33rd Infantry Division

Also known as: Golden Cross Division — the patch-derived nickname · Prairie Division — the interwar and WWI nickname · Illinois Division — the state styling · The 33d Infantry Division — the official-history styling of the U.S. Army Center of Military History

History

Definition

The 33rd Infantry Division — the Illinois National Guard division nicknamed the Prairie Division and Golden Cross Division, after its shoulder patch — was a United States Army infantry division formed in 1917 and twice reactivated, whose Philippine significance is its 1945 liberation of Luzon’s west coast and Baguio as a division of I Corps, Sixth Army. (Wikipedia — 33rd Infantry Division) In World War I it was the only American division to fight as part of both British and French corps — four companies beside the Australians at Hamel on July 4, 1918, then the Somme, Saint-Mihiel, and the Meuse-Argonne. (Wikipedia — 33rd Infantry Division)

In the Pacific war the division was rebuilt around the 123rd, 130th, and 136th Infantry — its original Illinois regiments scattered by detachments — trained in Hawaii from July 1943, staged through New Guinea and Morotai, and landed at Lingayen Gulf on Luzon on February 10, 1945, taking over the Baguio front from the 43rd Division and fighting the two-month campaign that ended in the capture of Baguio on April 26, 1945 beside the 37th Division and USAFIP (Northern Luzon)’s guerrilla regiments. (Wikipedia — 33rd Infantry Division, CMH — Northern Luzon, CMH — Collapse of the Baguio Front) It closed the war occupying Honshu, was deactivated in February 1946, and its lineage continues in the Illinois Guard’s 33rd Infantry Brigade Combat Team. (Wikipedia — 33rd Infantry Division)

Identities

Source Type	Identity
Wikipedia	33rd Infantry Division (United States) (verified this session)
Wikidata	33rd Infantry Division (Q4635266) — “1917-1968 United States Army formation” (verified this session)
DBpedia	N/A — endpoint unreachable this session (ETIMEDOUT)
ProductOntology	N/A
Wiktionary	prairie — noun, “an extensive area of relatively flat grassland… especially in North America”, the word behind the division’s “Prairie Division” nickname (headword verified this session) (Wiktionary — prairie)
Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH)	N/A — id.loc.gov unreachable this session (HTTP 403)
MeSH	N/A
NCBI Taxonomy	N/A
AGROVOC	N/A
Google Scholar	33rd Infantry Division Golden Cross Prairie Illinois National Guard Clarkson 123rd 130th 136th Infantry Lingayen February 10 1945 Baguio Route 11 Tuba Trail Galiano Asin Irisan Mount Mirador April 26 1945 USAFIP NL 66th Infantry Honshu occupation Hamel Meuse-Argonne
ConceptNet	N/A
OpenCyc	N/A

Also Known As

Golden Cross Division — the patch-derived nickname
Prairie Division — the interwar and WWI nickname
Illinois Division — the state styling
The 33d Infantry Division — the official-history styling of the U.S. Army Center of Military History

Examples and Analogies

A division that shrank to grow: triangularized in February 1942, the 33rd gave up its Illinois regiments one by one — the 132nd to the Americal, the 131st to the Soo Locks, the 129th to the Pacific and the 37th Division — and received the new 123rd and the Minnesota-ex 136th in return: the Army’s square-to-triangular conversion written in one division’s rosters. (Wikipedia — 33rd Infantry Division)
The division that kept being told to wait: Maj. Gen. Percy W. Clarkson “had from the start been unhappy at having been assigned a holding mission,” and twice proposed an immediate drive on Baguio that I Corps trimmed to limited attacks — until the Japanese collapse of April 1945 let the waiting division into the city. (CMH — Collapse of the Baguio Front)
Verified division data:
Activated: July 1917 at Camp Logan from the Illinois National Guard; overseas May 1918; demobilized 1919; federally recognized again December 13, 1923 (Wikipedia — 33rd Infantry Division)
WWII regiments: 123rd, 130th, 136th Infantry (Wikipedia — 33rd Infantry Division)
Pacific itinerary: Hawaii July 12, 1943; New Guinea May 11, 1944; Maffin Bay September 1, 1944; Morotai December 18, 1944 (Wikipedia — 33rd Infantry Division)
Luzon: landed Lingayen Gulf February 10, 1945; relieved the 43rd Division and 158th RCT February 15; I Corps order of battle — “the 25th, 32d, and 33d Divisions and the USAFIP(NL)” (CMH — Northern Luzon)
Baguio: 37th Division patrol entry April 24; city secured April 26; 33d link-up patrols April 27 — “the end of the drive to Baguio” (CMH — Collapse of the Baguio Front)
Casualties (WWII): 2,426 — 396 killed, 2,024 wounded, 5 missing, 1 POW; WWI, 6,864 (Wikipedia — 33rd Infantry Division)
End: Honshu occupation from September 25, 1945; deactivated February 3, 1946; lineage in the 33rd Infantry Brigade Combat Team (Wikipedia — 33rd Infantry Division)

Usage Scenarios

1. Studying the Liberation of Baguio

The division is the standing frame of this wiki’s Battle of Baguio entry: from February 1945 it held and then rolled up the western approaches — Route 11, the Tuba Trail, the Galiano-Asin road, Route 9 — reducing the 58th Independent Mixed Brigade and the 23rd Division’s defenses until its 123rd and 130th Infantry overran Mt. Mirador and its patrols linked up inside Baguio on April 27. (CMH — Collapse of the Baguio Front)

2. Analyzing Guerrilla Integration

On the Baguio front the division fought with USAFIP(NL) guerrillas inside its own operations — a 121st Infantry battalion attached to the 33d, and the 2d Battalion, 66th Infantry, with the 136th Infantry in the April drive. (CMH — Northern Luzon, CMH — Collapse of the Baguio Front)

3. Researching the Guard’s Pacific War and the Occupation

The division’s career runs from the 1941 induction through the Hawaii training, the New Guinea and Morotai staging, and Clarkson’s command (October 1943 – November 1945) to the Honshu occupation from September 25, 1945. (Wikipedia — 33rd Infantry Division)

Strategies

Probe the flanks, then convert: the division’s February–March 1945 patrolling found the west coast stripping itself of defenders — Agoo and Aringay unopposed, Bauang March 19, Naguilian March 23 — shifting I Corps’ weight to the coastal Route 9 axis, after which Clarkson’s limited-objective attacks kept pressure on until the 37th Division arrived. (CMH — Collapse of the Baguio Front)
Fix the enemy so a sister division can break him: between April 16 and 22 the division’s three-axis pressure pinned the 23rd Division and 58th IMB while the 37th broke the Irisan Gorge — the 37th’s drive “could [not] have succeeded when and as it did had not the 33d Division also been striving for Baguio.” (CMH — Collapse of the Baguio Front)
Pair with guerrillas as flank guards: Clarkson’s March plan leaned on USAFIP(NL) forces at San Fernando holding the division’s left rear. (CMH — Collapse of the Baguio Front)

Security and Safety Measures

The starving defense: the 33d faced a force collapsing logistically — front-line rations under a quarter pound of rice daily by late March — so its attrition was as much supply-denial as combat. (CMH — Collapse of the Baguio Front)
The halt that spared both sides: the I Corps halt of April 22, 1945 traded annihilation of Utsunomiya’s force for a secured city and lower casualties — letting some 10,000 Japanese move north. (CMH — Collapse of the Baguio Front)
Civilian evacuation: the advance made possible the mid-April movement of some 7,000 civilians through the lines to safety. (CMH — Collapse of the Baguio Front)
For researchers: date the fall of Baguio by the act cited — patrol entry April 24, securing April 26, 33d link-up April 27. (CMH — Collapse of the Baguio Front, Wikipedia — 33rd Infantry Division)

Historical Context

The division’s first life was the Great War: raised from the Illinois Guard at Camp Logan in July 1917 and fighting with the Australian Corps at Hamel and at Chipilly Ridge, Saint-Mihiel, and the Meuse-Argonne — the only U.S. division under both British and French corps control. Demobilized in 1919, it returned to the Illinois Guard in 1923 — the interwar division where George C. Marshall served as head instructor, 1933–1936 — and was inducted again on March 5, 1941, triangularized in 1942, and cannibalized for other theaters before it ever fought; the rebuilt division — 123rd, 130th, 136th Infantry — trained in Hawaii from July 1943 and staged through New Guinea and Morotai under Clarkson, its commander from October 1943. (Wikipedia — 33rd Infantry Division)

Luzon was its campaign. Landing at Lingayen Gulf on February 10, 1945, the 33d relieved the 43rd Division and the 158th RCT five days later on the Damortis-Rosario front, cleared the Hills 600-1500 ridge line by February 22, and settled into the Baguio-front holding mission Krueger assigned it, while its patrolling found the west coast opening. (CMH — Northern Luzon, CMH — Collapse of the Baguio Front) March took it up the coast to Bauang and Naguilian; late March brought the attached 129th RCT up Route 9; and the April 12 two-division drive sent the 130th up the Galiano road, the 123d over the Tuba Trail, the 136th pressing Route 11. The Japanese broke at the Irisan Gorge and Asin in the third week of April; the Mt. Mirador holdout was destroyed April 24–26; and the division’s patrols entered Baguio on April 27. (CMH — Collapse of the Baguio Front) The aftermath was another holding mission — securing Baguio-Bauang-San Fernando, patrolling toward KP 21 — as Sixth Army saved the division for the invasion of Japan. The surrender made it an occupation division on Honshu from September 25, 1945; it deactivated on February 3, 1946, returning as the Illinois Guard’s 33rd Division until 1968, when the 33rd Infantry Brigade carried its lineage forward. (Wikipedia — 33rd Infantry Division)

Challenges and Controversies

Which Regiments Were the 33rd’s

Casual retellings name the 129th, 130th, or 131st as the division’s World War II regiments. Those were its original Illinois regiments of the square division, detached in 1942 (the 129th to the 37th, the 131st to the Soo Locks, the 132nd to the Americal); the division that fought at Baguio comprised the 123rd, 130th, and 136th Infantry, and the 129th fought there as a 37th Division regiment attached to the 33d. (Wikipedia — 33rd Infantry Division, CMH — Collapse of the Baguio Front)

No Cagayan Valley Campaign

The division is sometimes credited with the Cagayan Valley fighting. The official history assigns the valley approaches — Villa Verde Trail and Balete Pass — to the 32nd and 25th Divisions and the valley’s interior to USAFIP(NL); the 33d fought the Baguio front, never the valley itself. (CMH — Northern Luzon, CMH — Collapse of the Baguio Front)

The Missed Pursuit

The official history’s own criticism: Sixth Army’s May 1945 decision to hold the 33d rather than pursue toward KP 21 let the Japanese “have some leisure to dig in” — lengthening the last-stand campaign the Allies spent the summer reducing. (CMH — Collapse of the Baguio Front)

A Victory With an Asterisk

The capture of Baguio destroyed the first anchor of Yamashita’s triangle but let Utsunomiya extricate some 10,000 troops — the standing controversy this wiki’s Battle of Baguio entry carries. (CMH — Collapse of the Baguio Front)