American troops in the ETO

Ooops, you're right, the 31st slipped into Europe on my spreadsheet by mistake. And the Americal division was provisional, formed from odds and ends, so I don't usually count it as part of the "90-division gamble". However, it was constituted 24 May 1942 and inactivated 12 December 1945, so it should be included in this count. Thanks!

However, I did not consider the Philippine Division because I was looking at war end.

 

I was just looking at "Army" Divisions, not Marines, but they would add 6 divisions to the Army count as you said. We wanted machines and technology to do more than human sacrifice, which is why I believe we kept the Army divisions at 90, but also had non-divisional combat units tied to divisions or as separate entities.

 

In the Book "Order of Battle US Army in the ETO" it claims 61 divisions were available in the ETO, with the rest being MTO and PTO.

 

I suspect that is because the 62nd division was the 13th Airborne, which was the SHAEF strategic reserve and was never committed. Marshall and Dupuy probably didn't include it because of that.

 

My sources also have 61 divisions in the ETO: 42 infantry, 15 armored, 4 airborne including the 13th.

The MTO at war's end had 7 divisions: 5 infantry, the 1st Armored, and 10th Mountain.

One 'odd' division was the 2nd Cavalry, which was formed and broken up twice without ever seeing combat. This comprised mainly the colored cavalry regiments, although its stateside iteration included a white brigade. It was sent to the MTO, but the men were used for labor, stevedoring, etc. and later as replacements for the Negro 92nd ID.

Discounting the 2nd, there were 89 operational divisions: 66 infantry, 1 cavalry, 1 mountain, 5 airborne, 16 armored.

The 1st Cavalry Division was the only one to fight in the 'square' configuration: two brigades each with two regiments each with two squadrons (battalion equivalent). Its equipment was comparable to infantry except that some stateside quartermaster shipped it 20,000 sabers, probably just to get them off his inventory. Turned out all right, though, with the blades shortened they made useful machetes for jungle fighting.

 

Damn! My fault again, I bollixed the movements of the infantry divisions from ETO to MTO and back. Yes, 47 infantry divisions total between ETO and MTO, of which 42 were ETO and 5 were MTO at the end of the war.