31st Infantry Division (United States)

Also known as: Dixie Division — the nickname of its Southern National Guard composition · 31st Division — the campaign-history shorthand · "It shall be done" — the division motto · Dragon Brigade — the styling of the 31st Chemical Brigade, the division's present-day descendant unit

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Definition

The 31st Infantry Division is a formation of the United States Army — the “Dixie Division,” motto “It shall be done” — whose lineage runs through the National Guard troops of the American South: organized from Alabama, Florida, and Georgia guardsmen at Camp Wheeler, Georgia, on July 18, 1917, demobilized after World War I, and reactivated on July 1, 1923 from guardsmen of Alabama, Florida, Louisiana, and Mississippi. (Wikipedia — 31st Infantry Division) Federalized on November 25, 1940 and assembled at Camp Blanding, Florida, the division spent the opening of World War II in stateside training — the Louisiana and Carolina maneuvers of 1941 — and did not serve in the Philippines during the 1941–1942 campaign; it is routinely confused on that point with the separate 31st Infantry Regiment, the “Polar Bear” regiment that fought on Bataan. (Wikipedia — 31st Infantry Division, Wikipedia — 31st Infantry Regiment)

The division earned its Philippine record in the liberation. Under Maj. Gen. Clarence A. Martin it landed on Mindanao on April 22, 1945 — over beaches the 24th Division had secured five days earlier — as the second division of Maj. Gen. Franklin C. Sibert’s X Corps in Lt. Gen. Robert L. Eichelberger’s Eighth Army, and took the campaign’s northern axis: the 124th Infantry’s drive up the Sayre Highway from Kabacan to Kibawe (May 3), through the Maramag delaying action (May 6–12), to Malaybalay (May 21) and the junction with the 108th Infantry at Impalutao (May 23), while the 167th Infantry probed the Kibawe–Talomo trail toward Davao’s rear. (CMH — Triumph in the Philippines, Wikipedia — Battle of Mindanao) After the surrender it took part in the surrender of the Japanese forces remaining on Mindanao, returned to the United States on December 12, 1945, and was inactivated at Camp Stoneman, California, on December 21, 1945 — its later history running through National Guard reactivation, the 1951 Korean War mobilization, and the 1968 conversion into the brigade lineage that ends today in the 31st Chemical Brigade. (Wikipedia — 31st Infantry Division) Military-history register: the World War II division is inactive; its commemorative weight in the Philippines rests on the Sayre Highway record this wiki’s Battle of Mindanao entry carries.

Identities

Source Type	Identity
Wikipedia	31st Infantry Division (United States)
Wikidata	31st Infantry Division (Q4634840) — “1917-1968 United States Army formation” (verified this session)
DBpedia	31st_Infantry_Division_(United_States) — dbo:MilitaryUnit; labels include “31e division d’infanterie (États-Unis)”; nicknames “Dixie Division” and “Dragon Brigade,” motto “It shall be done” (verified this session)
ProductOntology	N/A
Wiktionary	infantry — noun, “Soldiers who fight on foot (on land), as opposed to cavalry and other mounted units”; 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	31st Infantry Division United States Dixie Division National Guard Camp Blanding Morotai Aitape Mindanao 1945 Sayre Highway 124th Infantry Kibawe Maramag Malaybalay Impalutao Clarence A. Martin Harry R. Harr
ConceptNet	N/A — ConceptNet API unreachable this session (HTTP 502)
OpenCyc	N/A

Also Known As

Dixie Division — the nickname of its Southern National Guard composition
31st Division — the campaign-history shorthand
“It shall be done” — the division motto
Dragon Brigade — the styling of the 31st Chemical Brigade, the division’s present-day descendant unit

Examples and Analogies

A Southern guard division that reached the Pacific the long way: federalized in November 1940, the 31st trained through the 1941 maneuvers, was stripped again and again for cadres — strength fell from 15,200 in June 1942 to 7,200 by August — and only left Hampton Roads on March 13, 1944, reaching Oro Bay, New Guinea, on April 24, 1944; its first Philippine soil was liberated soil, four years after the fall. (Wikipedia — 31st Infantry Division)
The second wave through the door the 24th opened: X Corps put the 24th Division ashore on Illana Bay on April 17, 1945; the 31st “would go ashore on 22 April over beaches the 24th Division had secured,” mounting from Morotai and Sansapor — the division’s Mindanao war began at a run, on a beach already won. (CMH — Triumph in the Philippines)
The highway division: while the 24th Division fought the 100th Division at Davao, the 31st took the island’s road spine — its 124th Infantry, 155th Infantry, and 167th Infantry each in turn driving, relieving, and probing north and east — the record this wiki’s Battle of Mindanao and Battle of Davao entries divide between the two divisions. (CMH — Triumph in the Philippines)
Verified divisional data:
Lineage: organized July 18, 1917, Camp Wheeler, Georgia; reactivated July 1, 1923; federalized November 25, 1940; Camp Blanding, Florida, from December 22, 1940 (Wikipedia — 31st Infantry Division)
World War II commanders: Maj. Gen. John C. Persons, November 25, 1940 – September 23, 1944; Maj. Gen. Clarence A. Martin, September 23, 1944 to inactivation (Wikipedia — 31st Infantry Division)
1944 operations: Aitape with the 124th RCT, July 3–6, 1944, including the Driniumor River fighting; Sarmi–Wakde relief from July 18; Morotai assault landing September 15; Mapia Islands November 15–17 and Asia Islands November 19–20 (167th Infantry) (Wikipedia — 31st Infantry Division)
Mindanao 1945: landed April 22; 124th Infantry night meeting engagement north of Kabacan April 27–28; Kibawe May 3; Maramag May 6–12; 155th Infantry through to Malaybalay May 21; contact with the 108th Infantry near Impalutao about 1400 on May 23; 167th Infantry reconnaissance-in-force down the Kibawe–Talomo trail from May 11, reaching the Pulangi May 29 and Pinamola June 30; pursuit east to Silae June 9 and up the Agusan to Waloe in late June (CMH — Triumph in the Philippines)
Casualties: eastern Mindanao 185 killed, 485 wounded (670 total, per the official history’s Table 9); the Sayre Highway share about 90 killed and 250 wounded against almost 1,000 Japanese killed together with the 108th Infantry; whole-war totals 1,733 battle casualties — 340 killed, 1,392 wounded, 1 captured (CMH — Triumph in the Philippines, Wikipedia — 31st Infantry Division)
Medal of Honor: Cpl. Harry R. Harr, Company D, 124th Infantry, killed June 5, 1945 in the mountains south of the Malaybalay–Silae trail when he covered a Japanese hand grenade with his body, saving at least four soldiers (CMH — Triumph in the Philippines)
End: returned to the United States December 12, 1945; inactivated Camp Stoneman, December 21, 1945; National Guard reactivations Alabama November 1, 1946 and Mississippi December 2, 1946; Korean War federal service January 16, 1951 – June 15, 1954 (stateside); division inactivated January 14, 1968, converted to brigade lineage (Wikipedia — 31st Infantry Division)

Usage Scenarios

1. Studying the Liberation of Mindanao

The division is the through-line of the campaign’s central and northern phases in this wiki’s Battle of Mindanao entry: the April 22 landing, the 124th Infantry’s night advance into the Japanese 74th Infantry north of Kabacan, the Maramag delay, the Impalutao junction of May 23 that secured the Sayre Highway, and the drive into the Agusan Valley last-stand area. (CMH — Triumph in the Philippines, Wikipedia — Battle of Mindanao)

2. Analyzing X Corps’s Two-Division Method

Historians of the Eighth Army’s 1945 method use the 31st beside the 24th as the complementary pair the corpus battle entries document: one division swung east along Route 1 to Davao against the 100th Division, the other north along the Sayre Highway against the 30th — the split ordered at the Kabacan junction that “hopelessly separated” the two Japanese divisions. (CMH — Triumph in the Philippines)

3. Tracing National Guard Divisions in the Pacific War

The 31st is a study in guard-division economics: three years of stateside training and cadre-stripping, then combat only in the war’s last year — Aitape, Morotai, Mindanao — with individuals, not the division, feeding earlier campaigns. (Wikipedia — 31st Infantry Division)

4. Sorting the Division from the Regiment

Researchers must keep the 31st Infantry Division separate from the 31st Infantry Regiment: the regiment, formed at Fort William McKinley in 1916 and stationed in the Philippines, covered the withdrawal to Bataan, surrendered on April 9, 1942, and lost roughly half of about 1,600 men in captivity — the division’s own Bataan is a misattribution, examined below. (Wikipedia — 31st Infantry Regiment)

Strategies

Land into a secured beachhead, then sprint: the division’s Mindanao opening — unloading April 22 behind the 24th Division and pushing its 124th RCT to the Kabacan junction “to prepare a drive north” — turned the second landing into the campaign’s lead element on the highway axis within five days. (CMH — Triumph in the Philippines)
Take the road spine, split the defense: by driving Sayre Highway while the 24th drove Route 1, the 31st fixed Morozumi’s 30th Division in the center of the island and severed it from the Davao garrison — the corps plan that made Kabacan “strategically, if not tactically, decisive.” (CMH — Triumph in the Philippines)
Reconnaissance-in-force instead of the imagined envelopment: X Corps’s tentative Kibawe–Talomo trail maneuver — Sibert’s hope to fall on the 100th Division’s rear — was cut down after aerial reconnaissance and Fertig’s warning that much of the trail “was a figment of the imagination” to a battalion-sized probe by the 167th Infantry, the recorded correction of a map-driven plan. (CMH — Triumph in the Philippines)
Supply by air when the road fails: with some seventy bridges ruined between Kabacan and the Mulita River, gorges and landslides blocking the highway, and cables rigged to move jeeps and howitzers, the division “would have to depend in large measure upon air supply” — Eighth Army ultimately rerouted its supply through Macajalar Bay after the 108th Infantry opened that coast. (CMH — Triumph in the Philippines)

Security and Safety Measures

The night meeting engagement: the 124th Infantry’s collision after 2200 on April 27 with the surprised 1st Battalion, 74th Infantry — Battery C, 149th Field Artillery unlimbering 105-mm howitzers and delivering “accurate support fire, employing sound-ranging adjustment methods” — is the division’s recorded lesson in security on the approach march: the enemy met at night was broken by dawn. (CMH — Triumph in the Philippines)
Engineering as force protection: ruined bridges, deep gorges, and rain-induced landslides made every northward mile a mobility problem; the cableways of the 124th Infantry and 108th Engineer Battalion and the bulldozed fills completed May 3 were the physical safeguard of the advance. (CMH — Triumph in the Philippines)
The prepared rearguard: the single Japanese battalion at Maramag held a regimental combat team for six days, May 6–12, at a cost of about 60 killed and 120 wounded in the 124th Infantry against at least 130 Japanese dead — the campaign’s standing warning against underestimating a delaying force on chosen ground. (CMH — Triumph in the Philippines)
For researchers: keep the division’s casualty scales distinct — the Sayre Highway share (about 90 killed, 250 wounded), the eastern Mindanao total (185 killed, 485 wounded through August 15, 1945), and the whole-war total (340 killed, 1,392 wounded, of 1,733 battle casualties) — and attribute the “Dixie Division” label to its guard lineage, not to any Philippine service before 1945. (CMH — Triumph in the Philippines, Wikipedia — 31st Infantry Division)

Historical Context

The division’s first life was the South’s: organized at Camp Wheeler in 1917, it reached France just before the Armistice, was broken up for replacements, and returned to the rolls in 1923 as the guard division of four states. Federalized in November 1940, it trained at Camp Blanding and in the 1941 maneuvers while the war it would fight moved across the Pacific; the 124th Infantry was detached in December 1941 for Infantry School duty and was replaced by the 154th Infantry, one of several reorganizations that rebuilt the division as a triangular formation before it finally sailed in March 1944. (Wikipedia — 31st Infantry Division)

Its Pacific apprenticeship ran through New Guinea in 1944 — the 124th RCT’s fighting on the Driniumor at Aitape in July, the Sarmi–Wakde relief, the Morotai landing of September 15 — before Eighth Army assigned it to X Corps for the return to Mindanao. The division landed on April 22, 1945 over the 24th Division’s beaches, and its regiments then fought the campaign the official history records in sequence: the 124th’s night engagement north of Kabacan, Kibawe on May 3, the Maramag delay to May 12, the 155th through Malaybalay on May 21 and the Impalutao contact of May 23 with the 108th Infantry landed at Macajalar Bay on May 10 — the junction that cleared the Sayre Highway — while the 167th’s battalion pushed the Kibawe–Talomo trail to Pinamola by June 30 at a cost of about 60 killed and 180 wounded against almost 400 Japanese dead. (CMH — Triumph in the Philippines)

The division closed the war in pursuit: elements of the 124th reached Silae on June 9; the 155th sent a battalion combat team up the Agusan River aboard engineer LCMs to Waloe by June 27; and after Eichelberger declared the operation closed on June 30 and Japan surrendered on August 15, the division took part in receiving the surrender of the Japanese forces remaining on Mindanao. It reached the United States on December 12, 1945 and was inactivated nine days later at Camp Stoneman. The guard division returned in 1946, served stateside through the 1951 Korean War mobilization, and ended its divisional existence in 1968 — the lineage that survives today as the 31st Chemical Brigade. (Wikipedia — 31st Infantry Division, CMH — Triumph in the Philippines)

Challenges and Controversies

The Bataan Misattribution

A standing confusion places the division on Bataan in 1942 — the premise sometimes stated that the division “was in the Philippines at the war’s outbreak, unlike the 24th in Hawaii.” The record is otherwise: the 31st Division was federalized in 1940 and fought nowhere until 1944, while the Philippine-based unit of the same number was the 31st Infantry Regiment of the Philippine Division, which covered the withdrawal to Bataan and surrendered there in April 1942. The division’s Philippine dead lie on Mindanao alone. (Wikipedia — 31st Infantry Division, Wikipedia — 31st Infantry Regiment)

When the Division’s War Ended

Three endings circulate: the tactical conclusion at the Sayre Highway junction (May 23) and the collapse of the 30th Division’s stands; Eichelberger’s June 30 declaration that organized opposition had ceased; and the August 15 surrender, after which the division took the capitulation of the Japanese remaining on Mindanao. Each is a different threshold, and accounts should say which they mean — the official history itself notes fighting against organized bodies continued after June 30. (CMH — Triumph in the Philippines, Wikipedia — Battle of Mindanao)

Which Casualty Count Is the Division’s

The division’s cost is cited at three scales — the Sayre Highway share (about 90 killed, 250 wounded), the eastern Mindanao campaign total (185 killed, 485 wounded), and the whole-war total (340 killed, 1,392 wounded of 1,733 battle casualties) — figures routinely merged in commemorative accounts. (CMH — Triumph in the Philippines, Wikipedia — 31st Infantry Division)

The Trail That Was Not There

Sibert’s tentative envelopment down the Kibawe–Talomo trail — the plan that would have sent 31st Division elements onto the 100th Division’s rear from the northwest — rested on maps that the ground did not support; Fertig told X Corps much of the trail “was a figment of the imagination,” Eichelberger’s aerial reconnaissance confirmed it, and the operation was cut to a reconnaissance-in-force. The episode is the campaign’s caution against unmapped-country planning — and the reason the Davao battle belonged to the 24th Division. (CMH — Triumph in the Philippines)