Local History The 29th Infantry Division of the US Army By Peter Gallie
NEARLY seventy years have passed since the brief period from about May 1943 until early June 1944 when the American soldiers of the 29th Infantry Division of the US Army were based and trained in Devon and Cornwall prior to the invasion of mainland Europe. Their input into the European theatre of the war most certainly tilted the balance in our favour, and we should always be grateful to them for their bravery and sacrifice.
The Americans were always courteous and friendly. They loved children and often surprised them with small gifts of chocolate or bubble-gum.
The 29th Infantry Division was constituted on paper in the US Army National Guard on the 18th July 1917, and first organised at Camp McClellan, Alabama. It was an infantry division which was largely recruited from the states of Delaware, Maryland, New Jersey, Virginia, and the District of Columbia, and rapidly became known as the ‘Blue and Gray Division’. This reflected that it was comprised of soldiers from states which had been on opposing sides
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during the American Civil War; the ‘Blue’ associated with the blue uniforms of the Union soldiers, and the ‘Gray’ associated with the grey uniforms of the Confederate soldiers. The shoulder patch is a half-blue and a half grey circle with a green (formerly black) outer band. The Division’s motto is ‘29 Lets Go’, this was taken from a speech General Eisenhower made to the Division before D-Day.
During WW1 the 29th Infantry
Division was deployed on the Western Front in France and was involved in heavy fighting during the Meuse-Argonne offensive.
After
WW1 it was disbanded at Camp Dix, New Jersey but remained a National Guard unit. The Division was reformed when America entered WW2, and on the 5th October 1942 about 10,000 men from the division embarked for England on RMS Queen Mary which had been converted to a troop ship. With a
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