Commanders: Maj. Gen. W. A. Mann (5 September 1917), Maj. Gen. Charles T. Menoher (19 December 1917), Brig. Gen. Douglas MacArthur (10 November 1918), Maj. Gen. C. A. F. Flagler (22 November 1918).
The 42d Division was not organized as a National Guard division after World War I.
Commanders: Maj. Gen. Henry J. Collins commanded the Division during its entire period of Federal service in World War II.
Inactivated: 29 June 1946 in Europe.
Combat Chronicle
The three regiments and a detachment of the Division Headquarters arrived in France at Marseilles, 8-9 December 1944, and were formed into a Task Force Linden, under the Assistant Division Commander. Assigned to VI Corps, Seventh Army, the Task Force entered combat in the vicinity of Strasbourg, relieving elements of the 36th Infantry Division, 24 December 1944. Defending a 31-mile sector along the Rhine, north and south of Strasbourg, the Task Force repulsed a number of enemy counterattacks, at Hatten and elsewhere. After throwing back an enemy attack, 24-26 January 1945, Task Force Linden returned to Seventh Army Reserve and trained with the remainder of the Division which had arrived meanwhile.
On 14 February 1945, the Division entered combat as a whole, taking up defensive positions near Haguenau in the Hardt Mountains. After a month of extensive patrolling and active defense, the 42d went on the offensive, attacking through the Hardt Mountains, broke through the Siegfried Line, 15-21 March, cleared Dahn and Busenberg, and mopped up in that general area, while the Third Army created and expanded bridgeheads across the Rhine. Moving across the Rhine, 31 March, the 42d captured Wertheim am Main, 1 April, and Würzburg, 2-6 April, after a fierce battle. Schweinfurt fell next after hand-to-hand engagements, 9-12 April. Furth, near Nürnberg, put up fanatical resistance, but was taken, 18-19 April, by the Division.
On the 25th, the 42d captured Donauworth on the Danube, and on the 29th liberated some 30,000 inmates at Dachau one of the most notorious of the Nazi concentration camps. Passing through Munich, 30 April, it cut across the Austrian border north of Salzburg, 5 May, as the war in Europe ended.
The division has been the first National Guard division to be sent to the frontline under its own command since World War II. Serving as the headquarters of Task Force Liberty and responsible for security operations in four provinces of north central Iraq (Diyala, Salah ad Din, Kirkuk, As Sulaymaniyah), US 42nd Infantry Division directed the operations of 1st Brigade,US 3rd Infantry Division, 3rd Brigade,US 3rd Infantry Division, the 278th Regimental Combat Team, and the 116th Brigade Combat Team.
General
Nickname: Rainbow Division
Shoulder patch: A rainbow.
References
The Army Almanac: A Book of Facts Concerning the Army of the United States U.S. Government Printing Office, 1950 reproduced at [CMH].
