10th Mountain Infantry WWII
Thunderstixx sniffled a little over my post of the Army’s WWII tanker training film.
Thunderstixx says: on February 11, 2019 at 11:25 pm
How come you never do anything for us US Army 9th Infantry Division Ski Instructors ??? I’m crushed…
I did due diligence on this, but found that there weren’t any 9th Infantry Ski Instructors, because the ski instructors were training the 10th Mountain Infantry. Of course, if anyone can provide some resource on winter wonderland training for the 9th, I will be happy to post it. The 10th Infantry was formed during WWI, then deactivated, and reactivated for WWII as the 10th Mountain Infantry.
This article is a very good read, with photos from the authors that they shot during their campaign in northern Italy into the Po Valley, which the Germans had occupied. There are a couple of photos showing troops hiking up a road to the next objective, with dead German soldiers lying off to the side.
It is a good, straightforward story, with no excuses made for anything. Just the facts, with photos included. It’s worth your time to read it completely, so get a cup of your favorite caffeinated beverage and some munchies and settle in.
In re: the 9th Infantry: while they did participate in WWII in northern Africa, Sicily, Ardennes, and other spots in Europe, and they are most recently noted for their time in Vietnam. But that’s another story.
Category: Army, Big Army, Historical, Real Soldiers, War Stories, We Remember
Back when the 10th Mountain was actually stationed in mountains and trained in mountains…
Rather than the plains of upstate NY…
Don’t you be mocking Fort Drum now…those plains made a nice mortar range once upon a time….
And it does snow with alarming regularity there, or at least it did 40 years ago…
As I recall PBR was about $5 a case in the late 70s early 80s there…
Or in the swamps of Fort Polk, LA.
My former Battalion Commander took being in the 10th Mountain Division to heart and made us all go Camp Guernsey, Wyoming for 30 days in the middle of winter. They had the mountain warfare gurus come out and show us the proper way to use all the new fancy cold weather gear and how to survive in that environment without heaters and tents. We did live fire exercises in 5 feet of snow. Learned a lot about what the cold does to your equipment, your vehicles, yourself… I’ve never been so cold in my life but at the end of “Operation Cold Boar” (30th Infantry Regiment “The Wild Boars”)… I actually felt like a trained Mountain Soldier. I really do think it prepared us better for the harsh Afghan winter on our deployment to Logar Province.
Former Sergeant First Class
2-30 Infantry, 4th Brigade, 10th Mountain Division
OEF 10-11
“CLIMB TO GLORY”
Very cool story and photos at the site!
My dad was an original member of the 87 Mountain and did fight against the Japanese in 1943. He was wounded on Kiska by friendly fire and was returned to the States where he recovered in the old Jefferson Barracks military hospital. He went on to fight in Europe and then Korea and Vietnam. He is 96 and still living by himself. I spent many summers at Camp Hale in the 60’s when it was a rest area for service members and their families. I was even their when they were training the Tibetan guerrillas. I think Dad is one of the very few who have an Asia Pacific campaign and European campaign medal. Here is a link to some interesting things about my dad. http://www.fortcarsonmountaineer.com/2017/04/5022-commander-recounts-life-in-commie-prison-camp/
Moms Uncle was a Surgeon with the 85th Mountain Infantry Regiment, 10th Mountain Division
Major Edward C. Dyer
http://www.skitrooper.org/85.pdf
Thank you for this link!
Thanks Ex! Great story and another linky thingy to bookmark. I know how to do that now.
So getting you to do a special story is simply a matter whimpering, throwing a hissy fit, or maybe a pity party? We hadn’t had a special on the Field Artillery lately…wah…wah…wah /s/
Thanks, again, for what you and all the others do for us. It is appreciated …muchly!
I was in the 9th Division 74 to 77. We went to winter survival school. We learned how to ski and cross country
I grew up skiing in WY and all over UT, it’s amazing how many 10th vets were instrumental in creating and opening ski areas. I was shocked to find out just how many of the “old guys” I knew skiing as a kid were some serious 10th Mountain badasses!
Interesting to see “Torger Tokle” in the article. I remember my dad telling me about meeting him and watching him jump in the Boise area, sometime in the mid-1930’s.
I was thinking that when the 9th ID was at Ft Lewis there was a Winter operations (since I have no idea what the heck it was actually called) course up near Mt Rainier.
“no idea what the heck it was actually called”
Huckleberry Creek Mountain Training Camp in Mt. Rainier National Park, Greenwater, WA.
Huckleberry Creek, that is some beautiful country, as long as it isn’t raining.
Huckleberry Creek Mountain Training Camp is where I was at.
I was in CSC 2/47 Infantry when I came from a 21 month stint at Ft Wainwright in Co A 4Bn 9″th Inf where I got a ton of mountain training and frostbitten toes, fingers and my nose & ears too.
There is a thing called the Manchu Shit which lasts all of 30 seconds and prevents frostbite to certain parts of your anatomy…
When I got to my unit on North Fort my First Sgt took one look at my record and sent me up there to be an instructor.
We were attached to 864’Th Engr’s who ran the camp.
We taught skiing at Crystal Mountain farther up in Chinook Pass in the winter and then did mountaineering in the summer.
Best job in the entire US Army and I only had to kiss 6 asses to get it too !!!
I’m glad someone else knew about it so I didn’t get called an assortment of other names for Stolen Ski Valor or something.
I still have the patch and would love to post it, but I can’t figger out how to post pics here.
It really was a blast to be there.
Thanks EX-PH2, I never expected to have someone acknowledge my butthurt….
BWAHAHAHAHA !!!!!
This is really wild too. The unit I was in while at Ft Lewis, the 2/47’th was the same unit that Forrest Gump, Bubba and Lt Dan were in while in Vietnam.
Check it out.
My pleasure, Stixx!
Thunderstixx, the camp at Huckleberry Creek is gone, even the bridge with the RANGER tab over it washed away in one of the many floods up their. I lived in Greenwater from 85-89, I first started coming up there to teach EMT training to the local firefighters and bought a place up there later. Nothing is left of the camp. While I was there the Brits sent a company up to train, I had a going away party for the 111 Para at my place, after me and my buddy a State Trooper had to grab one of the boys that had fallen in love with one of the bartenders from the local bar, the Naches Tavern and take him to Ft Lewis. I still have a pair of the magnesium snow shoes.
Thank you sir.
That’s too bad that they tore the camp down. That was a good place. I think they deactivated it not long after I left the US Army.
I think a lot of the training now is at Ft Irwin CA although I am not certain about the skiing skills.
I tell people that I caught the PTSD when I had to train Marines how to ski. That would give Pope Francis himself the PTSD AND a 140% rating from the VA !!!
Just training them mountaineering, tactical mountain movement, rope bridges, rappelling, and those kinds of things was difficult enough.
We did train Marines, some Air Force but mostly units from Ft Lewis.
One of our instructors Sgt Tony Weilang lived in the first house right behind the bar in Greenwater.
Boy do I have some memories, and more than a few really fuzzy memories of that bar. There was a perfect Cribbage hand framed with the guys name under it on the wall at that bar.
I was there in 76-77. I ETS’d out of Ft Lewis July 1977. What an adventure that place was.
The showers were always cold though, and I mean ICE cold after all Huckleberry Creek was a Glacier Fed Stream that came right off of Mt Rainier.
Yep, one hell of an adventure. I took a boatload of pictures up there too. I’m working on getting them scanned in as they are on Kodachrome. “It gives us those nice bright colors, gives us the dreams of wonder, momma don’t take my Kodachrome away !!!
That’s my old stomp’n ground. I hunted in the Huckleberry Creek and environs. My partner scouted the are less than a month before opening day and said that the place was crawling with critters. We didn’t jump a single deer that whole weekend. It seems that the deer move into the park for protection a day or two before the opener. The wife and kids and I have spent many happy weekends camping around Greenwater. Consumed mass quantities at the old Naches Tav year round.
Lots of Elk, they would chase my dog and eat his food. Right now that area has about 4 ft of snow. The 19th SF group still trains up their. Also ran into a “A” team with 1st SF commander snowmobiling up their while we were doing the same, they had taken over the cabin at Government meadows.
My Dad served with the 10th Mountain in Italy but never got on skis as far as I know. That changed when he was assigned to the 9th Infantry Battle Group at Fort Wainwright in the early 60s. There he had to finally had get on skis because the Manchus had a thing for ski parades. My sister and brothers skied for recreation but Dad said he wasn’t about to get on skis if he didn’t have to.
The 9th Infantry Division of my days had to deal with the liquid snow of the watery Delta region of the Viet of the Nam, so no ski instructors. Back in the 1970’s, the only unit of which I am aware that had ski instructors was the 10th Special Forces Group. We had three weeks of ski training every winter and it is where I first learned to ski.
Dad was the commander of the cold weather command at Carson (IE. Camp Hale) after he got back from Korea and before we left for Germany in 1956. I believe that he may have participated in some of the instruction. He was a championship downhill skier in the ’30s at Franconia NH. He taught me to ski on the Zugspitze after we got to Germany. Those were some wonderful days for me.
Since Claw is posting…
(Drum Roll..)
NSN for Ski, Snow, please…and what Class of Supply do they fall into?
Property Book item, correct?
😎
Skis, All Terrain – Supply Class II (Non-Expendable/Durable),(Local Purchase Item), Accountable Property Book Item for the Supported Activity, Unit of Issue: PR (Pair), Only Color Available: White (Raciss?)/s
8465-01-170-7299 Length 1800 mm
8465-01-170-7300 Length 1900 mm
8465-01-170-7301 Length 2000 mm
8465-01-170-7302 Length 2100 mm
Hope these fit your bill./smile
What about the old WWII White Stars with the cable bindings? It didn’t take me long to figure out I was going to buy civilian cross-county skis to use for ski training when we did cross-country.
More ankles destroyed by Silvretta cable bindings than all the shu mines in WWII Germany…
I imagine so. They definitely seemed to be a means for some serious orthopedic injuries.
Why did the 10th ‘Mountain’ division come back to life? BOB DOLE, honored veteran of the division.
Senior “Representatives” get stuff.
Why did they FINALLY build a Federal Detention Center on Oahu that will NEVER even come close to being filled up?
Senator Inouye ! 442nd WWII vet.