Word: ist
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Dates: during 1940-1949
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...mechanized outfit the ist Cavalry Division left Fort Bliss in 1943, bound for the Pacific. Its commander was burly Major General Innis Palmer ("Bull") Swift, a veteran spit-&-polish horse soldier ("It doesn't take a damn bit of practice to live like a hog") who made a crack record in combat...
...October 1944, along with the 24th and other divisions, the ist Cavalry went ashore on Leyte. Their new commander, Major General Verne D. Mudge, in the best tradition of Bull Swift, alerted his men against surprise Jap paratroop attacks with the stern words: "The best goddam way for a Jap to commit suicide is to land near a cavalry unit or otherwise horse around with a cavalry unit." The outfit seized Tacloban, later fought next to the veteran 32nd ("Red Arrow") in the bloody, muddy Ormoc pincers operation...
...months later the ist was ferried onto an enemy shore again-this time on Lingayen Gulf, where three years before the Japs had landed. The 1st's spectacular dash to Manila was only its first job on Luzon. It is still there, routing out Japs...
...almost every campaign since Commodore Esek Hopkins' expedition to New Providence in the Bahamas, in March 1776. Before this war the Corps was not arranged in divisions. Nevertheless, the history of the Corps in World War II will largely be the story of its divisions, beginning with the ist. This was the outfit chosen to make the first big U.S. attack in World War II-the gambling, amphibious assault on Guadalcanal in August 1942. Major General Alexander A. Vandegrift, later Marine Commandant...
...torn coconut plantations, crossed the Tenaru River, fought the battle of Lunga Ridge; how they grabbed the airfield and hung on, almost out of supplies, ravaged by malaria, while the Japs poured in reinforcements. That tropical battleground became the focus of a nation's anxiety. If the ist had failed, the damage to U.S. plans and morale would have been incalculable. But the ist hung on. buried its hundreds of dead and counted the enemy dead in the thousands...