The 98th Infantry Division ("Iroquois"[1]) was a unit of the United States Army in the closing months of World War I and during World War II. The unit is now one of the U.S. Army Reserve's training divisions, officially known as the 98th Training Division (Initial Entry Training). Its primary mission is to conduct Initial Entry Training (IET) for new soldiers. It is one of three training divisions subordinate to the 108th Training Command (IET) and handles command and control of units throughout the eastern United States and in Puerto Rico.
Since its creation in 1918, the division has experienced multiple cycles of activation, training, deployment and deactivation as well as substantial reorganizations and changes of mission. Since 1959, the 98th has been a unit of the U.S. Army Reserve with the primary mission of training soldiers. Long headquartered in Rochester, New York, with historical ties to New York and New England, the division was moved in 2012 to Fort Benning (today Fort Moore), Georgia. [2]
World War I
The 98th Division was activated at Camp McClellan, Alabama in October 1918, too late to see service in World War I. Only the headquarters was activated, demobilizing on 30 November 1918.[3]
Interwar period
The 98th Division was reconstituted in the Organized Reserve on 24 June 1921, allotted to the Second Corps Area, and assigned to the XII Corps. The division was further allotted to the upstate area of New York as its home area. The division headquarters was organized on 18 August 1921 at the Federal Building in Syracuse, New York, and remained there until activated for World War II. The designated mobilization and training station for the division was the Syracuse Concentration Area for all elements except the division artillery units, which would mobilize at Pine Camp, New York. From 1928 to 1940, the commander of the Second Corps Area designated the commander of the 1st Division's 2nd Infantry Brigade to perform additional duties as the commanding general of the 98th Division.
The 98th Division headquarters was called to duty for training as a unit on a number of occasions, usually for command post exercises (CPXs). The headquarters usually trained with the staff of the 2nd Infantry Brigade at Madison Barracks, New York, 1924–30 (with the exception of the 1927 annual training at Fort Niagara), and at Fort Ontario, New York, 1931–39, after the 2nd Infantry Brigade headquarters was moved to that post. In December 1932, the division conducted a CPX at Plattsburg Barracks, New York, with the staffs of the 2nd Infantry Brigade and the 26th Infantry Regiment.
The subordinate infantry regiments of the division generally held their summer training with the units of the 2nd Infantry Brigade at Plattsburg Barracks, Fort Niagara, or Fort Ontario. Other units, such as the special troops, artillery, engineers, aviation, medical, and quartermaster, trained at various posts in the Second and Third Corps Areas, usually with other units of the 1st Division. For example, the division’s artillery trained with the 7th Field Artillery at Pine Camp; the 323rd Engineer Regiment usually trained with the 1st Engineer Regiment at Fort DuPont, Delaware; the 323rd Medical Regiment trained with the 1st Medical Regiment at Carlisle Barracks, Pennsylvania; and the 323rd Observation Squadron trained with the 5th Observation Squadron at Mitchel Field, New York. In addition to the unit training camps, the infantry regiments of the division rotated responsibility to conduct the Citizens Military Training Camps held at Plattsburg Barracks and Fort Niagara each year. On a number of occasions, the division participated in Second Corps Area and First Army CPXs in conjunction with other Regular Army, National Guard, and Organized Reserve units. The first of these CPXs was held by the Second Corps Area at Camp Dix, New Jersey, 7–21 July 1929, followed by several First Army CPXs in the years leading up to World War II.
Unlike the Regular and Guard units in the First Corps Area, the 98th Division did not participate in the various Second Corps Area maneuvers and the First 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 full peace strength for the exercises. Additionally, some officers were assigned duties as umpires or as support personnel.[4]
World War II
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.[5] The 98th was ordered into active military service on 15 September 1942 at Camp Breckinridge, Kentucky, filling its ranks primarily with soldiers from New York and New England. The 98th spent the next 18 months training at Camp Breckinridge, Camp Forrest, Tennessee, and Camp Rucker, Alabama, for combat in the Pacific theater.
Order of battle
Headquarters, 98th Infantry Division
389th Infantry Regiment
390th Infantry Regiment
391st Infantry Regiment
Headquarters and Headquarters Battery, 98th Infantry Division Artillery
367th Field Artillery Battalion (105 mm)
368th Field Artillery Battalion (105 mm)
369th Field Artillery Battalion (155 mm)
923rd Field Artillery Battalion (105 mm)
323rd Engineer Combat Battalion
323rd Medical Battalion
98th Cavalry Reconnaissance Troop (Mechanized)
Headquarters, Special Troops, 98th Infantry Division
Headquarters Company, 98th Infantry Division
798th Ordnance Light Maintenance Company
98th Quartermaster Company
98th Signal Company
Military Police Platoon
Band
98th Counterintelligence Corps Detachment
The roughly 19,590 soldiers of the 98th arrived in Oahu, Hawaii, on 19 April 1944, and relieved the 33rd Infantry Division of responsibility for the defense of the Hawaiian Islands. On 15 May 1945, the 98th was relieved of garrison duties by the 372nd Infantry Regiment, freeing them up to train for Operation Olympic, scheduled for 1 November 1945 as one of two planned invasions of Japan.[6] Instead, the Japanese surrendered, and the 98th Infantry Division arrived in Japan on 27 September 1945. It served in Osaka as part of the occupying force until 16 February 1946 when the unit was inactivated.
Major General Ralph C. Smith (15 July 1944 – 30 August 1944)
Major General Arthur M. Harper (22 October 1944 - 16 February 1946)
Post-World War II
On 18 April 1947, the Iroquois Division was reactivated in Rochester, New York, on reserve status and began training for combat in the new Cold War environment. It had been previously planned to be an airborne division. A note on the troop list nevertheless indicated that the unit was to be reorganized and redesignated as an airborne unit upon mobilization and was to train as such.[7]
The reorganization of 1 May 1959 redesignated the 98th Infantry Division as the 98th Division (Training) and set the unit on a course lasting to the present - training Soldiers. The regimental heritage was retained with the 389th, 390th and 391st Infantry Regiments organized as Basic Combat Training (BCT) regiments and the 392nd Infantry Regiment organized as an Advanced Individual Training (AIT) regiment.
Additional changes occurred in 1968 with the movement toward a brigade-based structure: the 389th Infantry Regiment became the 1st Brigade (BCT), the 390th Infantry Regiment became the 2d Brigade (BCT) and the 392nd Infantry Regiment became the 3rd Brigade (AIT-Engineer), the only Engineer Pioneer training unit in the Army Reserve at the time. The 3rd Battalion/392nd Infantry Regiment/3rd Brigade was based in Hillcrest, New York and performed Engineer AIT training of Soldiers at Fort Leonard Wood, Missouri during their annual two-week training periods throughout the Vietnam War. The changes of 1968 also ushered in the designation and training of Army Reserve Drill Sergeants, a significant and enduring innovation. Additional reorganization in 1994 redesignated the unit as the 98th Division (Institutional Training), a change in which the 98th retained its previous IET mission but also acquired the missions and force structure formerly associated with to the U.S. Army Reserve Forces schools. The 98th would maintain this basic organization and mission for the next 14 years.
Post 9/11
On 3 September 2004, the 98th Division received mobilization orders for Operation Iraqi Freedom. This mobilization was to be the first overseas deployment for the unit since World War II. The mission, known as the Foreign Army Training Assistance Command (FA-TRAC), consisted primarily of training the new Iraqi Army and Iraqi security forces. An expeditionary force of more than 700 Iroquois warriors were trained and equipped at four sites: Camp Atterbury, Fort Bliss, Fort Hood and Fort Benning.
The demands of Operation Iraqi Freedom required an accelerated training schedule which crammed as many warfighting skills as possible into a forty-one-day period. This was the 98th's first substantial exposure to the asymmetric battlefield, requiring training in counterinsurgency techniques and preparing to face an opponent who did not fight along traditional fronts. The 98th made full use of the 33,000 acres at Camp Atterbury and marched everywhere. It was at Camp Atterbury that the advisory support teams (later renamed military training teams), the heart of the FA-TRAC mission, transformed to cohesive units in long days.
In fall 2004, the 98th Division arrived in Baghdad and filled the ranks of the Multinational Security Transition Command-Iraq (MNSTC-I), the unit charged with assisting the Iraqi government in developing, training and equipping the new Iraqi security forces. The unit used its pool of drill sergeant and instructor expertise to train Iraqi soldiers and officers to prescribed standards under the constant threat of insurgent attack and under austere conditions.
Instruction and support teams spread out across all points in Iraq from Al Kasik in the north to as far south as Umm Qasr. They established contact with Iraqi security units with the help of interpreters and helped build the six divisions of the new Iraqi Army. They also established officer and noncommissioned officer education schools at the Kirkush Military Training Base. They trained Iraqi police, the Highway Patrol, the special Police Commandos and the Iraqi Border Police.[8]
The division also fielded soldiers to such other locations as Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, the Horn of Africa, Kuwait, Jordan and Afghanistan.
Five 98th Training Division soldiers were killed in action during the division's deployment to Iraq in 2004–05. [9]
Subordinate units
As of 8 July 2017 the following units are subordinate to the 98th Training Division (Initial Entry Training):
1st Brigade (MT), Fort Moore, Georgia
2nd Battalion, 398th Regiment (Cavalry One Station Unit Training), Madisonville, Kentucky
2nd Battalion, 415th Regiment (Cavalry One Station Unit Training), French Camp, California
3rd Battalion, 330th Regiment (Infantry One Station Unit Training), Waterford, Michigan
3rd Battalion, 485th Regiment (Infantry one Station Unit Training), Fort Moore, Georgia
2nd Brigade (Basic Combat Training), Fort Jackson, South Carolina
3rd Battalion, 518th Regiment (Basic Combat Training), Hickory, North Carolina
Shoulder patch: The 98th Division Patch consists of a shield in the shape of the Great seal of the State of New York, with the head of an Iroquois Indian Chief. The five feathers represent the five original Iroquois nations: the Seneca, Onondaga, Oneida, Cayuga and Mohawk. The blue and orange-gold colors are those of the Dutch House of Nassau, the earliest settlers of New York State. On 8 September 2012, the Armed Forces Reserve Center at Fort Benning, Georgia, where the unit is located, was memorialized in honor of Chaplain (Lieutenant Colonel) Elmer W. Heindl who had served in the 98th.[10][11]
Colonel Donald L. Ellison (Acting) (2021-2022)[38]
Brigadier General David M. Samuelsen (2022–present)
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↑ Rinaldi, Richard A. (2004). The U. S. Army in World War I: Orders of Battle. General Data LLC. p.55. ISBN0-9720296-4-8.
↑ Clay, Steven E. (2010). U.S. Army Order of Battle, 1919-1941, Volume 1. The Arms: Major Commands and Infantry Organizations, 1919-41. Fort Leavenworth, KS: Combat Studies Institute Press. p.274-275. This article incorporates text from this source, which is in the public domain.
↑ Wilson, John B. (1998). Maneuver and Firepower: The Evolution of Divisions and Separate Brigades. Washington, D.C.: Center of Military History, U.S. Army. p.161, 169-70.
↑ Stanton, Shelby L. (1991). World War II Order of Battle. Galahad Books. p.254. ISBN0-88365-775-9.
↑ Promotion AnnouncementArchived 16 April 2014 at the Wayback Machine , relating to Peter A. Gannon, as published in a Memorandum for Correspondents (No. 267-M) by the U.S. Department of Defense in DefenseLINK, 26 December 1996. Retrieved 24 April 2013.
↑ Maj. Gen. Charles E. Wilson profile, in article entitled, "African-American Leaders. Different Destinations: Same Service," in periodical US Black Engineer & Information Technology, Jan-Feb 2007, page 51. Retrieved 24 April 2013.
↑ DAY WORK TO DUTY, the autobiography of Major General Bruce E. Robinson, AUS Ret. Retrieved 25 April 2013.
↑ Iroquois Warriors in Iraq, by Steven E. Clay, published by Combat Studies Institute Press, Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. 2007. Apprnedix B: 98th Division Key Personnel, 2004–2005, Page 253. Retrieved 26 April 2013.
↑ Major General Robert Catalanotti, USA ’80, Alumni, Assumption College (article from the spring 2006 issue of Assumption Magazine), updated 27 June 2011. Retrieved 21 May 2013.
An Encounter With History: The 98th Division and the Global War on Terrorism: 2001–2005: Publisher: Defense Department, Army, Army Reserve Command, 98th Division (Institutional Training)
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