34th-infantry – Wiki Philippines

Definition

The 34th Infantry Regiment is a regiment of the United States Army, “organized at El Paso, Texas on 15 July 1916, four months into the Punitive Expedition into Mexico,” that fought its whole Second World War in the Pacific — from the defense of Oahu after Pearl Harbor through New Guinea, Biak, and Leyte with the 24th Infantry Division (its assignment since June 12, 1943) — and earned its costliest Philippine chapter at ZigZag Pass in February 1945, where as the 34th Regimental Combat Team of Major General Charles P. Hall’s XI Corps it was thrown into the horseshoe of Route 7, broke in three days, and was pulled out “no longer… an effective combat unit.” (Wikipedia — 34th Infantry Regiment, CMH — Back to Bataan) That Bataan record — the fight this wiki’s ZigZag Pass entry carries — opened the 1945 recapture of the peninsula; the later ledger runs through Corregidor, the Southern Philippines, the occupation of Kyushu, and the first weeks of the Korean War. (Wikipedia — 34th Infantry Regiment)

The regiment’s self-description survives in its motto and designation: “Toujours en Avant” (Always Forward) and the special designation “Leyte Dragons” — the island that cost it three posthumous Medals of Honor; today its 1st and 3rd Battalions are basic-training formations at Fort Jackson. (Wikipedia — 34th Infantry Regiment)

Identities

Source Type	Identity
Wikipedia	34th Infantry Regiment (United States) (article verified this session)
Wikidata	34th Infantry Regiment (Q4635417) — instance of: regiment; country: United States; inception 1916; sitelink to the English article (verified this session) (Wikidata — Q4635417)
DBpedia	N/A — dbpedia.org endpoint unreachable this session (ETIMEDOUT)
ProductOntology	N/A
Wiktionary	regiment — noun, military: “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 unreachable this session (HTTP 403)
MeSH	N/A
NCBI Taxonomy	N/A
AGROVOC	N/A
Google Scholar	34th Infantry Regiment United States Army El Paso 1916 Punitive Expedition Hawaiian Department 24th Infantry Division 1943 Tanahmerah Bay Biak Leyte 1944 ZigZag Pass February 1945 XI Corps 38th Division Jenna Corregidor February 16 1945 Kyushu occupation Korea 1950 Shadrick Leyte Dragons Toujours en Avant
ConceptNet	N/A
OpenCyc	N/A

Also Known As

34th Infantry — the press and unit-history short form
34th RCT — the regimental combat team styling of the XI Corps records, 1945
Leyte Dragons — the official special designation

Examples and Analogies

A regiment that fought its war in overlays: the 34th’s line runs border patrol to basic training by way of New Guinea, Leyte, Luzon, Southern Philippines, and Korea — the same colors under four flags of organization. (Wikipedia — 34th Infantry Regiment)
Seventy-eight days against three: at Leyte the regiment sustained a full campaign; at ZigZag Pass “in its three days at the ZigZag the regiment had lost nearly half as many men as it had during 78 days of combat on Leyte” — the arithmetic of a defile. (CMH — Back to Bataan)
A colonel’s dissent in the clear: Colonel William W. Jenna’s radio of February 5, 1945 — “I am convinced that the entire Japanese position opposing XI Corps cannot be cracked unless there is a withdrawal to a point where entire Corps Artillery and all available air work it over… for at least 48 hours. My 1st and 2nd [Battalions] have suffered terrific casualties” — the documented counter-proposal to the speed the corps demanded. (CMH — Back to Bataan)
Verified service record:
Origin: organized El Paso, Texas, July 15, 1916; cadre from the 7th, 20th, and 23rd Infantry; Mexican border service; World War I with the 7th Division (Lorraine credit) (Wikipedia — 34th Infantry Regiment)
Interwar assignments: 8th Division (1919), to the 4th Division August 15, 1927, back to the 8th October 1, 1933; to the Hawaiian Department December 1941; to the 24th Infantry Division June 12, 1943 (Wikipedia — 34th Infantry Regiment)
Pacific theater: Tanahmerah Bay landing April 22, 1944; attached to the 41st Division on Biak; Leyte landing October 20, 1944 — Colonel Aubrey Newman’s “Get up and get moving! Follow me!” (Wikipedia — 34th Infantry Regiment)
ZigZag Pass: landed at San Antonio, Zambales January 29, 1945 with XI Corps — “the 24th Division’s 34th RCT” beside the 38th Division; took Olongapo after a sharp skirmish; inserted through the 152d Infantry February 3; attached to the 38th Division late February 4; broken and replaced by February 5–6 (CMH — Back to Bataan)
Ledger at the ZigZag: 325 battle casualties and 25 psychoneurosis cases January 29–February 5, nearly all February 3–5 — “roughly 70 men killed and 200 wounded”; through February 15 the 38th Division and attached units including the 34th killed nearly 2,400 Japanese at a cost of about 1,400 American casualties (CMH — Back to Bataan)
Corregidor onward: the 3rd Battalion under Colonel Aubrey S. “Red” Newman amphibiously assaulted Corregidor February 16, 1945; Southern Philippines followed; three posthumous Medals of Honor — Francis B. Wai, Harold H. Moon Jr., Charles E. Mower, all on Leyte (Wikipedia — 34th Infantry Regiment)
After the war: occupation of Kyushu; Korea — the first full U.S. regiment deployed, Private Kenneth Shadrick killed three miles south of Osan on July 5, 1950; three Korean campaign credits; today the battalions train recruits at Fort Jackson (Wikipedia — 34th Infantry Regiment)

Usage Scenarios

1. Studying the Battle of Bataan (1945)

The regiment is the inserted blade of the ZigZag fight this wiki’s ZigZag Pass entry documents: XI Corps’ plan to pass it through the stalled 152d Infantry, its three days in the horseshoe, and its replacement by the 151st — the episode that converted the corps’ impatience into the division command crisis. (CMH — Back to Bataan)

2. Working the XI Corps Order of Battle

At Luzon the 34th RCT is the corps’ fourth regiment — the non-divisional combat team that let Hall maneuver inside a two-division corps; keeping its attachment dates straight (corps control February 2–4, attachment to the 38th Division late February 4) is the entry ticket to the campaign’s command story. (CMH — Back to Bataan)

3. Tracing the Corregidor Assault

Weeks after leaving the ZigZag as a broken unit, the regiment’s 3rd Battalion was assaulting Corregidor from the sea — the turnaround that marks its reconstitution and the bay-opening sequence after Bataan. (Wikipedia — 34th Infantry Regiment)

Strategies

Escalate by insertion: Hall’s February 2 order — the 34th to pass through the 152d “and continue the attack eastward” under direct corps control — was the corps’ standard instrument for a stalled attack; at the ZigZag it failed against a position three battalions had already failed to crack. (CMH — Back to Bataan)
Withdraw to preserve: Jenna’s February 5 recommendation — pull back and let corps artillery and air work the position for 48 hours — was refused in the moment but vindicated in method: the pass fell only after napalm-equipped P-47s and massed artillery joined from February 6. (CMH — Back to Bataan)
Rest, reconstitute, recommit: pulled from the line February 5–6, the regiment was back in the war within days at Corregidor — the Army’s rotation logic in miniature, and the precondition for the Kyushu occupation role. (CMH — Back to Bataan, Wikipedia — 34th Infantry Regiment)
Fight always forward: the motto names an institutional habit — from Newman’s “Follow me!” on Leyte to the first-regiment deployment of 1950 — that the ZigZag check tests but does not disprove. (Wikipedia — 34th Infantry Regiment)

Security and Safety Measures

The piecemeal-commitment lesson: one battalion into the horseshoe on February 3 (“a job that three battalions of the 152d had been unable to accomplish”), strength committed a battalion at a time against fire from dominating ground — the tactical lesson the official history draws from the 325-casualty week. (CMH — Back to Bataan)
Key-personnel loss as a unit-killer: the casualties “included the regimental executive officer, 1 battalion commander, 4 company commanders, and 3 first sergeants” — the arithmetic behind the judgment that the 34th was no longer effective. (CMH — Back to Bataan)
Combat fatigue on the record: 25 psychoneurosis cases in one week beside the 325 battle casualties — the psychiatric ledger the official history preserved a generation before the vocabulary changed. (CMH — Back to Bataan)
For researchers: the regiment’s standard article does not carry the ZigZag fighting at all — the Bataan record lives in the official history — and casualty figures divide by scope (the 34th’s ~70 killed and 200 wounded against the corps-wide ~1,400 through February 15); cite each figure to its ledger. (Wikipedia — 34th Infantry Regiment, CMH — Back to Bataan)

Historical Context

The regiment was born on the Mexican border — El Paso, July 1916, cadre from three older regiments — and crossed to France with the 7th Division in 1918 for the Lorraine credit. Between the wars it shuttled between the 8th and 4th Divisions until the Hawaiian assignment fixed its interwar home; after Pearl Harbor it defended Oahu, and on June 12, 1943 it joined the 24th Infantry Division, the frame for the rest of its war. (Wikipedia — 34th Infantry Regiment)

The Pacific campaigns took it from Tanahmerah Bay (April 1944) through Biak to the Leyte landing of October 20, 1944, where Newman’s “Follow me!” entered the record and Wai, Moon, and Mower won the Medals of Honor. On January 29, 1945 it landed at San Antonio, Zambales as the 34th RCT of XI Corps, took Olongapo after a sharp skirmish, and on February 3 entered the ZigZag horseshoe. Three days later it was broken: 325 battle casualties, the battalions back behind their line of departure, Jenna’s unanswered radio, and Hall’s evening order replacing it with the 151st Infantry. (Wikipedia — 34th Infantry Regiment, CMH — Back to Bataan)

The regiment’s war ran on regardless: the 3rd Battalion’s amphibious assault on Corregidor on February 16, the Southern Philippines campaign, then Kyushu occupation duty and Korea, where it deployed as the first full American regiment and lost Private Kenneth Shadrick south of Osan on July 5, 1950. Its battle honors closed with Pacific and Korean campaign credits; its battalions still train recruits at Fort Jackson. (Wikipedia — 34th Infantry Regiment)

Challenges and Controversies

A Regiment Missing from Its Own Bataan Record

The regiment’s standard article carries New Guinea, Leyte, Corregidor, and Korea — but not ZigZag Pass, where it suffered its worst week of the war; the official history is the only carrier of the Bataan chapter and its command politics. The records do not conflict; they simply do not overlap. (Wikipedia — 34th Infantry Regiment, CMH — Back to Bataan)

Whose Failure Was the Horseshoe?

The official history’s footnotes preserve the argument: General Jones’s later view that Hall inserted the 34th under corps control expecting it to break through “in a day or two” and give cause to relieve Jones — then attached it to Jones’s division so the 34th’s failure could be blamed on him. The judgment the history records is harsher for the corps: the 34th “had employed insufficient strength” against a main line of resistance the 38th Division had correctly identified. (CMH — Back to Bataan)

“Attached,” Not “Of” the 38th

Popular summaries list the 34th among the 38th Division’s regiments. At the ZigZag it was a separate RCT — first under direct XI Corps control (February 2–4), then attached to the 38th Division (from late February 4) — and the Avengers of Bataan name belongs to the 38th, not the 34th. (CMH — Back to Bataan)

The First-to-Die Question

Shadrick, killed July 5, 1950, was long styled the war’s first American combat death, a claim later accounts have doubted; the regiment’s article carries both the death and the doubt, and so should any citation. (Wikipedia — 34th Infantry Regiment)

Tag: 34th-infantry

34th Infantry Regiment