FLORIDA GUARD AND STATE GUARD THE SECOND WORLD WAR











 ,

















 -!j




 -: -' S ._ -





Perimeter defense of Company A,. 124th Infantr' Regiment. 31st Division, at Aitape. Dutch New Guinea. 29July 1944



was attacked on the 7th of December. 1941, and within through the political efforts of Florida's Congressmen
a few days, America was at war with Japan, Germany, would it be reconstituted and returned to the 31st Di-
Italy. and their various allies, vision as it prepared for the active war in the South
 Because of the unfounded but widespread popular Pacific.
fear of German or Japanese invasion of the United During the remainder of 1942 and nearly all of
States in the early months of the war, detachments of 1943, the 31st Division trained and retrained its units as
the 31 st Division were scattered in coastal defenses from drafts of individual soldiers were pulled from it, sent to
Wilmington. North Carolina. to Key West in Florida. By other formations, officer candidate school, the Army
late spring, the Division was ordered to reassemble, Air Corps, or other army speciality schools. It was
minus Florida's 124th Infantry Regiment. The Regi- shifted from Florida to Camp Bowie in Texas, then to
ment's extraordinary proficiency, as demonstrated in Camp Shelby in Mississippi. Despite the fact that. at any
the maneuvers of 1941. caused the Army to detail it as a given time, a large percentage of the men in the Divi-
demonstration regiment at Fort Benning in Georgia. In sion were raw recruits sent to it for training, the Divi-
late 1943, the Regiment was disbanded and only sion continually achieved the highest possible efficiency