Clarence A. Martin

Also known as: Maj. Gen. Clarence A. Martin — the styling the eastern Mindanao official history uses · General Martin — the campaign-record shorthand · Commanding General, 31st Infantry Division — the formal designation, September 23, 1944 – December 21, 1945 · Clarence Martin

Places

Definition

Clarence A. Martin (September 13, 1896, Belle Haven, Virginia — December 11, 1986, Greenville, South Carolina) was a major general of the United States Army — a Virginia Military Institute graduate commissioned in 1917, not a West Pointer and not a National Guardsman — whose Philippine record is the command of the 31st Infantry Division, the “Dixie Division,” from September 23, 1944 to its inactivation on December 21, 1945, the command that carried the division’s landing on Mindanao of April 22, 1945 and the Sayre Highway drive that split the Japanese Thirty-Fifth Army’s northern flank. (Wikipedia — Clarence A. Martin, Wikipedia — 31st Infantry Division) A civil engineering graduate “11th in a class of 59” at VMI (May 1917), he fought in France with the 56th Infantry, 7th Division, in the Meuse-Argonne Offensive and earned the first of three Silver Star citations; his first Philippine service came in 1927–1929, when he commanded Company E of the 45th Infantry (Philippine Scouts) at Fort William McKinley. (Wikipedia — Clarence A. Martin)

Martin reached division command by the New Guinea road Robert L. Eichelberger’s I Corps built. At Buna on December 3, 1942 he was given command of the 32nd Division’s 128th Infantry Regiment and Warren Force in the shake-up that relieved the division’s leadership, and received the Distinguished Service Cross — the Combat Infantryman Badge “an honor he was most proud of.” (Wikipedia — Clarence A. Martin) Promoted brigadier general on February 3, 1943, he led the Michaelmas Task Force ashore at Saidor on January 2, 1944 — Legion of Merit, Australian Distinguished Service Order — and fought the covering-force action at the Driniumor River, where he was replaced on July 12, 1944 after the Japanese night breakthrough and, in his article’s phrase, “became the scapegoat.” (Wikipedia — Clarence A. Martin, Wikipedia — Landing at Saidor, Wikipedia — Battle of Driniumor River) A regimental combat team under him landed on Morotai in September 1944; on September 23 he took the 31st Division as a temporary major general, and eight months later put it ashore on Mindanao, where the official history credits him with the northern axis — dispatching his 124th RCT to Kabacan “to prepare a drive north,” taking Kibawe, breaking the Maramag delay, and joining the 108th Infantry near Impalutao on May 23, 1945 — before the division closed the war receiving the Japanese surrender. After commanding Fort Jackson through demobilization he retired on July 31, 1947. (CMH — Triumph in the Philippines, Wikipedia — Clarence A. Martin, Wikipedia — Battle of Mindanao)

Identities

Source Type	Identity
Wikipedia	Clarence A. Martin
Wikidata	Clarence A. Martin (Q114711865) — “United States Army general (1896–1986)” (verified this session)
DBpedia	Clarence_A._Martin — dbo:MilitaryPerson; sameAs Wikidata Q114711865 (verified this session)
ProductOntology	N/A
Wiktionary	N/A — no entry at “Clarence Martin” (verified this session)
Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH)	N/A — the only LC name heading for “Martin, Clarence A.” is a different individual, Clarence Augustine Martin (1862–1944) (verified this session via id.loc.gov suggest)
MeSH	N/A
NCBI Taxonomy	N/A
AGROVOC	N/A
Google Scholar	Clarence A. Martin 31st Infantry Division Mindanao 1945 Sayre Highway 124th Infantry Kabacan Kibawe Maramag Malaybalay Impalutau Buna 128th Infantry Distinguished Service Cross Saidor Driniumor 32nd Division Fort Jackson
ConceptNet	N/A — ConceptNet API unreachable this session (HTTP 502)
OpenCyc	N/A

Also Known As

Maj. Gen. Clarence A. Martin — the styling the eastern Mindanao official history uses
General Martin — the campaign-record shorthand
Commanding General, 31st Infantry Division — the formal designation, September 23, 1944 – December 21, 1945
Clarence Martin

Examples and Analogies

A regular taking over a guard division: the Dixie Division of Alabama, Florida, Louisiana, and Mississippi guardsmen — this wiki’s 31st Infantry Division entry documents its stateside years under Maj. Gen. John C. Persons — passed to Martin, the Virginia regular, on September 23, 1944, and went to war under him within six months. (Wikipedia — 31st Infantry Division)
The colonel of Buna: when Eichelberger relieved the 32nd Division’s command on December 3, 1942, Martin — I Corps G-3 sent forward to assess — came out of the shake-up commanding the 128th Infantry and Warren Force, found a route through the swamp that had stalled the attack, and wore the Distinguished Service Cross out of it. (Wikipedia — Clarence A. Martin)
The scapegoat of the Driniumor: the Japanese night infiltration of July 10–11, 1944 broke his covering force’s line; he was replaced on July 12 by General Gill, and his article’s own word for the aftermath is “scapegoat.” (Wikipedia — Clarence A. Martin, Wikipedia — Battle of Driniumor River)
Verified career data:
Born/died: September 13, 1896, Belle Haven, Virginia; died December 11, 1986, Greenville, South Carolina, aged 90 (Wikipedia — Clarence A. Martin)
Early career: VMI civil engineering degree, May 1917, 11th of 59, commissioned that year; Meuse-Argonne company command with the 56th Infantry, 7th Division (Silver Star citation, temporary captain November 7, 1918); commanding officer, Company E, 45th Infantry (Philippine Scouts), Fort William McKinley, 1927–1929; Command and General Staff School 1937, Army War College 1940; G-3, 30th Infantry Division, to November 1941 (Wikipedia — Clarence A. Martin)
New Guinea: Buna — 128th Infantry and Warren Force from December 3, 1942, DSC; brigadier general February 3, 1943, ADC 32nd Division; Saidor landing January 2, 1944; Driniumor covering force, replaced July 12, 1944; Morotai RCT September 1944 (Wikipedia — Clarence A. Martin, Wikipedia — Landing at Saidor)
31st Division: commanded September 23, 1944 – December 21, 1945; Mindanao landing April 22, 1945 over the 24th Division’s beaches; eastern Mindanao casualties 185 killed, 485 wounded; 22,310 prisoners secured after the surrender; DSM and Air Medal (Wikipedia — 31st Infantry Division, CMH — Triumph in the Philippines, Wikipedia — Clarence A. Martin)
Postwar: Fort Jackson January–May 1946 (demobilization); retired July 31, 1947, after 30 years of commissioned service; son Maj. Clarence A. Martin, Jr. killed in action with X Corps in Korea, November 1950 (Wikipedia — Clarence A. Martin)

Usage Scenarios

1. Studying the Sayre Highway Drive

Historians of the liberation’s central-Mindanao phase work through Martin’s division — the April 22, 1945 landing, the 124th Infantry’s night meeting engagement north of Kabacan, the Kibawe–Maramag–Malaybalay sequence, and the May 23 junction at Impalutao — the record this wiki’s Battle of Mindanao entry carries. (CMH — Triumph in the Philippines, Wikipedia — Battle of Mindanao)

2. Researching the Buna Command Shake-Up

Students of the first American ground victory over the Japanese Army use Martin’s December 3, 1942 elevation to the 128th Infantry as the working case of Eichelberger’s remedy — relieve, then lead — documented in this wiki’s Robert L. Eichelberger entry. (Wikipedia — Clarence A. Martin)

3. Analyzing the Aitape Breakthrough

Order-of-battle work on the Driniumor fighting must carry both the action and its aftermath: the breakthrough of July 10–11, 1944, Martin’s relief on July 12, and the scapegoating charge his article records. (Wikipedia — Clarence A. Martin, Wikipedia — Battle of Driniumor River)

4. Tracing Guard Divisions Under Regular Command

The 31st’s commanders — Persons the guardsman, Martin the regular — frame how National Guard divisions were officered in the Pacific war’s last year. (Wikipedia — 31st Infantry Division)

Strategies

Dispatch the regiment before the division lands: upon arrival on April 22, 1945 Martin “had… dispatched his 124th RCT to the Kabacan junction of Route 1 and Sayre Highway to prepare a drive north” — the second wave converted into the campaign’s lead element within five days. (CMH — Triumph in the Philippines)
Plan on air supply when the road fails: with some seventy ruined bridges between Kabacan and the Mulita River, his division “would have to depend in large measure upon air supply” — the calculation Eighth Army answered by rerouting supply through Macajalar Bay. (CMH — Triumph in the Philippines)
Probe, do not envelop, unmapped country: the tentative Kibawe–Talomo trail maneuver was cut to a battalion-sized reconnaissance-in-force by the 167th Infantry after Fertig’s warning and Eichelberger’s aerial reconnaissance — the correction this wiki’s 31st Infantry Division entry examines. (CMH — Triumph in the Philippines)
Take the surrender with the guerrillas: after Japan’s capitulation the division received the surrender of the Japanese remaining on Mindanao — 22,310 prisoners by its count — beside the 10th Military District forces this wiki’s Wendell Fertig entry documents. (Wikipedia — Clarence A. Martin, Wikipedia — 31st Infantry Division)

Security and Safety Measures

The night meeting engagement: the 124th Infantry’s collision after 2200 on April 27, 1945 with the surprised 1st Battalion, 74th Infantry, north of Kabacan was broken by dawn, Battery C, 149th Field Artillery unlimbering 105-mm howitzers and “delivering accurate support fire, employing sound-ranging adjustment methods.” (CMH — Triumph in the Philippines)
Engineering as force protection: ruined bridges, deep gorges, and landslides made every northward mile a mobility problem; the cableways over which his troops moved jeeps and howitzers, and the bulldozed fills completed May 3, were the physical safeguard of the drive. (CMH — Triumph in the Philippines)
Respect the prepared rearguard: one Japanese battalion at Maramag held his 124th Infantry six days, May 6–12, at a cost of about 60 killed and 120 wounded against at least 130 Japanese dead. (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), and the whole-war total (340 killed, 1,392 wounded of 1,733 battle casualties) — and keep the 31st Division separate from the 31st Infantry Regiment that surrendered on Bataan. (CMH — Triumph in the Philippines, Wikipedia — 31st Infantry Division)

Historical Context

Martin’s first war was France’s: commissioned from VMI in 1917, he commanded infantry companies in the 7th Division’s Meuse-Argonne fighting and made temporary captain four days before the Armistice. The interwar Army moved him through school and faculty postings, the Philippines, the Command and General Staff School (1937), the Army War College (1940), and the G-3 seat of the 30th Infantry Division. (Wikipedia — Clarence A. Martin)

The Pacific war made his name at Buna, where Eichelberger’s December 3, 1942 relief of the 32nd Division’s command put the 128th Infantry and Warren Force in his hands and the Distinguished Service Cross on his chest. Brigadier general in February 1943, he led the Michaelmas Task Force into Saidor on January 2, 1944 and held the covering force on the Driniumor until the July breakthrough — and relief — that his biography registers as scapegoating; the Morotai landing of September 1944 restored the upward line, and on September 23, 1944 he took the 31st Division. (Wikipedia — Clarence A. Martin, Wikipedia — Landing at Saidor, Wikipedia — Battle of Driniumor River)

The Philippine climax was the campaign this wiki’s Battle of Mindanao entry documents under his division’s regiments. Landing April 22, 1945 over the 24th Division’s Illana Bay beaches within Franklin C. Sibert’s X Corps of Eichelberger’s Eighth Army, the division drove the Sayre Highway: Kibawe May 3, the Maramag delay to May 12, Malaybalay May 21, and the junction with the 108th Infantry near Impalutao at 1400 on May 23 that cleared the island’s road spine — 185 killed and 485 wounded the division’s cost, Cpl. Harry R. Harr’s Medal of Honor its hallmark. After the August 15 surrender the division received the capitulation of the Japanese remaining on Mindanao — 22,310 prisoners by the record — and was inactivated under him at Camp Stoneman on December 21, 1945. (CMH — Triumph in the Philippines, Wikipedia — 31st Infantry Division, Wikipedia — Battle of Mindanao) He commanded Fort Jackson through the demobilization months, retired July 31, 1947, lost his son — a major on X Corps’ headquarters — to the Korean War in November 1950, and died at ninety in Greenville on December 11, 1986. (Wikipedia — Clarence A. Martin)

Challenges and Controversies

The Aitape Relief and the Scapegoat Charge

The Japanese infiltration of July 10–11, 1944 broke through Martin’s covering force and he was replaced on July 12; his biography states flatly that he “became the scapegoat for failing to prevent the Japanese breakthrough” — the counter-case to his Buna laurels, and accounts of Aitape should carry both. (Wikipedia — Clarence A. Martin, Wikipedia — Battle of Driniumor River)

The Division and the Regiment of the Same Number

A standing confusion — carried in this wiki’s 31st Infantry Division entry — places the 31st Division on Bataan in 1942. It trained stateside from November 1940 and first saw Philippine soil in 1945; the Philippine-based unit of the same number was the 31st Infantry Regiment. Martin’s division fought its whole Philippine war on Mindanao alone. (Wikipedia — 31st Infantry Division)

Which Casualty Count Is the Division’s

Three scales circulate for the division’s cost — about 90 killed and 250 wounded on the Sayre Highway; 185 killed and 485 wounded in eastern Mindanao; and 340 killed, 1,392 wounded of 1,733 battle casualties across the whole war — figures routinely merged in commemorative accounts. (CMH — Triumph in the Philippines, Wikipedia — 31st Infantry Division)

When the Division’s War Ended

Three endings compete: the tactical close at Impalutao (May 23, 1945), Eichelberger’s June 30 declaration that organized opposition had ceased, and the post-surrender task that put 22,310 prisoners in the division’s charge — each a different threshold. (CMH — Triumph in the Philippines, Wikipedia — Battle of Mindanao)