24th Infantry Division (United States)

Also known as: 24th Infantry Division — the short standard styling · 24th Division — the campaign-history shorthand · Taro Division — the nickname of its Hawaiian origin · Victory Division — the special designation · "First to Fight" — the division motto, earned in Korea · Hawaiian Division — the styling of the 1921–1941 ancestor formation

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Definition

The 24th Infantry Division is a formation of the United States Army — the “Taro” or “Victory” Division, motto “First to Fight” — whose headquarters descends from the Hawaiian Division activated at Schofield Barracks, Oahu, on March 1, 1921, and which was constituted when that division’s headquarters was redesignated Headquarters, 24th Infantry Division, on October 1, 1941. (Wikipedia — 24th Infantry Division) The division was at Schofield Barracks when Japan attacked on December 7, 1941 — suffering casualties in the attack, its first World War II death being Corporal Theodore J. Lewis — and then defended Oahu through 1942; it did not serve in the Philippines during the 1941–1942 campaign, its Philippine war beginning only with the liberation. (Wikipedia — 24th Infantry Division)

The division earned its Philippine record as a combat arm of the liberation: it assaulted Leyte on October 20, 1944 with X Corps, took Breakneck Ridge that November, and fought on Luzon at Zig Zag Pass and Corregidor in early 1945 before its defining campaign in Mindanao from April 17, 1945 — landing on Illana Bay, seizing the Kabacan junction the U.S. official history called “strategically, if not tactically, decisive,” entering Davao City on May 3, 1945, and grinding through the abaca country to the June 10 collapse of the Japanese 100th Division, at the cost of roughly 350 killed and 1,615 wounded in the Davao fighting. (Wikipedia — 24th Infantry Division, CMH — Triumph in the Philippines) It left Mindanao on October 15, 1945 for occupation duty in Kyushu, fought as the first American division in Korea in 1950, served again in the Gulf War, and was finally inactivated on August 1, 2006. (Wikipedia — 24th Infantry Division) Military-history register: inactive, holding a third-priority claim on any future reactivation.

Identities

Source Type	Identity
Wikipedia	24th Infantry Division (United States)
Wikidata	24th Infantry Division (Q216951) — “1941-1996 combat formation of the United States Army” (verified this session)
DBpedia	N/A — dbpedia.org data endpoint unreachable this session (ETIMEDOUT)
ProductOntology	N/A
Wiktionary	infantry — noun, “Soldiers who fight on foot (on land), as opposed to cavalry and other mounted units”; the branch of an army made up of such soldiers (the division’s arm; headword verified this session) (Wiktionary — infantry)
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	24th Infantry Division United States Army Taro Division Victory Division Hawaiian Division Schofield Barracks 1941 Leyte Breakneck Ridge Mindanao 1945 Davao Illana Bay Kabacan abaca Task Force Smith Kyushu occupation
ConceptNet	N/A — ConceptNet API unreachable this session (HTTP 502)
OpenCyc	N/A

Also Known As

24th Infantry Division — the short standard styling
24th Division — the campaign-history shorthand
Taro Division — the nickname of its Hawaiian origin
Victory Division — the special designation
“First to Fight” — the division motto, earned in Korea
Hawaiian Division — the styling of the 1921–1941 ancestor formation

Examples and Analogies

A division born six weeks before the war: the 24th was constituted by renaming the Hawaiian Division’s headquarters on October 1, 1941 — so the new division met Pearl Harbor before it met a campaign. (Wikipedia — 24th Infantry Division)
The anvil that took Davao from the wrong direction: in April 1945 the division landed on Illana Bay in the undefended west of Mindanao and drove across the island, reaching Digos on April 27 and entering Davao on May 3 — striking from the landward side a Japanese defense arrayed against the sea. (CMH — Triumph in the Philippines, Wikipedia — Battle of Mindanao)
Hell in the abaca: the post-Davao fighting ran through hemp plantations where plants twenty feet tall stood scarcely a foot apart, visibility was “virtually nil,” and the heat was “like that of an oven” — close-quarters combat in a fibrous forest, judged the hardest of the division’s Pacific campaigns by its chroniclers. (CMH — Triumph in the Philippines, Wikipedia — Battle of Davao)
Verified divisional data:
Constitution and Pearl Harbor: Hawaiian Division (activated March 1, 1921, Schofield Barracks) HQ redesignated HQ, 24th Infantry Division, October 1, 1941; on Oahu December 7, 1941, first WWII death Cpl. Theodore J. Lewis (Wikipedia — 24th Infantry Division)
Pacific war, 1944–1945: Hollandia April 22, 1944 and Biak (34th Infantry); Leyte October 20, 1944; Breakneck Ridge November 12, 1944; Mindoro December 15, 1944; San Antonio, Zambales January 29, 1945; Corregidor February 16, 1945 (Wikipedia — 24th Infantry Division)
Mindanao 1945: Illana Bay April 17; Kabacan April 22; Digos April 27; Davao City May 3; Wangan–Mandog line overrun by June 10; commander Maj. Gen. Roscoe B. Woodruff (CMH — Triumph in the Philippines)
Casualties: about 350 killed and 1,615 wounded against the 100th Division’s organized defenses, of 540 killed and 1,885 wounded through August 15, 1945; about 6,585 Japanese killed credited through June 30; World War II totals 7,012 battle casualties, 1,374 killed (CMH — Triumph in the Philippines, Wikipedia — 24th Infantry Division)
Occupation and after: left Mindanao October 15, 1945; Kyushu 1945–1950; Korea 1950–1952 (Task Force Smith defeated at Osan July 5, 1950); Germany 1958–1970; Fort Stewart 1975–1996 with Gulf War service; final inactivation August 1, 2006 (Wikipedia — 24th Infantry Division)

Usage Scenarios

1. Studying the Liberation of Mindanao

The division is the through-line of the April–June 1945 campaign this wiki’s Battle of Mindanao and Battle of Davao entries carry: from the guerrilla-cleared landings of April 17, through the Kabacan stroke that split the Japanese 30th and 100th Divisions, to the reduction of the 100th by June 10 — with the Sayre Highway drive northward assigned to the 31st Division rather than the 24th. (CMH — Triumph in the Philippines, Wikipedia — Battle of Mindanao)

2. Researching the Eighth Army’s Campaign Method

Historians of Lt. Gen. Robert L. Eichelberger’s Eighth Army use the 24th’s maneuver as the type of the 1945 method: land where the enemy is not, on beaches the guerrillas have cleared, and take the prepared defenses from behind — the cross-island sprint to Digos and Davao its decisive execution. (CMH — Triumph in the Philippines, Wikipedia — Battle of Mindanao)

3. Analyzing “First to Fight”

Students of readiness use Task Force Smith — the 1st Battalion, 21st Infantry, sent from Japan on June 30, 1950 and defeated at Osan on July 5 — as the canonical case of an understrength occupation division meeting a first-rate armored opponent, with Maj. Gen. William F. Dean captured at Taejon in the same campaign. (Wikipedia — 24th Infantry Division)

Strategies

Split the defenders at the junction: the 34th Infantry’s seizure of the Kabacan junction on April 22, 1945 — where Route 1 met the Sayre Highway — severed the two Japanese divisions from each other, the stroke the official history called “strategically, if not tactically, decisive in the eastern Mindanao campaign.” (CMH — Triumph in the Philippines)
Arrive where the enemy is not: the Illana Bay landing profited from Col. Wendell Fertig’s guerrillas, who had cleared Malabang so that only one battalion landed there while the 19th Infantry walked ashore at Parang at 0900 against no opposition — economy of force earned by allied preparation. (CMH — Triumph in the Philippines)
Reduce prepared positions by set-piece: after Davao’s easy entry, the division fought the 100th Division’s center and flanks in sequence — the Talomo line, the Tugbok break of May 20, the Wangan–Mandog line of June 10 — set-piece infantry battle through the abaca rather than maneuver. (CMH — Triumph in the Philippines, Wikipedia — Battle of Davao)
Rotate to occupation with the mission done: ordered out of Mindanao on October 15, 1945, the division carried its combat currency into the occupation of Kyushu — veteran divisions as stabilizing garrisons. (Wikipedia — 24th Infantry Division)

Security and Safety Measures

Coastal defense as the first mission: from December 1941 through 1942 the division built and manned Oahu’s coastal defenses — the ground-security posture of a fleet’s base, learned at the cost of the December 7 casualties. (Wikipedia — 24th Infantry Division)
Visibility warfare in the hemp: in the abaca plantations near-zero visibility turned every advance into a security problem of scouts drawing fire at three-to-five-yard ranges — solved by bunker-by-bunker clearing, at the cost the casualty lists record. (Wikipedia — Battle of Davao)
Occupation duty under strength: the Kyushu assignment kept only four understrength divisions in Japan — the security calculation whose thinness Task Force Smith exposed in July 1950. (Wikipedia — 24th Infantry Division)
For researchers: the division’s Mindanao record is documented in the U.S. Army official history, which this wiki’s Battle of Mindanao and Battle of Davao entries carry in full — keep the Davao-sector count (about 350 killed, 1,615 wounded) distinct from the Mindanao-wide count (540 killed, 1,885 wounded through August 15) and the World War II total (7,012 battle casualties from Leyte onward). (CMH — Triumph in the Philippines, Wikipedia — 24th Infantry Division)

Historical Context

The division’s twenty-five years before the Pacific war were Oahu’s: the Hawaiian Division of 1921 was the army’s standing defense of the fleet’s base, and when the army doubled its divisions in 1941, its headquarters became the 24th Infantry Division’s — six weeks before the attack that brought the war. (Wikipedia — 24th Infantry Division) The division then fought the Pacific war’s whole latter half: Hollandia and Biak in 1944, the X Corps assault at Leyte and Breakneck Ridge, Mindoro, Zambales and Corregidor in early 1945. (Wikipedia — 24th Infantry Division)

Its Philippine climax was Mindanao. Staging from Mindoro, the division landed on Illana Bay on April 17, 1945 — Maj. Gen. Roscoe B. Woodruff commanding within Maj. Gen. Franklin C. Sibert’s X Corps of Eichelberger’s Eighth Army — took Fort Pikit, reached the Kabacan junction by noon of April 22, split the Japanese 30th and 100th Divisions, and sprinted southwest: Digos’s outskirts on April 27, then the 19th Infantry’s drive north that put the division into Davao City on May 3 against negligible opposition, the city already “bombed into a shambles.” (CMH — Triumph in the Philippines) The 100th Division stood in the abaca west of the Davao River, and the division spent six weeks breaking it — Tugbok in late May, the Wangan-to-Mandog line overrun by dark on June 10, organized resistance ended by June 30. (CMH — Triumph in the Philippines, Wikipedia — Battle of Davao) The division sailed for Kyushu on October 15, 1945; its later history ran through Korea — where Task Force Smith’s defeat at Osan on July 5, 1950 made it the war’s first American division — Germany, the Gulf War, and the inactivations of 1970, 1996, and finally August 1, 2006. (Wikipedia — 24th Infantry Division)

Challenges and Controversies

The Bataan Misattribution

A standing confusion assigns the division to the 1941–1942 Philippine campaign and Bataan; the record is otherwise — the division spent December 1941 defending Oahu and reached the Philippines only with the liberation of 1944–1945, its Philippine dead lying at Leyte, Luzon, and Mindanao. (Wikipedia — 24th Infantry Division)

Osan and the Readiness Question

Task Force Smith’s destruction in July 1950 — an understrength battalion with obsolete equipment meeting North Korean armor — remains the American case study of occupation-hollowed readiness; the “First to Fight” motto carries the irony that its first fight was a defeat bought by that hollowness. (Wikipedia — 24th Infantry Division)

Which Casualty Count Is the Division’s

The division’s cost is cited at three scales — roughly 350 killed and 1,615 wounded against the 100th Division’s prepared defenses; 540 killed and 1,885 wounded through August 15, 1945; and 7,012 battle casualties across the whole war — and commemorative accounts routinely merge them. (CMH — Triumph in the Philippines, Wikipedia — 24th Infantry Division)

The Highway That Was Not Its Fight

Popular accounts credit the 24th with the Sayre Highway drive; that drive belonged to the 31st Division’s 124th Infantry and the 40th Division’s 108th, which met at Impalutao on May 23 — the 24th’s own Mindanao battle was Davao’s. (Wikipedia — Battle of Mindanao)