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The Americal Generation |
The Great Depression in the United States threw millions of good people into hard financial times. Families struggled to make ends meet any way they could. Part of the answer for many young men was to join their local National Guard units. This provided a meager addition to their financial income.
The United States military was not a robust organization after World War I. Troops levels were low and funds for modernization were hard to get. The young men entering the National Guard units found that they had to "make do" with what little they had. In many instances the equipment was left-overs from the Great War. Many did not want to wear their uniforms in their home neighborhoods for fear of ridicule.
Bill McLaughlin was only 16 years old when he joined the National Guard in 1937. He followed a friend's suggestion an lied about his age on the application. Bill sometimes worked three jobs to help support his fatherless family, often going a couple of days without sleep. Little did he know that this demanding routine would soon be eclipsed by his new occupation in the South Pacific.
McLaughlin's unit was the 110th Cavalry Regiment. But there was little use for horse cavalry in the expected war. The unit was soon reorganized as the 180th Field Artillery. The troops had to make a quick transition from fighting on horses to fighting behind cannons. Their ingenuity in finding ways to make things work would later be a huge benefit to them in the steamy jungles of Guadalcanal.
As war seemed inevitable National Guard units were federalized and intensified their training. The 180th FA was part of the 26th Infantry Division (Yankee Division), but this was to change too. The army was cutting the size of divisions from 20,000 soldiers to 15,000 soldiers. The 180th was cut from the division to be assigned elsewhere.
The news of the attack on Pearl Harbor galvanized the mobilization of American forces. Task Force 6814 loaded on ships at Brooklyn, NY on January 23, 1942 and set sail to meet the Japanese in the South Pacific. Bill McLaughlin and his buddies were aboard the former cruise ship ARGENTINA headed for Australia. They arrived in Melbourne at the end of February.
The next stop was New Caledonia, a French possession and one time penal colony. The Americans were to form a defense against a Japanese attack on Australia. It was here that General Alexander Patch organized the Americal Division from an array of assembled units. The three infantry regiments consisted of the 132nd (33rd Div., Illinois), 164th (41st Div., North Dakota), and the 182nd (26th Div., Massachusetts). Soldiers of the Americal would be the first to take the fight to the Japanese.
The first fight was on the island of Guadalcanal. Army and Marines fought side by side to roll back the Japanese onslaught. McLaughlin's unit fired artillery support for the advancing infantry units. In The Americal Generation, he gives a compelling account of his day-to-day activities and experiences. He even details such things as the frequent appearance of "Washing Machine Charlie", a harassing Japanese pilot known by the sound of his airplane engine.
McLaughlin supplements his stories with the stories of other Americal veterans. Many of these stories were collected by McLaughlin while he was editor of the Americal Newsletter many years after the war. His contemporaries relate their experiences in the words and style of the times. It is sometimes gritty, and at times unpleasant, but it reveals a story that must be told.
The Americal Division fought a hardened enemy, but the Americal became hardened too. After the battle of Guadalcanal, and a brief time on Fiji, the division fought it's way onto Bougainville in the Solomon Islands. By 1944, McLaughlin and many others had been in the combat theater for over a year and a half.
Yet their time at war was not yet half done and they sometimes found it difficult to keep a positive outlook on life. They constantly faced danger. They had to kill or be killed. They lost buddies to death and dismemberment. They began to know too well what war was all about.
McLaughlin left the artillery and became a sergeant in the Recon troop. On to Cebu in the Philippines, where their mission was to find the enemy, but not engage them. McLaughlin relates instances of American scouts and Japanese scouts encountering each other on a jungle trail with neither firing on the other. But face-to-face fights with fixed bayonets were frequent enough and costly to both sides.
As the war continued the Japanese lost much of their air and navy power. However the Japanese on the ground did not give up easily. McLaughlin and his buddies faced many harrowing tests. McLaughlin performed well and earned the Silver Star for gallantry.
The Americal Division was slated for the invasion of the Japanese homeland. The Japanese were expected to put up a fierce defense at the cost of many lives. But McLaughlin would not make the invasion of Japan, for he was being rotated back to the United States.
Fortunately for the Americans, the Atomic bomb ended the war and the invasion of Japan was unnecessary. McLaughlin was on a ship enroute to San Francisco when the announcement of the end of the war was made. In later years he would hear of the final days of the Americal from his buddies that were there.
Troops returning from the war poured back into the United States eager to resume their lives. McLaughlin took advantage of the G.I. Bill and was accepted at Harvard. He soon married and began a family, graduating from Harvard in 1949. He went on to form his own business and fathered eight children.
McLaughlin dedicates his book as "a tribute to all the men and women of my generation who unselfishly gave of themselves in fighting the war and building the machines to do so for nearly five years. Never before, or since, in my mind, has the nation been so close. This is a true example of the Americanism we have all dreamed about."
And so it is. The generations that follow the Americal generation owe a huge debt of gratitude to their forebearers and protectors. This book helps bring a better understanding of the magnitude of that debt.
If you would like to purchase a copy of The Americal Generation, please send $21.50 to:
Mr. Bill McLaughlin
155 River Ridge Drive
Marston Mills, MA 02648-1741
Contributed by:
Gary L. NollerFor more reading material related to the Americal Division, there's the Army's Official History of the division and additional bibliographical information.