Sixth United States Army

Also known as: Sixth Army — the standard short styling · Alamo Force — the 1943–1944 headquarters designation under which Krueger reported directly to MacArthur · US Army South (Sixth Army) — the designation carried since the 2008 redesignation

Places

Definition

The Sixth United States Army is a field army of the United States Army whose World War II existence — activated in January 1943 under Lieutenant General Walter Krueger, who commanded it from activation to January 1946 — made it the spearhead of the liberation of the Philippines: the headquarters whose X Corps and XXIV Corps invaded Leyte on October 20, 1944, the A-day of MacArthur’s return, and whose I Corps and XIV Corps landed at Lingayen Gulf on January 9, 1945 to open the Luzon campaign that Krueger’s record calls the army’s “largest, longest and last.” (Wikipedia — Sixth United States Army, Wikipedia — Battle of Leyte, Wikipedia — Walter Krueger) A first Sixth Army had existed only on paper — constituted in the Organized Reserve on October 15, 1921 and disbanded on October 1, 1933 — so the 1943 activation is the origin of the army the Philippine record knows, the headquarters that fought the New Guinea campaigns as Alamo Force. (Wikipedia — Sixth United States Army)

The war’s end converted the liberator into a transit. Slated “to have provided the ground forces for the first phase of the invasion of Japan,” the army went instead to occupation duty after the surrender, handed its occupation duties to the Eighth Army, and returned to the United States in 1946, leaving Japan to Eichelberger’s command — the seam this wiki’s Occupation of Japan entry documents. (Wikipedia — Sixth United States Army, Wikipedia — Walter Krueger, Wikipedia — Eighth United States Army) Headquartered then at the Presidio of San Francisco as the training army of the western United States, it was inactivated in June 1995 and its name revived on July 31, 2008, when US Army South was redesignated US Army South (Sixth Army) at Fort Sam Houston. (Wikipedia — Sixth United States Army) Military-history register: active as Sixth Army, US Army South; the Philippine service — crowned by the Philippine Republic Presidential Unit Citation streamer “17 October 1944 – 4 July 1945” — is its founding record.

Identities

Source Type	Identity
Wikipedia	Sixth United States Army
Wikidata	Sixth Army (Q246612) — “active United States Army formation”; alias “Sixth United States Army” (verified this session)
DBpedia	Sixth_United_States_Army — label “Sixth United States Army”, dbo:MilitaryUnit; the resource redirects to Sixth_Army_(United_States); sameAs VIAF 144406050 (verified this session)
ProductOntology	N/A
Wiktionary	army — noun, “A large, highly organized military force, concerned mainly with ground (rather than air or naval) operations” (headword verified this session) (Wiktionary — army)
Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH)	United States. Army. Army, 6th — name authority n94122503 (verified this session via id.loc.gov suggest)
MeSH	N/A
NCBI Taxonomy	N/A
AGROVOC	N/A
Google Scholar	Sixth United States Army Walter Krueger activated January 1943 Alamo Force Cartwheel New Guinea Leyte October 20 1944 X Corps XXIV Corps Lingayen January 9 1945 I Corps XIV Corps Manila Shimbu Group Olympic occupation Japan 1946 Presidio San Francisco 1995 US Army South Sixth Army 2008
ConceptNet	N/A — ConceptNet API unreachable this session (HTTP 502)
OpenCyc	N/A

Also Known As

Sixth Army — the standard short styling
Alamo Force — the 1943–1944 headquarters designation under which Krueger reported directly to MacArthur
US Army South (Sixth Army) — the designation carried since the 2008 redesignation

Examples and Analogies

Two corps, two beaches at Leyte: the army’s Philippine record opened symmetrical — X Corps (24th Infantry and 1st Cavalry Divisions) ashore between Tacloban airfield and the Palo River, XXIV Corps (7th and 96th Infantry Divisions) to the south between San José and the Daguitan River, roughly 202,500 troops committed, while MacArthur spoke at Red Beach: “People of the Philippines, I have returned!” (Wikipedia — Battle of Leyte)
The two-door entry to Luzon: the Lingayen landing of January 9, 1945 split the army again — I Corps (43rd and 6th Infantry Divisions) at San Fabian, XIV Corps (37th and 40th Infantry Divisions) in the western area — some 175,000 troops ashore within days, driving south until the 1st Cavalry Division entered Manila on February 3. (Wikipedia — Battle of Luzon)
Verified army data:
Activation: January 1943, Krueger commanding; as Alamo Force led most US Army units in Operation Cartwheel, the campaign to neutralize Rabaul; Alamo Force discontinued September 1944; Krueger created the Alamo Scouts in November 1943 — 106 missions by war’s end; promoted general March 5, 1945 (Wikipedia — Sixth United States Army, Wikipedia — Walter Krueger)
New Guinea: Operation Chronicle (Woodlark and Kiriwina, June 1943), Arawe, Saidor (January 1944), the Admiralties (February 1944); relieved by the Eighth Army in New Guinea, New Britain, the Admiralties, and Morotai in September 1944 (Wikipedia — Walter Krueger, Wikipedia — Eighth United States Army)
Leyte: landings October 20, 1944; control of operations on Leyte and Samar passed to the Eighth Army on December 26, 1944, once Palompon had fallen (Wikipedia — Battle of Leyte)
Luzon: Lingayen S-day January 9, 1945; Krueger’s army numbered 193,901 officers and enlisted; the Shimbu Group’s roughly 80,000 men yielded barely 8,300 survivors; army after-action report: 8,297 killed or missing and 29,557 wounded, January 9 – June 30, 1945, against 86,954 sick; Luzon responsibility passed to the Eighth Army from July 1, 1945 (Wikipedia — Battle of Luzon, Wikipedia — Walter Krueger)
After: occupation duty in Japan in 1945, then home in 1946; Presidio of San Francisco headquarters; postwar commanders included Stilwell, Clark, and Wedemeyer; inactivated June 23, 1995; redesignated US Army South (Sixth Army), active July 31, 2008, the Army component of US Southern Command (Wikipedia — Sixth United States Army)

Usage Scenarios

1. Studying the Return to the Philippines

The army is the organizing headquarters of the October 20, 1944 Leyte assault — the two-corps order of battle, the Tacloban and Dulag beachheads, and the December 26, 1944 handover — the frame this wiki’s Battle of Leyte and X Corps entries carry. (Wikipedia — Battle of Leyte)

2. Analyzing the Luzon Campaign

Luzon was the army’s largest operation: the Lingayen landing of January 9, 1945, the drive south through the Clark positions to Manila, and the reduction of the Shimbu Group in the Sierra Madre, with the mop-up passing to the Eighth Army from July 1, 1945. (Wikipedia — Battle of Luzon)

3. Tracing the Army Seam of the Liberation

Command-boundary work pairs the army with its successor: the Sixth at Leyte’s landing and Luzon’s center; the Eighth for Leyte’s reduction from December 26, 1944, the January 1945 Manila pincer, and the southern Philippines — the division of labor the corpus’s campaign entries enforce. (Wikipedia — Eighth United States Army)

4. Following the Institutional Lineage

From the Presidio decades through the June 1995 inactivation to the July 31, 2008 redesignation of US Army South as Sixth Army, the army’s name survives in today’s force structure at Fort Sam Houston. (Wikipedia — Sixth United States Army)

Strategies

Dual-headquarters flexibility: as Alamo Force the army reported directly to MacArthur for Cartwheel rather than through Allied Land Forces — an arrangement Krueger himself called inherently difficult, dropped in September 1944 when the Philippines loomed. (Wikipedia — Walter Krueger)
Invest in reconnaissance: the Alamo Scouts — created November 1943, 106 missions by war’s end — were the army’s standing answer to the archipelago’s intelligence problem. (Wikipedia — Walter Krueger)
Maximize materiel: on Luzon, Krueger intended “maximum utilization of America’s materiel and industrial superiority,” outmaneuvering Yamashita’s 287,000-man force by firepower and tempo rather than frontal attrition. (Wikipedia — Walter Krueger)
Hand over by phase: the Leyte relief of December 26, 1944 and the Luzon transfer of July 1, 1945 released the army from secondary operations for the invasion of Japan — phased handovers that kept each army at its proper scale. (Wikipedia — Battle of Leyte, Wikipedia — Battle of Luzon)

Security and Safety Measures

The intelligence gap as standing warning: on Luzon the estimates undershot the defense — MacArthur’s officer reckoned about 172,000 Japanese, Krueger’s G-2 234,000, against Yamashita’s actual 287,000 — the calculation the campaign had to absorb. (Wikipedia — Walter Krueger)
Casualty accounting as institutional record: the army’s after-action report — 8,297 killed or missing and 29,557 wounded against 86,954 sick, January 9 – June 30, 1945 — fixed disease, not the enemy, as the largest casualty column. (Wikipedia — Battle of Luzon)
For researchers: keep the army’s lives distinct — the 1921–1933 reserve existence, the 1943–1946 combat army, the 1946–1995 Presidio army, and the post-2008 Sixth Army of US Army South — and keep the two-army seam straight when attributing the liberation’s operations. (Wikipedia — Sixth United States Army, Wikipedia — Eighth United States Army)

Historical Context

Activated in January 1943 under Krueger — the German-born private of 1898 risen to general — the army fought the Cartwheel campaign as Alamo Force, taking Woodlark and Kiriwina in June 1943, then Arawe, Saidor, and the Admiralties, until the Eighth Army relieved it in September 1944. (Wikipedia — Sixth United States Army, Wikipedia — Walter Krueger)

The Philippine record opened at Leyte on October 20, 1944, when X and XXIV Corps went ashore on the return’s chosen beaches; the campaign became “one of grinding attrition” as Japan fed five more divisions and two mixed brigades into the island, and control passed to the Eighth Army on December 26, 1944. (Wikipedia — Battle of Leyte) Luzon followed: the Lingayen landings of January 9, 1945, the tank battles against the Japanese 2nd Tank Division, the fight through Clark to Manila — entered February 3 — and the long reduction of Yamashita’s forces that ran to June 30, 1945, when Krueger passed the mop-up to Eichelberger to prepare for the invasion of Kyushu. (Wikipedia — Battle of Luzon, Wikipedia — Walter Krueger)

The surrender made the invasion army an occupation army and then a homeward one: it took occupation duty in Japan, handed those duties to the Eighth Army — which “at the beginning of 1946… assumed responsibility for occupying all of Japan” — and returned to the United States in 1946, Krueger retiring to write the army’s own story, From Down Under to Nippon (1953). (Wikipedia — Sixth United States Army, Wikipedia — Eighth United States Army) The Presidio decades made it the western states’ training command; the post-Cold War reductions inactivated it in June 1995; and in 2008 its name returned to the active list with US Army South, still wearing the motto “Born of War.” (Wikipedia — Sixth United States Army)

Challenges and Controversies

The Carigara Delay

Historian Ronald Spector’s verdict on Leyte — that Krueger made a “disastrous decision to delay the push into the mountains” near Carigara in favor of beach defense — is the standing criticism of the army’s one island battle. (Wikipedia — Walter Krueger)

Manila and the Commander’s Timeline

MacArthur’s pressure on Krueger to take Manila accelerated the drive at the cost of a ferocious city fight from February 3, 1945 — the tension between the theater’s timetable and the army’s method. (Wikipedia — Walter Krueger)

Which Army Ran Which Liberation

Popular accounts credit the liberation to one “American army”; the record divides it — the Sixth at Leyte’s assault and Luzon’s center, the Eighth for the southern Philippines and the mop-ups — the seam this wiki’s Eighth Army and campaign entries police. (Wikipedia — Eighth United States Army, Wikipedia — Battle of Luzon)

One Name, Four Lives

Lists conflate the 1921 reserve existence, the 1943 combat army, the Presidio training army, and today’s US Army South (Sixth Army) — citations should say which Sixth Army they mean. (Wikipedia — Sixth United States Army)