314th History
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Taking the long view, the history of the 314th Infantry Regiment extends back almost 100 years. This proud regiment of citizen soldiers has answered the nations' call from the First World War, the Second World War and continuing through today where components of the 314th Infantry Regiment have seen service in Iraq. In 1917, as part of the 79th Infantry Division, the 314th helped liberate Europe from the yoke of Kaiser Wilhelm’s Imperial Germany. During World War I causalities for the 79th for its one year of combat in France totaled 6,752 brave Americans killed. In 1919 at the end of what was popularly referred to at the time as the “War to end all Wars,” the 314th Infantry Regiment was demobilized and the veteran doughboys of the horrors of trench warfare returned home to their civilian occupations in America.
Soon after the roaring twenties and the great depression of the 1930’s, Adolf Hitler’s Nazi Germany and Emperor Hirohito’s Imperial Japan ignited the Second World War. Bent on world domination, these two dictatorships came very close to succeeding. Nazi Germany’s war was unlike any the world had ever known. Combining cutting edge 20th Century technology with a deliberate policy of genocide the Nazi regime industrialized mass murder and in the process killed millions of innocent civilians. Once again the 314th Infantry Regiment was reactivated in World War II as part of the 79th Infantry Division. The 314th was again called upon to liberate Europe and again the cost to our nation in lives lost was huge. Just a month after D-Day during the Normandy campaign, the 314th Infantry Regiment and its parent 79th Infantry Division helped capture the French port of Cherbourg. Cherbourg was pivotal to the success of the D-Day invasion. Without the use of a large port, the allies would be unable to sustain the initial invasion force which would have meant failure in liberating Western Europe. One book on Normandy by respected English historian Max Hastings commented that in just the combat operations culminating with the capture of Cherbourg, the 79th Infantry Division’s combat losses of over 2,000 killed, wounded and captured were not due to any deficit in leadership but simply to the high cost paid for bitter resistance put up by the well entrenched Nazi Army. As part of General George S. Patton’s 3rd Army, the 314th Infantry Regiment was the first across the Seine River and helped liberate France. Later in the winter of 1944 when the Germans launched their massive counter offensive now known as the Battle of the Bulge, the now veteran 314th had to retake its own positions after other “green” US army units which had rotated in succumbed to the massive German onslaught. At the end of World War II the United States had one of the largest armies in history. However, at wars end millions of soldiers of America’s greatest generation put down their arms and returned to civilian life. And once again, the 314th Infantry Regiment was deactivated in 1945 as its citizen soldier G.I.s returned to diverse occupations and in so doing helped catapult a victorious America to become the world’s leading super power.
More World War II photographs below.
Unlike the majority of the United States Army’s Regiments of World War II, the 314th Infantry Regiment was reactivated in 1947 and has continued to exist as part of today’s United States Army. In 2009 the 1st Battalion of the 314th Regiment, Infantry, and the 3rd Infantry Battalion of the 314th Regiment, Field Artillery are part of the 174th Infantry Brigade based in Fort Drum, NY. The mission of the 1st of the 314th and the 3rd of the 314th include providing a full spectrum of training, readiness and mobilization operations to the 1st Army. Components of the 314th have served in Iraq in support of what the US Army refers to as “theater strategic objectives.”
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