5th Infantry Division (United States) - World War II

World War II

The 5th Division was activated as part of United States mobilization in response to the outbreak of European war in the fall of 1939, being formed at Fort McClellan, Alabama under the command of Brigadier General Campbell Hodges. Under the new "triangular" organization, units assigned included:

2nd Infantry Regiment

10th Infantry Regiment

11th Infantry Regiment

19th Field Artillery Regiment

7th Engineer Battalion

The following spring, in 1940, the division was sent to Fort Benning, Georgia, and then temporarily to Louisiana for training exercises, before being transferred to Fort Benjamin Harrison at the end of May 1940. That December the division relocated to Fort Custer, Michigan, from where it participated in the Tennessee maneuvers. The formation went next to Camp Joseph T. Robinson, Arkansas, in August 1941 for staging into both the Arkansas and Louisiana maneuvers before returning to Fort Custer that October. The division was stationed at Fort Custer when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor and the United States declared war during December 1941. As the winter passed the division was brought up to strength and fully equipped for forward deployment into a war zone. During April 1942, the 5th Division received its overseas orders and departed the New York Port of Embarkation at the end of the month for Iceland. The division debarked in Iceland in May 1942, where it replaced the British garrison on this island outpost along the Atlantic convoy routes, and a year later was reorganized and re-designated as the 5th Infantry Division on 24 May 1943.