 The Arrowhead stood for Oklahoma, the team for Texas. Together they stood for the 36th Infantry Division. Before World War I was over they stood for a lot more, for courage and fighting spirit. The 36th was formed in 1917, the National Guard units out of Oklahoma and Texas, but its ancestry goes a lot further back to the Texas War of Independence and every war since then. As a division it distinguished itself in World War I. When peace came it was disbanded and the men returned to their homes and jobs. Not long after the war it was reorganized. This time it was made up entirely of men of Texas. It was still the 36th Infantry Division and they still kept the same patch, but now it was known as the Texas Division. As a National Guard division the 36th remained inactive until the trouble started in Europe. In 1940 when the German armies invaded France and the Lowlands the 36th was mobilized again. When the Japs struck at Pearl Harbor the 36th was in training. A year later they were still in training. During this time the strength of the division had been periodically paired to furnish trained cadres for new divisions being formed throughout the country. The replacements we got came from all parts of the country. In the spring of 1943 the division sailed for overseas. Everyone thought we were finally headed for action. Instead we wound up in Africa for more training. When we weren't training ourselves they put us to work training other troops. By this time a lot of the new guys in our outfit were beginning to believe the T on our patch stood for training. It was fall before we left Africa and this time there wasn't any doubt about it. We were headed for the continent. We knew we were going to make an assault landing but no one seemed to know where. We didn't know where we were going but the morale was high. It should have been. We figured we were the best trained outfit in the army. A few days before we landed they told us we were going to Italy for the first crack at the mainland. About the same time we heard that Italy had surrendered. It looked like we weren't going to see any action after all. Not much anyway. On the 9th of September 1943 we landed at Salerno. We didn't have the usual naval bombardment to soften the enemy. The operation was supposed to be a surprise. We were the ones that were surprised. The first assault waves got ashore right while it was still dark. Then the Germans began to let us have it. We were all set to blast us off the beach. Between their artillery in the hills and their planes overhead they almost succeeded. The engineers struggled to clear the beaches of mines and obstacles. We began to push inland. The Germans were waiting for us with machine guns and mortars. We finally got some artillery ashore and that helped a lot. We started moving forward again. Then the Germans attacked with their tanks. We had to fight them with infantry weapons until we got our tank destroyers ashore. And with the help of the naval guns and artillery we finally drove them off. We began pushing inland. Now began the bloody fighting for the hills around the beaches. We took them one by one. Hill 140. Hill 386. The fight for hill 424 was a tough one. We took it and lost it. The Germans attacked with their tanks again. They were trying to split our forces and they almost succeeded. The Navy moved in closer and began using their big guns. We got the air support we needed so badly. Finally we even got reinforcements. They flew in some airborne infantry. German attack was broken up. The fighting went on. In less than a week the paratroopers in a bloody fight had retaken hill 424 in Altevella. We had control of the area around Salerno. The Germans began to pull back and the division went into reserve. It was winter before we went into the line again. This time near Mignano to relieve the third was raining and cold when we moved up. The German winter line stretched in front of us, blocking advance to the north. Our job was to break through. To do this we had to drive them from their fortified defensive positions in the hills. There were three of them. With the help of the largest concentration of artillery since El Alamein, we took the first one, Mount Camino Majori. We had to fight to take it. We had to fight harder to hold it. Mount Samucro, hill 1205 was our second objective. It was higher and better fortified. We had a tough time taking it. Mount Lungo was the last German position blocking our way to the north. An Italian brigade had tried to take it and had been cut to pieces. We were more careful. We moved up the back slopes of Mount Lungo under the cover of darkness and attack at dawn. We surprised them and took the hill without a fight. After the fall of Mount Lungo the Germans gave up and began to withdraw. In San Pietro the little town dominating the main highway to the north was ours or what was left of it. But the battle wasn't over. Germans were fighting bitterly to cover their withdrawal. Christmas 1944 found a 36 with some of its battalions reduced to less than company strength, still pushing after the enemy. Slow but steady advance to the north came to a halt at the entrance of the Lyri Valley. Germans had prepared a new line of defense along the Rapido River and they were waiting for us. They didn't have long to wait. We attacked twice and twice we were driven back. Quite a few of our men got across the Rapido but not many came back. After the fight at the Rapido what was left of the division was sent to San Ilya in the north. Here the 36 crossed the river and the freezing cold of mid-February took up defensive positions in the hills around Casino. We didn't have the troops to assault the key German strongholds on Mount Casino and Mount Cairo. We fell onto what we had feeding off repeated attacks by the Germans. The Air Force tried to get the Germans off Mount Casino. The historic old Benedictine Abbey was destroyed. When it was all over, Germans were still there. Near the end of February with only a fraction of its fighting strength left, the 36 was relieved and sent back to Naples to rest up. Two months later, after refitting and taking on replacements, the division sailed for Anzio to take part in the May offensive. The 36 was in reserve when the big push started to break out from the beachhead. They were committed when the advance of the Fifth Army had come to a halt before veletry. The last German stronghold blocking the way to Rome. The 36 was brought up and ordered to take it. We did. One of the most brilliant and conceived and executed maneuvers of the entire Italian campaign. The attack became a mass infiltration by the division. Under the cover of darkness, we moved through the enemy lines and occupied a high ridge overlooking the town. The engineers put a road in. We brought our guns up. The Germans didn't discover us until the following morning. Then it was too late. They attacked. But we held. And the following day our troops entered the veletry. The road to Rome was open. The Germans were pulling back and we were right on their heels. The Romans had already started celebrating their liberation when we entered the city. But we didn't stop. We kept right after the retreating Germans, fighting their rear guards. By the end of June, we had reached Piambino. It was the end of the line for us. The 36 was relieved again. We returned to Salerno to prepare for another assignment. In mid-August, after a month and a half of training and refitting, the 36 sailed for France as part of the 7th Army. Our assignment sounded good. We were going to the Riviera. The only trouble was the Germans were still there. They only hoped they were so busy with the invasion in Normandy. There wouldn't be many of them in the south. We went ashore just below San Rafael. And this time, there was heavy naval and air bombardment. Ending was a surprise. The whole division, with all its supplies and equipment, went ashore on a narrow, rocky strip of beach. We took the key points along the shore and headed inland. This wasn't anything like Salerno. We were moving fast. Some days, we covered as much as 100 miles. That was a good reason for speed. We were racing to cut off the German 19th Army, which had left the Marseille area and was trying to get back to Germany. They were following the Rome Valley. They caught them north of Montilamar. While our reconnaissance elements blocked the main escape routes, artillery went to work on long columns of enemy vehicles that jam the roads, bumper to bumper. Now it was our turn to do the chopping up. They finally broke through, but it took them eight days. They left a lot of their troops and equipment behind. We chased what was left of them as far as Luxel-le-Barre. And then the division stopped for regrouping. When it started out again, the 36 was spearheading the 6th Corps attack across the Marseille. In preparation for the crossing, we attacked Remilmont and Aloys. The fighting was still going on when we made a crossing at Saint Lebois, the point in between. The Marseille bridgehead was established. The 36 pushed into the Vosges mountains after the retreating Germans. And the Vosges advance suddenly slowed down to a crawl. The terrain was bad and it was getting cold. The Germans were putting up a stiff fight. Clearing the Vosges hills was slow and treacherous work. One battalion, the first of the 141st, was cut off and isolated for almost a week without food or water. But they fought off repeated German attacks until they were rescued by the 442nd Nisei Regiment attached to the division. By the end of November, advance elements of the 36 had reached the Saint-Marie Pass. The highest and narrowest pass of the Vosges mountains was heavily fortified and the Germans considered it impregnable. The 36 was ordered to take it. We attacked with a combined assault and flanking movement. We'd used so effectively in Italy. It worked. They told us it was the first time in the modern history that pass had ever been taken. Winners set in, we took the city of Salistat and went on the defensive, guarding a front line over 50 miles long. Early December saw a bit of fighting all along the line. The Germans counterattacked. We almost lost Salistat. We kept it by turning every house we occupied into a fortified position. By Christmas time, the German attack had led up. The 36, after setting a record of 135 continuous days in combat, was relieved and sent to the rear for a rest. It was a short one. On New Year's Eve, 1945, the Germans launched a full scale attack which threatened to cut off and encircle the entire six corps. The 36 was immediately recalled and committed. The call was so intense, the regiment's online duty had to be rotated almost daily. By the end of January, the enemy initiative had died out and we were preparing for a full scale attack. Early in March, the 36 broke through the enemy's defense line along the motor river. By the middle of March, lead elements of the division had crossed into Germany, southeast of Wissenberg and were preparing to attack the Siegfried line. While the lead elements tried to breach the line in the Flatlands, the others took to the heavily wooded hills and attacked the heights, which were important features in the enemy's defense plan. It was a slow, costly fight, struggling up the steep wooded slopes, always under the German guns, locating them and then reducing them one by one. Four days later, after a fierce night attack, elements of the division found themselves behind the impregnable Siegfried line. Berksaberne, Dornbach and Bullenborn fell and enemy resistance in the area crumpled. The breach in the Siegfried opened a floodgate. Now forces poured into Germany and moved on the Rhine. Within a few days, the entire division was drawn up along the Rhine, awaiting orders. For the 36, it looked like the fight was over. They received their first rear area assignment, occupation duty in the Saar Basin. Late in April, the division crossed the Danube and re-entered the 7th Army line at Landsberg, mopping up behind the fast-moving 12th Armored. There was more mopping up in Bavaria. Early in May 1945, we were in Austria. We were busy cleaning up when the war ended. The 36 moved rapidly those last days of the war, but its time was profitably spent. Included in its bag of prisoners were such prominent party and military leaders as von Ronstead and Hermann Göring. Somehow it seemed only fitting that the 36 should be the one to bring in these leaders that played an important part in their downfall. In 20 months of combat, it won a reputation as an outfit that could be depended upon to accomplish the impossible. The hardship its troops had endured and the heroism they had displayed had also won for it 10 presidential unit citations and 15 congressional medals of honor. The cost had been high, some 27,000 casualties. But the 36th Infantry Division had earned the right to take its place among the great fighting outfits of all time.