37th Infantry Division in World War Two

Even before World War Two pulled America in, military leaders were already preparing for the war they knew was inevitable.  As part of this, the U.S. Army began federalizing the National Guards from across the nation.  One of these was the 37th Infantry Division, better known as the "Buckeye Divsion," raised out of the Ohio National Guard.

During the First World War, the 37th Division had served in France and took part in some of the hardest fighting of the war, namely the Meuse-Argonne Campaign.  On October 15, 1940, the Ohioans were again called to serve.  They spent 1940 and 1941 in Camp Shelby, Mississippi until the attack on Pearl Harbor.  The Japanese were racing across the Pacific dominating island after island.  In May 1942, the army sent the Buckeye Division to the Fiji Islands to dig in and defend the island.  An invasion never came, but the division trained relentlessly until the next summer.

In July 1943, they went on the offensive with Marines in New Georgia.  After successfully clearing the island, they were sent to the island of Bougainville in November.  The Japanese put up fierce resistance on Bougainville.  The 37th encountered heavy fighting and suffered many casualties.  They stayed on Bougainville for over a year until their next big fight came.

In January 1945, the 37th Infantry Division moved to Luzon in the Philippines.  Americans had finally fulfilled Douglas MacArthur's promise to return.  On Luzon, the Buckeyes took Clark Field, which had been lost to the Japanese in 1942.  As they moved further north, resistance became stiffer.  In February, they arrived in Manila and engaged in some of the most heated house-to-house fighting of the Pacific Theater.  They spent the remainder of the war on Luzon, mopping up the last of the Japanese on the island until the surrender in September 1945.  

The 37th Infantry Division returned to the United States in November 1945, three and a half years after they had left.  During the war, seven members of the division were awarded the Medal of Honor.  Nearly every soldier contracted malaria at some point, fighting disease and the Japanese.

Many of our neighbors fought with the 37th Infantry Division.  My uncle, John Beason, was with them for over five years and spent over 500 days in combat with the division.  It remains a very well-documented unit with artifacts in nearly every museum imaginable in the area.