the 2nd Infantry Division in the Schnee Eifel on 11 December 1944, with its 424th Infantry Regiment being sent to Winterspelt. Prior to the battle, according to the U.S. Army Service Manual, one division should be responsible for no more than 5 miles (8.0km) of front.[2] On the eve of the battle, the 106th, along with the attached 14th Cavalry Group, was covering a front of at least 21 miles (34km).[3]
In the Ardennes-Alsace Campaign, the Germans attacked the 106th on 16 December 1944. The division's 422nd and 423rd Infantry Regiments were encircled and cut off by a junction of enemy forces in the vicinity of Schönberg. They regrouped for a counterattack, but were blocked by the enemy. The two regiments surrendered on 19 December. The Germans gained 6,000 prisoners in one of the largest mass surrenders in American military history.
The remainder of the division that evaded the German pincer movement was reinforced by the 112th Infantry Regiment of the 28th Infantry Division and withdrew over the Our River and joined other units at Saint Vith. Along with the city of Bastogne to the south, St. Vith was a road and rail junction city considered vital to the German goal of breaking through Allied lines to split American and British forces and reach the Belgian port city of Antwerp. A scratch force of 106th Division personnel, in particular the division's 81st Engineer Combat Battalion, was organized and led by the 81st's 28-year-old commanding officer, Lt. Col. Thomas Riggs, in a five-day holding action (17–21 December) on a thin ridge line a mile outside St. Vith, against German forces vastly superior in numbers and armament (only a few hundred green Americans versus many thousands of veteran Germans). For this action, the 81st Engineer Combat Battalion was later awarded the Distinguished Unit Citation for gallantry. The defense of St. Vith by the 106th has been credited with ruining the German timetable for reaching Antwerp, hampering the Bulge offensive for the Germans.[4]
The 81st and other units, including the 168th Engineer Combat Battalion, pulled back from St. Vith on 21 December, under constant enemy fire, and withdrew over the Salm River at Vielsalm on 23 December. The following day, the 424th Regiment, attached to the 7th Armored Division, fought a delaying action at Manhay until ordered to an assembly area. From 25 December to 9 January 1945, the division received reinforcements and supplies at Anthisnes, Belgium, and returned to the struggle, securing objectives along the Ennal[fr]-Logbierme[fr] line on 15 January after heavy fighting. After being pinched out by advancing divisions, the 106th assembled at Stavelot on 18 January for rehabilitation and training. It moved to the vicinity of Hunningen on 7 February for defensive patrols and training.
In March, the 424th advanced along the high ground between Berk and the Simmel River[de] and was relieved on 7 March. A period of training and security patrols along the Rhine River followed, until 15 March, when the division moved to St. Quentin[5] for rehabilitation and the reconstruction of lost units.
The division was reconstituted on 16 March when the 3rd Infantry Regiment (the Old Guard) and the 159th Infantry Regiment were attached to replace the two lost regiments. The division then moved back to Germany on 25 April, where, for the remainder of its stay in Europe, the 106th handled POW enclosures and engaged in occupational duties.
In the meantime, the 422nd Infantry Regiment and the 423rd Infantry Regiment were reconstituted from replacements in France on 15 April, were attached to the 66th Infantry Division in training status, and were still in this status when the Germans surrendered on 8 May 1945.
Master Sergeant Roddie Edmonds (died 1985), who was captured on 19 December 1944 as a member of the 422nd Infantry Regiment, was recognized in 2015 by Israel's Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial and museum as the first American serviceman from World War II to be honored with the title Righteous Among The Nations for risking his life to save Jewish-American POWs under his command from being taken from the POW camp in Germany to concentration camps, where they likely would have been murdered or worked to death.[11]
Donald Prell, futurologist and founder of Datamation, the first computer magazine,[12] served as the leader of the second anti-tank platoon in the 422nd Infantry Regiment, and several years following the war researched the biological basis of personality with the British psychologist Hans Eysenck.[13] Prell had been captured in the Battle of the Bulge, survived Allied aerial bombardment while locked in a boxcar with 59 other POWs, and then suffered freezing and starvation while in a German POW camp.[14]
Richard B. Parker, a Foreign Service Officer, served as the leader of the first platoon of the Anti-Tank Company of the 422nd Infantry Regiment and was captured and served as a POW.[15] Parker was an expert in Middle Eastern affairs and served as a U.S. Ambassador to Algeria, Lebanon and Morocco during the 1970s.[16]
↑ This can be inferred in FM 7-40, the Field Manual for Rifle Regiments. On page 154 it states that a regiment in a defensive position can defend a front of up to 4000 yards in "partially open, rolling terrain" but as little as 2000 yards in "broken, heavily wooded, terrain". Since the 106th was operating with the standard "2 in front, 1 in reserve" deployment of its regiments, a maximum of 8000 yards (4.5 miles) could be covered by the division. FM 7-40, The Rifle Regiment (1942-02-09)
↑ "The width of the sector held by the 106th Infantry Division and the attached 14th Cavalry Group was approximately eighteen air-line miles. When traced on the ground, the line these forces were responsible for defending was actually more than twenty-one miles in length." Hugh M. Cole (1965). "The Ardennes: Battle of the Bulge, chapter 7". Office of the Chief of Military History. Retrieved 24 June 2020.
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