News: Clark Co. - National Guard (40 Yr. Reunion - 1980)

Contact: Dolores (Mohr) Kenyon
E-mail: dolores@wiclarkcountyhistory.org 

Surnames: Matera, Roosevelt, MacArthur, Henry, Smith, Young, Clauder

----Source: Clark County Press (Neillsville, Clark Co., WI) 10/09/1980

National Guard (40 Yr. Reunion - 1980)

Wisconsin Army National Guard units and their communities will join with Guard units nationwide to hold reunions and other commemorative activities marking the 40th anniversary of the Guard’s mobilization prior to America’s entry into World War II, Major General Raymond A. Matera, state adjutant general, announced today.

September 16, 1940, signaled the start of what would prove to be the largest mobilization ever conducted by the United States. It had special significance, because it was also the date President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed the Selective Training and Service Act to launch the nation’s first peacetime draft.

Between then and October 6, 1941, over 300,000 National Guardsmen, including those in Neillsville swelled the Army’s ranks and doubled the size of the small peacetime Army. Among the 3,717 Guard units ordered into Federal service by the president were 18 combat divisions.

Wisconsin’s famed 32nd “Red Arrow” Infantry Division, combined at that time with units from Michigan, less the 32nd Tank Company, part of the 192nd Tank Battalion.

Other Wisconsin units, the 135th Medical Regiment joined the mobilization on January 13, 1941, and finally the 136th Observation Squadron followed on June 2, 1941.

Some 11,602 Red Arrow men, 5,971 of which were Wisconsin communities, went first to Camp Beauregard, Louisiana, and then, in February 1941, to Camp Livingston, Louisiana, where they underwent a year of intensive training.

Originally scheduled for shipment to England, the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor changed all of that and the division was sent to Australia.

After more training in jungle warfare, the 32nd was the first division to fight an offensive battle against the Japanese in the Southwest Pacific, the Papuan campaign.

For the next four years, after 654 days of combat, 15, 696 hours of action - more than any U.S. division in any war, in six major engagements in four campaigns; the division returned home after occupation duty in Japan.

Other firsts for the 32nd included the first U.S. division to be airborne into combat, the first U.S. division to make a beach landing in the New Guinea campaign, the first to employ General MacArthur’s bypass strategy, and among the first American occupation troops to land in Japan.

It’s members were awarded 11 Congressional Medals of Honor, 157 Distinguished Service Crosses, 49 Legions of Merit, 845 Silver Stars, 1,854 Bronze Stars, 98 Air Medals, 78 Soldier’s Medals and 11,500 Purple Hearts.

To commemorate this momentous and fateful undertaking, a brief ceremony will be held on the steps of the State Capitol in Madison, Wednesday, October 15. The 30-minute program will consist of an invocation by the Rev. Austin Henry, pastor of Holy Redeemer Church, Madison, who was chaplain of the 32nd Division when it was mobilized in 1940.

Main speaker till be retired, Major General Herbert A. Smith, Oshkosh, former commander of the 32nd Infantry Division from July 1960, to June 1963, which included, the 1961-62 Berlin Crisis when the division was mobilized and served ten months at Ft. Lewis, Washington. General Smith served with the 32nd, most of the time as a battalion commander, during the entire war.

A highlight of the program will be the presentation of unit flags by Wisconsin Army Guard color guards as unit lineages are read by Colonel Barry W. Young, chief of staff for Headquarters, Wisconsin Army National Guard.

The program will conclude with a firing squad composed of members of the Wisconsin Air Guard and retired Joseph Clauder, bandmaster of the 32nd Division Band during World War II, playing taps.

In addition to the state level observance at the Capitol, regional observances will be held in Appleton, Eau Claire and Milwaukee. There will also be a number of commemorative activities, such as open houses and reunions, at various National Guard armories throughout Wisconsin.

A highlight of those activities will be a muster of Guard members who were mobilized with Wisconsin Guard units in 1940 and 1941.