A long record of outstanding service and devotion to home and country has characterized the 33d Infantry Division since 1812, when its forebears, the first settlers to brave the dangers of the prairies, were organized into the provincial militia of Illinois. From then on, every turbulent phase of America's development as a world power has seen Illinois troops in action. Prairie Staters formed an integral part of the Nation's force in 1812; played a major role in winding up the Indian campaigns; beat the Philippine bush in 1898 to quell the Insurrection; chased the notorious Mexican bandit, Pancho Villa, the length of the Rio Grande; and helped crush the World War I model of the Wehrmacht in 1918.

Troops of World War II's Golden Cross Division inherited a priceless tradition of aggressive action and group fortitude from their World War I predecessors. The original 33d, activated at Camp Logan, near Houston, Texas, in the fall of 1917, earned praise on its combat record from every Allied command with which it was associated. Great Britain, Belgium, France and Italy expressed appreciation for the Division's military achievements. The United States was no less grateful. General of the Armies John J. Pershing, commander of the American Expeditionary Forces, paid a soldier's tribute to men of the 33d with one simple sentence which capped a Division commendation: "The 33d Infantry Division was still advancing when hostilities ended with the Armistice."

It is futile to attempt to embellish the Division's World War I record. Military histories carry in sober records the gallantry of the Illinoisans: successful campaigns at Chipilly Ridge and the Hamel Woods, climaxed by the gigantic Meuse-Argonne drive; 9 awards of the Medal of Honor and 194 awards of the Distinguished Service Cross; in excess of 4,000 German prisoners taken; and finally, friendly casualties of 887 men killed in action with 5,499 wounded during four months of combat.

Major General George Bell, Jr., a Regular Army officer but an Illinoisan like the majority of his men, brought his Division home in May 1919. Tumultuous civic receptions greeted the Golden Cross on its return to Illinois. Chicago, home of most of its veterans, tendered a greeting that ranked with the news of the Armistice when it came to noisemaking. The Division was inactivated shortly thereafter, taking with it a final message from its commander which has a prominent place in its proud record. General Bell said: "The 33d Division accomplished every task assigned to it; often in less than the allotted time. Not a single failure is recorded against it; not a scandal has occurred to mar the glory of its achievements. It is a record surpassed by none and equaled by few."

It was not until three years after the Armistice that the 33d Division was resurrected from the roster of defunct organizations. In order to prevent a repetition of one of the great tragedies of World War I pitting half-trained troops against the cream of an enemy military machine-Congress passed the National Defense Act of 1920 providing for civilian components of the Army. A National Guard, composed of all state militias, and an Organized Reserve were created under the aegis of the War Department. Regular Army officers were detailed to act as instructors for the Guard. Standardized training schedules were handed down from the National Guard Bureau in Washington. Federal recognition came to Illinois in 1921 when numerous ground elements were organized under new tables of organization to constitute the new 33d Division.

Congressional intentions were of the best, but the passing of years with its subsequent talk of worldwide disarmament, saw military appropriations pared to the bone and the Regular Army reduced even beyond bare essentials. The start of the depression in 1929 cast a further pall over the National Defense program.

Illinois' Golden Cross Division experienced a stroke of rare good luck in the fall of 1933 when the War Department assigned it a new senior instructor. He was Colonel George Catlett Marshall, later to become Chief of Staff of the United States Army in World War II and Secretary of State in the Truman Administration. Colonel Marshall and Maj. Gen. Roy D. Keehn 33d Division commander, combined to form a Regular Army-National Guard team which revitalized the Division. Marshall guided it to a state of efficiency it had never known before; General Keehn fought and won to secure adequate equipment and training facilities.

A book published in 1947, by William Frye, entitled Marshall: Citizen Soldier describes at great length Colonel Marshall's service with the Guard and General Keehn's efforts to restore it to a proper place in America's plan of national security. Excerpts follow:¹

"But the division staff officers, nearly all of them prominent in business or the professions, suddenly realized that their somewhat desultory Monday night meetings had ceased to be the familiar, haphazard affairs of the past, that the entire staff had a goal in front of it, and each officer a definite job in which he was expected by Colonel Marshall to produce results. Even this mature group felt its morale rise when, one Monday night, they came in to find that Marshall had persuaded Keehn to rent an additional room at headquarters on the 20th floor at 208 South LaSalle Street, and in the room was a desk for each staff officer, with a name plate on the desk.

Marshall realized that the officers needed some intensive training, and he resorted to the established Army device for use when there is nothing but officers, pencils, paper, maps, and telephone to work with-the Command Post Exercise. Soon after his arrival in Chicago, he had planned an elaborate map maneuver for the winter and the officers of the division worked their way through this problem, which for want of a better name was designated a War Game, on successive weekly drill nights over a period of about two months.

Keehn watched the development of this experiment in training with mounting enthusiasm. This Chicago lawyer had never had any military experience when Governor Homer of Illinois appointed him commander of the 33d Divisionthe governor knew Keehn, respected his judgment and administrative capacity, and regarded him as a personal friend; moreover, he wanted to escape what he was certain would be the political embarrassment involved in selecting either of two brigadier generals who were eligible. By the time Marshall arrived, Keehn had learned enough about military matters to know that his division was not all it should be; and when Marshall had been there a few months he was convinced that the 33d was well on the way toward being the best National Guard division in the United States.

Marshall's job involved the supervision of approximately 35 Regular Army officers and noncommissioned officers who were detailed as Guard instructors in Illinois, as well as the planning of the training program which they carried out. The Colonel was insistent upon strict discipline in the Guard units. He wanted the training, even if it could be only one night a week during most of the year and a two-weeks' camp in the summer, to be conducted in a smart military atmosphere, as business, not as fun. He appeared with Keehn before committees of the Illinois legislature, urging a more generous support of the Guard, and-after Keehn was elected president of the National Guard Association in October, 1934-he went to Washington to back a delegation seeking funds from the Federal government for construction of armories. On that trip in April, 1935, Keehn went first to MacArthur, outlining to the Chief of Staff the association's plans for new armories.

"That's fine," said MacArthur. "But come back next year-I'm trying to get an increase for the Regular Army this year."

"Well, that's fine," Keehn retorted, "but I won't be president of the National Guard Association next year. You don't mind if I try on my own?"

"No, go right ahead," replied MacArthur.

So Keehn went to President Roosevelt, and laid the request for Public Works appropriations for armories before the Chief Executive. Mr. Roosevelt was sympathetic, but why call them armories? After all, there was so much pacifism in the country that anything even smacking of military matters ran into immediate opposition in the Congressional committees. Why not call them "community centers"? Keehn recognized the touch of political shrewdness when he encountered it, and the armories were built as community centers. They were, be it said, larger and more elaborate than the National Guard required, and actually were used as community centers.

It was the training of the Guard to which Marshall devoted most of his attention, however, and he had the satisfaction of seeing his segment of the citizen army improve perceptibly under his sympathetic and skillful direction. In his second summer with the division, when the units went to Camp Grant for the summer encampment, he put them through a three-day maneuver at the end of the period-the first time the division had actually moved off the camp reservation for field exercises. The attack on "Riley's Ridge" near the Wisconsin state line ended about 7:30 one morning, and by 9:00 o'clock he had assembled the officers under a huge, makeshift canopy constructed of tent flies at the highest point on the ridge.

There he gave them a four-hour critique of the maneuvers they had just completed. Stenographers were there to take every word, and motorcycle couriers ran their notes to Camp Grant. There a written resume of Marshall's critique was prepared and mimeographed and by the time the troops marched back into camp, copies of the resume were ready for distribution to them. The Colonel wanted every man in the division to know what the purpose of the maneuvers had been, how the problem had been attacked and solved, what the shortcomings were-all the facts, and the reasons for them.

The climax of this training came in the summer of 1936, when the Second Army held maneuvers in Michigan. There the 33d Division learned from Marshall by opposing him. Marshall commanded a brigade which outmaneuvered the division he had trained in at least one major phase of the exercises, but the Colonel had the enormous satisfaction of seeing his training pay dividends in the highly competent staff work and operations of the Guardsmen."

Colonel Marshall's detail with the Division came to an end in 1936 when he was promoted to brigadier general and assigned a field command, but his teachings stayed long on the minds of Golden Cross leaders. Every member of the 33d, from General Keehn to the most obscure private, realized that the loss of Colonel Marshall carried with it the loss of one of America's truly great military minds.

General Keehn left the Division three years later when he was forced to relinquish active command, having reached the Army's mandatory retirement age of sixty-four. His successor was Brig. Gen. Samuel T. Lawton, who had commanded the 58th Field Artillery Brigade under Keehn. General Lawton-soon promoted to two-star rank-was a Golden Cross man of long standing. A prominent attorney in civilian life, he first enlisted in the Illinois Militia as a cavalryman in 1909. Commissioned in 1912, he rose to command of his troop which he led in the Mexican Border campaign of 1916. During World War I he changed from Cavalry to Field Artillery, serving as a major in the 122d Field Artillery Regiment during the fighting in France. He assumed command of the 33d Division Artillery in 1936.

With the outbreak of war in Europe in the fall of 1939, National Guard training became greatly intensified. America's production lines gradually began to turn out weapons and materiel for a slowly expanding Army. Congress reluctantly began to discuss compulsory military training. Membership in the Division swelled and drills and encampment held a new air of earnestness.

International affairs took a serious turn for the worse in 1940. In the Pacific, Japan continued to ignore the territorial integrity of the many small nations in Southeast Asia. Despite sharp American protests she continued to forge a ring of steel around the Philippines and the rich oil properties in the Netherlands East Indies. Dai Nippon was girding for a conflict with the United States. On the other side of the world the situation was no less tense. German U-boats, roaming the Atlantic sea lanes in underwater "wolf packs," sent thousands of tons of American shipping to the bottom of the ocean, killing American merchant seamen in the process. Congress acted once the die was cast. Monies were appropriated for a two-ocean navy. The expansion of national air power began. Selective Service became law and sixteen million Americans registered for the country's first peacetime draft. President Roosevelt issued an Executive Order calling the National Guard into Federal Service and dispatching it into the field for a twelve-month training period.

These far-reaching developments had an immediate effect on the 33d Division. Recruits thronged armories throughout Illinois, anxious to get in their year of training. Deadwood was eliminated and scores of junior officers were commissioned from the ranks. Mobilization plans were perfected so that the Division could assume its place in the United States Army as soon as ordered to do so by the War Department.

A new year. came in and many of the National Guard infantry divisions were already in the field, scattered in posts throughout the United States. Golden Cross anxiety was finally allayed on 14 January 1941 when the State Adjutant General, Brig. Gen. Leo M. Boyle, received an Executive Order signed by President Roosevelt alerting the 33d Division for federal service. It read:

By virtue of the authority conferred upon me by Public Resolution No. 96, 76th Congress, approved August 27, 1940, and the National Defense Act of June 3, 1916 as amended, and as Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy of the United States, I hereby order into active military service of the United States, effective on dates to be announced by the Secretary of War, the following unit and members of the National Guard of the United States to serve in the active military service of the United States for a period of twelve months, unless sooner relieved. Unit: 33d Infantry Division.

Mobilization orders from Secretary of War Henry L. Stimson reached General Boyle in his office at Springfield on 7 February. M-day for the Division was set for 5 March 1941. The War Department communication was immediately speeded to Division headquarters in Chicago where Lt. Col. (later Colonel and Chief of Staff) Andrew T. McAnsh, G-3, received it and turned it over to General Lawton. Five days later the commanding general of the Golden Cross and his entire staff were sworn into active service to facilitate the transformation of twelve thousand Illinois Guardsmen into United States Army troops.

Camp Forrest, a new military reservation carved out of the heart of Tennessee's backwoods, was chosen by the War Department as the first training site for the 33d Infantry Division, Army of the United States.

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1. 'Used by special permission of the Bobbs-Merrill Company, publisher of Marshall: Citizen Soldier.

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