Brig. Gen. Donald J. Myers commanding the 40th Inf Division from Jul 1945 to inactivation in 1946, he was in command when Lieut. Col. Tozuka signed the surrender instrument at Cabatuan Airfield, Cabatuan, Iloilo, Panay Island, Philippines on September 2, 1945. 
Maj. Gen. Rapp Brush commanding the 40th Inf Division until Jul 1945, he was in command when the 40th Infantry Division invaded Panay Island, Philippines on March 18, 1945. |
For nearly 100 years, the Sunshine Division has protected California and the nation
By Jonathan (Jay) Koester
NCO Journal
World War II
By the day after the Dec. 7, 1941, attack on Pearl Harbor by the Japanese, elements of the 40th Division were sent to various strategic locations in Southern California to defend against what many thought would be an imminent attack.
Retired Master Sgt. Duane Whaley, 88, joined the 40th Division in 1940 and still lives in Southern California. He remembers the time well. “We got the mission to guard the whole West Coast,” Whaley said. “My regiment, the 184th, guarded from the Mexican border all the way up to Oceanside (Calif.). We kept expecting an invasion from Japan.”
Though the attack never came, members of the 40th Division were tasked with rounding up civilians of Japanese descent living in California to relocate them to internment camps. In the book, The Fighting Fortieth in War and Peace, James D. Delk wrote about the division’s role.
“Japanese-Americans were moved into relocation camps starting in early February,” Delk wrote. “The 40th Division was tasked with moving these unfortunate civilians and for guarding their possessions. They were forced to quickly liquidate their homes, or arrange for non-Japanese friends to act as caretakers.”
In December 1942, the division moved to Guadalcanal in the South Pacific for training and combat patrolling, Delk said.
“By the middle of January (1943), the movement of the division from Oahu, Hawaii, had been completed,” Delk wrote. “Troops were ordered to always wear their helmets — not to protect themselves from the enemy, but from the very real danger of coconuts falling on their heads. There were coconuts everywhere, planted primarily by the Proctor & Gamble Co., and the heavy coconuts falling 60 or 70 feet could be deadly.”
Whaley said the training and patrols were some of the most difficult in his National Guard career.
“We started doing patrol work all through the jungles of Guadalcanal, looking for a spare Japanese someplace maybe left behind,” Whaley said. “Worst jungle I’ve seen in my life. Mosquitoes were so thick we had to wear a net over our helmets. That’s where I got malaria.”
By December 1944, the Soldiers of the 40th Infantry Division were preparing to depart toward the Philippines for their first major battles of the war, Delk wrote. On Dec. 1, 1944, Maj. Gen. Rapp Brush sent the following message to the Soldiers of the 40th Division:
“We are now entering the most important period in our lives and in the history of our division. The operation in which we are about to participate constitutes the culmination of three long years of war in the Pacific. I am sure that every member of the division is proud that we have been selected to participate in the spearhead attack on this vital objective.
“Through long periods of rigorous training we have molded and hardened ourselves into a highly efficient combat team. Those periods are now behind us. We are about to receive the real test. I feel that we are fully prepared to meet this test and bring the operation to a speedy and successful conclusion. I have the utmost confidence in you.
“Good luck and God bless you. THIS IS IT!”
Indeed, it was. The division attacked the Japanese at Luzon, Panay and Negros in the Philippines. By March 1, 1945, the enemy had been successfully driven into the mountains, Delk wrote. “The division was proud of their first real combat,” he wrote. “After the bloody fighting for several weeks, the division was disappointed they were not selected to take Manila. Many Soldiers were convinced that ‘the brass’ didn’t want a National Guard regiment to take Manila, and sent in the Army’s 5th Cavalry (Regiment).”
Japanese staff studies captured in the battles showed how much respect they had for the 40th Division, Delk wrote.
“In the words of the Japanese staff officers, ‘The American ability to organize and deliver hard-driving assaults and their alertness in meeting our night raids was astonishing,’” he wrote. “They were particularly impressed with the division’s mortars, considering them to be the division’s most effective weapon.”
At the end of the fighting, the division was credited with killing or capturing 6,145 Japanese on Luzon, and with killing or capturing 4,732 Japanese on Panay and Negros. In the course of all its fighting during World War II, the 40th Division had 715 killed in action, plus five missing.
40th ID Timeline
April 6, 1917: United States enters World War I.
Sept. 16, 1917: The 40th Division is organized at Camp Kearny, Calif.
Aug. 31, 1918: All 40th Division troops have been sent to Europe.
June 18, 1926: 40th Division headquarters established in Berkeley, Calif.
Nov. 24–26, 1927: 40th helps control Folsom Prison riots.
March 10, 1933: 40th Division troops respond to Long Beach earthquake.
July 5, 1934: 40th Division elements activated for longshoremen’s strike in San Francisco.
Dec. 7, 1941: Japanese attack Pearl Harbor. 40th Division immediately provides security for southern California.
July 8, 1942: 40th Division starts move to Hawaii, completed in early October 1942.
Dec. 20, 1943: 40th Division leaves for Guadalcanal.
April 23, 1944: Elements of the 40th Division relieve 1st Marine Divsion on New Britain, Papua New Guinea.
Jan. 9, 1945: 40th Division invades Luzon, Philippines.
Mar. 18, 1945: 40th Division, composed of the 185th Inf Regiment and the 2nd Battalion 160th Inf Regiment, invades Panay Island, Philippines.
Mar. 18, 1945: Blitzkrieg to Cabatuan, Iloilo; 2nd Battalion 160th Inf Regiment, upon landing in Tigbauan, races to Cabatuan, Iloilo, Philippines in a mechanized blitzkrieg lightning swoop to liberate Cabatuan Airfield and the town of Cabatuan, arriving in Cabatuan that night, at midnight. Commanding the 2nd Battalion 160th Inf Regiment was Lieut. Col. Lex Stout.
Mar. 26, 1945: The 1st Battalion and the 3rd Battalion of the 160th Inf Regiment arrive in Panay Island, Philippines, joining their 2nd Battalion which had arrived earlier on Mar. 18, 1945.
Mar. 29, 1945: 40th Division invades Negros Island, Philippines.
June 15–18, 1945: 40th Division elements return from Negros to Panay.
Aug. 14, 1945: Japan accepts unconditional surrender terms.
Sept. 2, 1945: Lieut. Col. Tozuka signs the surrender instrument at Cabatuan Airfield, Cabatuan, Iloilo, Panay Island, Philippines, Col. Stanton of the 160th Inf Regiment receiving the surrender.
Sept. 7, 1945: 40th Division starts departing Panay for Korea for occupation. LSD Carter Hall (Landing Ship Dock Carter Hall) leaves Panay for Korea, the first ship to do so with the advance party of the 40th Infantry Division and elements of the 532nd EB&SR (532nd Engineer Boat and Shore Regiment).
Sept. 7, 1945: 658th Tractor Battalion assumes control of the Cabatuan Airfield POW Camp.
April 7, 1946: 40th Division inactivated at Camp Stoneman, Calif.
Oct. 14, 1946: 40th Division reorganized and federally recognized at Los Angeles.
Sept. 1, 1950: 40th Division activated for Korea. Advance party departs for Camp Cooke (now Vandenberg Air Force Base).
April 10, 1951: 40th Division advance elements arrive in Japan. Division given mission of defending north Honshu while training.
Dec. 22, 1951: 40th Division alerted for move to Korea to relieve 24th ID.
Jan. 6, 1952: First ship departs Japan for Korea with first elements of the 40th Division.
Jan. 20, 1952: 40th Division’s first loss in the Korean War was Sgt. 1st Class Kenneth Kaiser Jr., killed near Kumsong.
April 1952: Enemy probes of the division’s lines increase. A total of 3,636 enemy rounds hit in April.
May 1952: Fewer contacts initiated by the enemy. A total of 2,722 enemy mortar and artillery rounds hit in May.
June 26–28, 1952: 2nd Republic of Korea Division relieves the 40th ID.
Oct. 16, 1952: 40th ID ordered to relieve 25th Division in the Paem-Ihyon-Ni sector.
April 27, 1953: 40th Division deploys across Ihyon-Ni-Kalbakkumi (Punch Bowl) sector.
May 8, 1954: Final review of 40th Division in Republic of Korea.
June 30, 1954: 40th ID is released from active federal service and reverts to state control.
July 1, 1954: 40th Infantry Division reorganizes and is redesignated as the 40th Armored Division.
Jan. 25-27, 1956: 40th AD elements assist during floods in Los Angeles area.
Aug. 13–24, 1965: 40th AD employed to control the Watts Riots in Los Angeles.
Jan. 13, 1974: 40th ID (Mechanized) is organized and federally recognized with its headquarters in Long Beach, Calif.
April 1981: 40th ID headquarters moved to Los Alamitos Joint Forces training base.
April–May 1992: 40th ID employed to control Los Angeles riots after the Rodney King verdict.
Jan. 17, 1994: After the Northridge earthquake, 40th Division elements establish tent cities and provide security.
From Sept. 11, 2001, to present day: Elements of the 40th Infantry Division have served in Iraq and Afghanistan. The Division’s Soldiers remain on guard and on watch to help after natural disasters or other emergencies in California.
40th Infantry Division
When Major General Rapp Brush led the veteran 40th Infantry Division into the Philippine liberation campaign, he began retracing the steps of his youth.
On the day the 40th liberated the city of Lingayen, General Brush rode through its shell-pocked streets. “This doesn’t look like much of a playground for a boy,” he remarked.
As a boy in Lingayen, where his father was Military District Commander in 1901, the leader of the “Sunburst” Division had taught Filipino youngsters to play baseball. When General Brush had led his Doughboys in a lightning, 10-day liberation of the island of Panay, he established his headquarters in Iloilo, where his father once served as commanding general.
The thorough knowledge of the country owned by General Brush, plus the blazing combat spirit of his men, made the 40th a terror to the Japanese.
The Doughboys of the 40th were better than green hands at fighting when they landed on Luzon on D-day. Early in 1944 they had been in action on New Britain in the Bismarck Archipelago. The Infantrymen, knifing through snarled jungle growth, continued the offensive initiated by the 1st Marine Division. From Talasea on New Britain’s north coast, Doughboys of the 40th jumped 25 miles eastward to capture the Cape Moskins airdome, and make escape-proof the trap which surrounded thousands of Japanese troops in the Rabaul area.
The 40th, known also as tne namesnake "Rattlesnake" Division, struck with the speed of that reptile when it landed at Luzon. By nightfall of D-day, the 40th had rolled on past Lingayen and crossed the Agno-Calmay River. On January 21, 11 days after the invasion, soldiers of the 40th entered Tarlac, provincial capital and key highway-railroad junction. Crossing the Bamban River, Sunburst footsloggers were the first American troops to reach Clark Field, target of the earliest Japanese bombing attack in the Philippines after the outbreak of the Pacific war. The 40th went on to capture Fort Stotsenburg and Camp O'Donnell, where hundreds of prisoners of Bataan and Corregidor died.
At the end of 53 continuous day s. of fighting on Luzon the 40th had killed 6,145 of the enemy.
Early in March elements of the 40th surprised the Japs by landing on Panay Island in the Visayas. On the third day of fighting, the Doughboys captured Iloilo, second most important city in the Philippines. The city had been badly damaged by the Japanese but the harbor facilities were immediately put to use. Within ten days all of Panay had been liberated, and American planes began landing on airstrips at Santa Barbara and Mundurriao.
Units of the 40th landed on Guimaras and Inampulugan Islands, between Panay and Negros, to erase any threat to American sea lanes in the central Philippines. Late in March the entire Division jumped across Guimaras Strait for an invasion of Negros.
Twenty-seven hours after H-hour the Sunbursters had captured Bacolod, capital of Negros Occidental. By June 1 the 40th had killed and captured nearly 5,000 Japs on Panay and Negros.
While the 160th and 185th Infantry Regiments were operating in the Visayas, the 108th effected a landing on Masbate Island in the Visayan Sea between Luzon and Panay, and destroyed the Jap garrison there. The Doughboys of the hardhitting 108th then went ashore on the northern coast of Mindanao, to seal the doom of the Japs trapped between the 31st and 40th Divisions.
From Fighting Divisions, Kahn & McLemore, Infantry Journal Press, 1945-1946.
https://www.sonsoflibertymuseum.org/40th-infantry-division-ww2.cfm
