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Distinctive
Insignia 901st Field Artillery Battalion |
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The Div Arty air section operated under centralized control. Planes operated with each battalion. Maj Carl I. Sodergren was Artillery Air Officer. The 76th liaison pilots flew more than 1000 combat missions during ONAWAY's unchecked drive through Germany. Their Piper Cubs were a familiar, satisfying sight to front liners, who knew that enemy concentrations and movements picked up and radioed by these airmen to the men behind the division's big guns brought fireworks within ten minutes or less of this spotting of a target. Providing timely, valuable assistance while ONAWAY attacked were the attached units of' tanks, tank destroyers and antiaircraft artillerymen. The 749th Tank Battalion, after 194 consecutive days of combat, reorganized in January and hit Germany 23 March at Pirmasens and Siersthal. The tankers, moving with the 76th, drove eastward through scores of towns, including Neustadt, Mainz, Frankfurt, UIrichstein, Alsfeld, Sontra, Mühlhausen, Langensalza, Zeitz and Altenburg. They reached Limbach 24 April and remained there until the cessation of hostilities. |
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American
Red Cross girl and a member |
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Supporting the division in its attack across the Sauer was the 691st TD Battalion, whose guns knocked out many German fortifications. After this action, the 691st left the division, returning 6 April at Sontra. From that date until V-E Day the TD's moved forward with the ONAWAY infantrymen, helping to capture many towns and prisoners, and were, in the vicinity of Chemnitz when the war ended. The war began again for the 778th Anti-Aircraft Artillery Automatic Weapons Battalion, veteran of the Battles of France and the Bulge, when the antiaircraftmen were attached to the 76th at Champlon late in January. They followed the division into Luxembourg, across into Germany at Echternach, and on to the Rhine and over. Real action began 8 April at Langensalza with perimeter aerial attacks by the Luftwaffe. Within six days the 778th accounted for nineteen enemy planes. Enemy air activity died off during the latter half of April. |
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Full-swing
recreation program brought good entertainment |
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With V-E day, the division turned to occupation duties, training, and a full-swing recreation and athletic program. Outstanding among sports activities was the play of the 76th's baseball team. When rifles, carbines and machine guns were laid aside for gloves, balls and bats, veteran baseball talent came in from the division's line companies, service and supply units to take up the "national pastime". Organized in 1944 while the division trained at Camp McCoy, the first ONAWAY baseball club, managed by 1st Lt Frank J. Dranginis, won thirty-six out, of forty-three games and captured the Wisconsin state semi-pro championship. Reorganized after V-E Day, the ONAWAY nine played its 1945 schedule on conquered German soil with Sgt Travis as manager during most of the season. With his transfer to another organization, Sgt Rowell became player-manager. Bolstered by veterans from the previous season, ONAWAY won twenty-seven out of thirty-five games, took the XV Corps championship and advanced to the final game of the Third Army title series at Nuremberg, where they met the 71st Infantry Division and gave them a run for the title the whole way. In the deciding contest, the spirit that was ONAWAY's in combat bowed to brother Yanks and a 5-0 score sent the other as runner-up for the ETO championship. 15 June 1943. The 76th celebrated the day it was transformed from a paper division, where it had reposed in the files of the War Department since World War I, into something alive and full of fight. A year old, with plenty of confidence, the division invited to its first birthday party at Fort George G. Meade, Maryland, hundreds of guests to witness its knowledge of warfare. A year later, a year older, the 76th honored 15 June 1944 by another Demonstration in a preview of combat at Camp McCoy, Wisconsin. Maj Gen Schmidt had seen his men pass in review at both of these anniversary ceremonies. Proudly he watched the well-disciplined marching men who not so long before had been civilians, men now a part of a potent civilian army that was to whip the gold braid off the most military army in the world. Already the invasion of France was eight days old and men like these were beating the nazis back, back, back . . . . . There was no large scale demonstration on 15 June 1945 by the 76th. The demonstration already had taken place convincingly on the battlefields of Germany. Brig Gen Henry C. Evans, Division Artillery Commander, officiated at the simple ceremony in place of Gen Schmidt who was, at the time, serving as Commander of the VIII Corps. As the ceremony took place the men wondered, as had the men the previous year wondered about 1945, where they would be on 15 June 1946. Would the 76th be in the ETO as an occupational division or in the CBI as a combat division? But ONAWAY's fate had been decided. AsCorps Commander, Gen Schmidt had received the information first and on the eve of the third anniversary of his division had to issue an order to the 76th. The stencil was cut at Corps Headquarters and the mimeograph machine turned out the allotted copies. One went by fast messenger to Gen Evans at the 76th Division. The order, dated 14 June 1945, read: |
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By Command of Major General SCHMIDT. |
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Word got around fast: the 76th was going to be demobilized. In billets and mess halls the buzz of excitement among officers and men was instantaneous. "Hey, they can't do that to the 76th. We're a trained, combat-wise outfit. Who's gonna kick the tar outta the Japs if they bust up the 76th?" It was difficult to comprehend -- to continue the fight, but not with "the old outfit." Wives, relatives, friends had followed ONAWAY in the news from the Sauer right up to the bank of the Mulde because "Johnny's in the 76th, you know". The 76th belonged in the family. Now every Johnny and Joe who had ever spouted the meaty eloquence of a soldiers' gripes was feeling a personal loss. United by heritage, by training, by battle, the ranks were about to be scattered to the winds -- to the Pacific, to the occupation, to the States. The ONAWAY patch was going to have to come off the sleeve. APO 76 would no longer be the correct address. The 76th had lost large numbers of men before, in 1943, in 1944, but the ranks had been quickly refilled. Here, however, was the end of the long, long trail. Born for war, ONAWAY had been to war. Unflinching in duty, its mission was accomplished. With the sweep of a War Department pen the 76th became a paper division once more. |
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