128th-infantry – Wiki Philippines

Definition

The 128th Infantry Regiment — the Wisconsin National Guard regiment whose official special designation and motto are “Les Terribles,” “The Terrible Ones,” bestowed by the French of World War I — is one of the three infantry regiments, with the 126th and 127th, of the 32nd Infantry Division, the “Red Arrow” division that logged 654 days of combat in World War II, more than any other United States Army division in any war. Its 1st Battalion traces its lineage to the 2nd Wisconsin Infantry of the Iron Brigade, with a strand through Company C of the 8th Wisconsin, the “Eagle Regiment” of the mascot Old Abe; redesignated the 128th Infantry at Camp MacArthur, Texas, in 1917, the regiment is represented today by the 1st Battalion, 128th Infantry, of the Wisconsin Army National Guard. (Wikipedia — 128th Infantry Regiment, Wikipedia — 32nd Infantry Division)

The regiment’s Philippine significance is written across the 32nd Division’s whole Pacific war. Portions of the 128th were the first American troops airlifted into combat, flown from Australia to Port Moresby in September 1942 before the Bloody Buna fighting in which Robert L. Eichelberger’s December 3 command shake-up put Clarence A. Martin at the regiment’s head; it withstood the Japanese counterattacks on the Driniumor River at Aitape in 1944, where its Companies E and G bore the brunt of the assault of July 10–11 and Staff Sergeant Gerald L. Endl earned a posthumous Medal of Honor; it fought up the Pinamopoan–Ormoc road on Leyte with the division that broke the Yamashita line; and on Luzon it was the frontal regiment of the Villa Verde Trail, relieving the 127th Infantry at Salacsac Pass No. 2 in March 1945 and clearing Salacsac Pass No. 1 by May 24, in the regiment’s own report to General William H. Gill. (Wikipedia — 32nd Infantry Division, CMH — The Bambang Front I, Wikipedia — Clarence A. Martin, Wikipedia — Battle of Driniumor River)

Identities

Source Type	Identity
Wikipedia	https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/128th_Infantry_Regiment_(United_States) (verified this session)
Wikidata	https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q4548603 — label “128th Infantry Regiment,” description “military unit,” instance of military unit, country United States, sitelinked to the English article (verified this session)
DBpedia	128th_Infantry_Regiment_(United_States) — resource verified on the data endpoint this session
ProductOntology	N/A
Wiktionary	regiment — noun, military sense: “A unit of armed troops under the command of an officer, and consisting of several smaller units” (headword verified this session)
Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH)	N/A — id.loc.gov suggest query returns no heading for “128th Infantry” (query verified this session)
MeSH	N/A
NCBI Taxonomy	N/A
AGROVOC	N/A
Google Scholar	128th Infantry Regiment Les Terribles Wisconsin National Guard 2nd Wisconsin Iron Brigade 32nd Division Red Arrow Buna Warren Force Martin Driniumor Endl Leyte Yamashita line Villa Verde Trail Salacsac Pass Luzon Berlin Crisis 105th Cavalry
ConceptNet	N/A — ConceptNet API unreachable this session (HTTP 502)
OpenCyc	N/A

Also Known As

Les Terribles — the official special designation, shared with the division’s French-bestowed name
The Terrible Ones — the motto’s English rendering on the regimental scroll
128th Infantry — the shorthand styling of the official histories
128th Infantry Regiment (United States) — the disambiguated Wikipedia title, shortened here to keep the site slug stable

Examples and Analogies

An Iron Brigade heir in a Pacific war: the regiment’s 1st Battalion counts the 2nd Wisconsin of Antietam and Gettysburg in its lineage and the 8th Wisconsin’s eagle mascot in its collateral line — Civil War pedigrees carried into the jungles of New Guinea and Luzon. (Wikipedia — 128th Infantry Regiment)
The first to fly to war: portions of the 128th were the first U.S. Army forces airlifted into combat — Australia to Port Moresby, September 1942 — a first the division’s record keeps beside the first ground assault against the Japanese, opened by its regiments at Buna on November 16, 1942. (Wikipedia — 32nd Infantry Division)
The frontal regiment of the passes: on the Villa Verde Trail the work was divided — the 127th opened the drive, the 126th delivered the Miliwit Valley envelopment, and the 128th took the frontal battle at the Salacsac passes, clearing the trapezium of Hills 515, 516, 526, and 508 that fixed Pass No. 1. (CMH — The Bambang Front I)
Verified record data:
Lineage: 1st Battalion to the 2nd Wisconsin Infantry (spring 1861, Iron Brigade); Company C of the 8th Wisconsin (“Eagle Regiment,” Old Abe) from Eau Claire; Mexican border duty, 1916 (Wikipedia — 128th Infantry Regiment)
World War I: redesignated 128th Infantry for the 32nd Division, 1917; campaigns of Alsace, Aisne-Marne, Oise-Aisne, Meuse-Argonne; Hindenburg Line pierced October 14, 1918; home via USS George Washington, May 1919 (Wikipedia — 128th Infantry Regiment, Wikipedia — 32nd Infantry Division)
Between the wars: reconstituted and allotted to Wisconsin, federally recognized April 16, 1921 at West Salem, later headquartered at Superior, Milwaukee, Menomonie, Sparta, and Oshkosh; Shawano “Milk Strike” duty 1933 and Kohler strike duty 1934 (Wikipedia — 128th Infantry Regiment)
World War II: inducted October 15, 1940; Port Adelaide, Australia, May 1942; Port Moresby and Wanigela for the November 16, 1942 assault at Buna; Camp Cable rebuild under Gill from 1943; Aitape and the Driniumor, July 1944; Leyte from November 14, 1944; Lingayen Gulf, January 27, 1945; still in combat at the August 15, 1945 cease-fire (Wikipedia — 128th Infantry Regiment, Wikipedia — 32nd Infantry Division)
Postwar: Berlin Crisis federal service at Fort Lewis, October 1961–August 1962; a 2nd Battalion formed in 2001 became the 1st Squadron, 105th Cavalry, September 1, 2007; the 1st Battalion carries the lineage in the Wisconsin Army National Guard, with Iraq and Afghanistan service in the record (Wikipedia — 128th Infantry Regiment)

Usage Scenarios

1. Working the Villa Verde Trail Order of Battle

Researchers of the 1945 Luzon mountain campaign use the 128th to fix the trail’s frontal axis: the regiment began in the division’s rear on the Caraballo spur, joined the 127th’s drive from March 15, relieved the 127th at Salacsac Pass No. 2 on March 23–25, carried Gill’s renewed May 8 attack east through Pass No. 1 with its 2nd Battalion at Hill 527, and on May 24 cleared the hill trapezium and reported the pass secured. (CMH — The Bambang Front I)

2. Studying the Buna Command Shake-Up

Historians of the Army’s first ground offensive cite the regiment as the case study of Eichelberger’s December 3, 1942 remedy — the relief of the 32nd’s commanding general and all three regimental commanders — after which I Corps G-3 Clarence A. Martin took the 128th and Warren Force and wore the Distinguished Service Cross out of the fighting. (Wikipedia — Clarence A. Martin)

3. Philippine Liberation Commemoration

The Filipino commemorative record keeps the regiment’s division: a memorial at San Nicolas, Pangasinan honors the 32nd’s Villa Verde Trail dead, a Red Arrow high school in San Nicolas carries the division name, and the division holds the Philippine Presidential Unit Citation for the Leyte and Luzon fighting of October 17, 1944 to July 4, 1945. (Wikipedia — 32nd Infantry Division)

Strategies

Secure the rear before joining the front: the February 1945 plan kept the 128th protecting the division’s rear on the Caraballo spur while the 127th opened the trail — the reserve posture that let the regiment enter the line fresh for the decisive phase. (CMH — The Bambang Front I)
Relieve in sequence to outlast attrition: the trail’s rhythm was rotation — the 127th bled at Pass No. 2 until the 128th relieved it on March 23–25, and the renewed May 8 attack sent the rested 128th through the pass while the 127th took over the 126th’s ground. (CMH — The Bambang Front I)
Attack frontally where the flank has failed: the March outflanking attempts were “stopped cold,” so the plan called for the 128th to attack east with two battalions abreast — the honest geometry of a trail bounded by ridges. (CMH — The Bambang Front I)
Rebuild after disaster: the division that broke at Buna — 2,520 battle casualties and 7,125 sick of 9,825 engaged — was rebuilt in Australia under Gill from March 1943, the repair that made the later campaigns possible. (Wikipedia — 32nd Infantry Division)

Security and Safety Measures

The attrition ledger, not the battle ledger: on Luzon the division counted 825 killed and 2,160 wounded against about 6,000 nonbattle evacuations, and at Buna the sick outnumbered the battle casualties nearly three to one — the record that made rotation, relief, and rebuild standing doctrine. (Wikipedia — 32nd Infantry Division, CMH — The Bambang Front I)
Preparedness gaps kill: the division reached Buna with under two months of jungle training and without tanks or adequate artillery — the case every account of the campaign uses for matching troops, terrain, and fire support. (Wikipedia — 32nd Infantry Division)
For researchers: keep the passes straight — Salacsac on the trail was the 32nd’s fight, Balete on Route 5 the 25th’s — prefer the official history, which cites the regiment’s own Luzon report, over derivative web lists, and carry the division’s casualty and award totals as divisional, not regimental. (CMH — The Bambang Front I, Wikipedia — 32nd Infantry Division)

Historical Context

The regiment’s number dates to 1917, its lineage to the Civil War. Wisconsin guardsmen mustered in 1861 as the 2nd Wisconsin — the Iron Brigade of Antietam and Gettysburg — and their successors were redesignated the 128th Infantry for the 32nd Division at Camp MacArthur in 1917. In France the division earned “Les Terribles” and the Red Arrow patch by piercing every line it faced, the Hindenburg Line included; the regiment came home in May 1919, was reconstituted in the Wisconsin Guard in 1921, and served the state through the Depression-era strikes at Shawano and Kohler. (Wikipedia — 128th Infantry Regiment, Wikipedia — 32nd Infantry Division)

Inducted again on October 15, 1940, the regiment crossed to Adelaide in 1942 and into the Army’s first ground offensive that November, the Buna fighting that cost its division two commanders in a week and produced Martin’s December 3 command. Rebuilt under Gill, it climbed the New Guinea ladder — Aitape and the Driniumor in 1944, where Endl won its Medal of Honor — and entered the Philippines with the Leyte deployment of November 14, 1944, fighting past Limon through the Yamashita line to the December 22 link-up at Lonoy. On Luzon from January 27, 1945, it took the trail: rear-guard patrolling, the March relief of the 127th, the May 8 renewal, and the May 24 clearance of Salacsac Pass No. 1 as the 126th’s envelopment and the 25th Division’s Route 5 breakthrough converged. The division was still in combat when Japan surrendered — 654 days, 7,268 battle casualties, eleven Medals of Honor — and closed the war with occupation duty at Sasebo and inactivation on February 28, 1946. (Wikipedia — 32nd Infantry Division, Wikipedia — Battle of Driniumor River, CMH — The Bambang Front I)

The postwar regiment stayed Wisconsin’s. It served the Berlin Crisis call-up of 1961–62 at Fort Lewis — where the division commander, Major General Herbert A. Smith, had commanded the regiment’s 2nd Battalion at the 1940 induction — passed with the 32nd into the all-Wisconsin 1967 reorganization, and continues today in the 1st Battalion, 128th Infantry, its 2nd Battalion of 2001 having become the 1st Squadron, 105th Cavalry in 2007. (Wikipedia — 32nd Infantry Division, Wikipedia — 128th Infantry Regiment)

Challenges and Controversies

Wisconsin, Not Michigan

Casual summaries misattribute the 128th to the Michigan National Guard, since the 32nd drew on both states — Wisconsin about 15,000 men and Michigan about 8,000 in 1917. The record is unambiguous: the regiment was allotted to Wisconsin in 1921, headquartered across five Wisconsin towns, and crested with the Wisconsin badger, its three fountains standing for the First, Second, and Third Wisconsin regiments of World War I. The Michigan component of the 32nd belongs to the 126th Infantry. (Wikipedia — 128th Infantry Regiment, Wikipedia — 32nd Infantry Division)

The Buna Command Upheaval

On December 3, 1942 Eichelberger relieved the 32nd’s commanding general and all three regimental commanders — the shake-up that made Martin the 128th’s colonel — and the division’s Buna cost, 586 killed of 2,520 battle casualties plus 7,125 sick among 9,825 engaged, still anchors the debate over whether the price reflected MacArthur’s pressure, intelligence failure, or command failure. (Wikipedia — Clarence A. Martin, Wikipedia — 32nd Infantry Division)

The “Imperial First Marines” Claim

The standard account of the regiment carries a veterans’-association flourish — that the 128th “defeated the Japanese Imperial First Marines in Leyte,” the unit’s “only loss in 200 years.” The claim appears in no verified order of battle this entry could check, so the sober divisional account of the Pinamopoan–Ormoc road is carried instead. (Wikipedia — 128th Infantry Regiment, Wikipedia — 32nd Infantry Division)

The Cost of the Frontal Assignment

The trail’s frontal role fell to the 128th at the passes, inside a campaign its commander judged harshly — Gill’s verdict that “the 32nd had gained too little for what it had lost” — and the division’s Luzon ledger of roughly 6,000 nonbattle evacuations against 825 killed keeps the argument over the trail’s necessity alive. (CMH — The Bambang Front I, Wikipedia — 32nd Infantry Division)

Tag: 128th-infantry

128th Infantry Regiment