While the 36th Infantry Division’s “special designation” is “Arrowhead,” an Order of Battle of the U.S. Army in World War II’s European Theater of Operations compiled by the Office of the Theater Historian says it also had two other nicknames: Lone Star Division and Panther Division. What’s more, another source,
The Army Almanac: A Book of Facts Concerning the Army of the United States, says the Division was also called the Texas Division.
Just how it acquired the “Panther” moniker is unclear, but the inspiration for the other two informal nicknames is obvious—the Division was formed as a National Guard unit with troops from Texas and Oklahoma in 1917. The official “Arrowhead” nickname was taken from the 36th Infantry Division unit patch (Shoulder Sleeve Insignia), which features the letter “T” (for Texas) on an arrowhead that represents Oklahoma, which at one time was designated as Indian Territory.
One of the subordinate units of the 36th Infantry Division, the 2nd Battalion, was originally assigned to be deployed in the Philippines, but was rerouted to Australia when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor and began its invasion of the Philippines on 8 December 1941. From Australia, the Battalion was rushed to Java to aid Dutch defenders against a looming Japanese invasion. When all Allied forces in the Dutch East Indie surrendered just nine days after the Japanese attacked, 534 Soldiers from the 2nd Battalion were taken prisoner—and for the next 18th months Army officials had no idea of their status.
It was only after American subs sank two Japanese freighters on 6 September 1944 and rescued American POWs that they learned that the members of the “Lost Battalion” had been sent to Burma to work on the Burma Railway, famously memorialized in the 1957 epic
The Bridge on the River Kwai. In addition to the member of the 2nd Battalion, 368 crew members of the USS Houston that survived the ship’s sinking in the Battle of Sundra Strait were also forced to work on the railroad.
For 99 members of the 2nd Battalion’s E Battery, their circumstances were slightly better. Separated from the remaining 435 Soldiers captured on Java, they were first sent to a prison in Singapore before being transferred to Fukuoka, Japan to work in naval shipyards; in June 1945 they were relocated to work in coal mines in Kyushu. All told, 16 percent of the Battalion (86 Soldiers) died while in captivity working as slave laborers for the Japanese, while the Sailors and Marines suffered a 21% mortality rate.
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