Friday, July 18, 1919. Motor Transport Convoy, Carburetor problems. Ft. Wayne Indiana to South Bend, Indiana. 803d Pioneer Infantry boards for home. Army crossing into Mexico. Sacramental Wine survives prohibition.

On this day in 1919, it seems the gasoline problems experienced yesterday manifested themselves, perhaps in the form of carburetor problems.

Ah, it's now the case that entire leagues of drivers have never driven a vehicle with a carburetor, let alone a temperamental one, where as prior generations of drivers who started off with less than new vehicles learned the temperamental intricacies of a device that was, quite frankly, rather primitive.

I like old vehicles, but I don't miss carburetors at all.  I've noticed recently that if you look at an older truck, you'll almost never find one that features the original carburetor.  Edelbrock's seem to be the standard replacement now, probably replacing the two barrel carburetors that were so common as stock items.

The Edelbrock's are massive compared to the originals.  I wonder what these very early ones were like?

Also on this day in 1919 the 803d Pioneer Infantry Battalion boarded the USS Philippines at the French port of Brest for their return voyage to the United States.

I don't know anything about this unit and indeed had never heard of it until now, but pioneer infantry were infantry units trained in some engineering, which the name "pioneer" usually indicates. This was obviously an all black unit.

Also on this day, news hit that there'd been frequent U.S. border crossings into Mexico during the past six months.

At the same time, the Press reported that conditions were being worked out to allow for the production of sacramental wine, showing how the law of unintended results can operate in areas that weren't expected.

The Mexican Border War: The Third Battle of Ciudad Juarez. June 15-16, 1919 Part 3.

The Juarez racetrack on June 16, 1919.  The large hole in the cupola was caused by it being hit by American artillery.

And with this, the story of the United States and the Mexican Revolution, which we started following nearly daily with the 1916 Columbus Raid, and which became as story which bled into World War One, while not definitively over, is significantly over.

As we saw first on June 14, the Villistas launched their anticipated attack on Juarez very late in the night of June 14.  That attack first met with success, but by morning the Villistas had been pushed back.  American forces that had moved up in anticipation of crossing the Rio Grande accordingly went back into Ft. Bliss.

Those troops were soon back out.  Villa's renewed attack was proving successful and the troops reassembled to cross the Rio Grande.  This time they also brought up two armored gun trucks, the first time they'd been used by the U.S. Army in this locality.  Searchlights were also deployed to illuminate Juarez's streets and buildings in the night.

As the battle raged in Juarez shots inevitably began landing in El Paso, wounding and killing American civilians.  At first the Americans held their fire, but ultimately after taking a few casualties the U.S. Army intervened.  The final blow for the U.S. Army was when Pvt. Salvatore Fusco was killed by Villista sniper fire and Pvt. Burchard F. Casey was wounded.  With that, the American troops were ordered across the border to restore order.  The armored gun trucks crossed the Santa Fe Bridge followed by the 24th Infantry Regiment.  The 5th and 7th Cavalry, under Col. Tommy Tomkins, crossed the Rio Grande directly and moved to the western part of the city with the goal of creating a pincer movement in which Villa would be caught.  Near the Juarez racetrack the infantry encountered withdrawing Constitutionalist who informed them that the Villistas were dug in at the racetrack, which the 82nd Artillery then shelled.  Cavalry advanced from the east on the racetrack but encountered no Villista forces.

 Pvt. Salvatore Fusco.

At daybreak, the Cavalry returned to the river to water their horses and then moved south into Mexico in hopes of assaulting Villa's base.

They did in fact locate it, shell it and then assault it.  However, the Villistas, while at first surprised while eating breakfast, rapidly abandoned the camp, leaving their wounded as well as horses, mules and equipment.

The American infantry remained in Juarez itself while this was going on and received a protest from the Constitutionalist forces for entering the country without invitation, which was ironic under the situation as they were outnumbered and well on their way to defeat at the time that the Americans intervened.  Indeed, they speant the rest of the battle in their barracks.  The Americans soon  nonetheless withdrew, deeming their mission accomplished.   Three Americans were killed in the battle, Pvt. Fusco, Pvt. Anthony Cunningham of the 24th Infantry and Sgt. Pete Chigas of the 7th Cavalry.

Col. Tommy Tomkins in Juarez, whose brother Frank Tomkins had led American cavalry across the border following the Columbus Raid, and who lead the U.S. Cavalry contingent across the border in the Battle of Juarez. The Tomkins effectively bookended the Border War.

The battle was not only the last battle of the Border War, it was the last battle to be fought by Pancho Villa.  He did not retire thereafter, but instead actually conducted areal warfare through an air corps formed in his service. Although he remained very resentful against the US intervention in the battle, as well as of course earlier American intervention in the Mexican Revolution, he never participated in another battle against American troops and he was not really capable of doing so after the Battle of Juarez.  Villistas may have raided in Arizona as late as 1920, when some Mexican forces attacked Ruby Arizona, but the loyalty of those troops is not known.

Funeral procession for Pvt. Fusco.

While the battle didn't result in Villa's capture and it didn't fully end his activities, for all practical purposes he was done for.  So in a way, the 1919 battle achieved what the 1916 intervention had not.  Villa was effectively destroyed as a force in the field.  Once again, the U.S. Army was frustrated in a desire to capture Villa, but it didn't really matter.  Villa, while sufficiently resurgent to have mounted such a campaign, was not the force he had been earlier in the Mexican Revolution even if the Constituionalist forces in Juarez proved inadequate to contest him.  The American reaction to his presence in Juarez, justified by American troops being in harm's way, ended his career as a serious contender in the Mexican Revolution.

Inaugural regimental services of the "Black Devils", 814th Pioneer Infantry, Chaplain Hayes Farish officiating, Sunday, Sept. 29th, 1918, Camp Zachary Taylor, Louisville, Ky.

The Big Picture: Gila Forest Camp, N. Mex., 109th Engr's., 34th Div., June 1918, Col. F. E. Downing, C.O. Copyright deposit, July 2, 1918.

"Members of Division [sic] standing at attention, men in covered wagons and carts behind, tents, and smoke from fires in background."

3d Division Order of Battle, 1918

The order of Battle for the 3d Division, which we've been discussing here recently.

All US divisions in World War One were big "square" divisions, much larger than those which the US went to after 1940. Indeed, they were absolutely enormous compared to the divisions of other armies, in part because the U.S. was capable of fully manning a division. Generally, U.S divisions contained at least 30,000 men, but some would swell up beyond that. The 3d Division is an example of that. By October 1918 it contained 54,000 men, well three times the size of a World War Two Division.

Indeed, this impacts histories of the war as many histories fail to note how large US divisions were.  As we'll see, in the Battle of Belleau Wood the 2nd Division took on elements of five German divisions. But by 1918 German divisions were rarely fully manned. For that matter, Allied ones were rarely fully manned either.  So while histories may note that one army or another had "x" divisions here and there, while the US had only "y", the US commitment at any one time was often much larger than those numbers would suggest.

Anyhow, the 3d Division was made up mostly of Regular Army units. For that reason, it was one of the first divisions in France and one of the first combat ready divisions.  As the U.S. Army did not keep divisions formed during peacetime, it was assembled just prior to the war.  Nonetheless, it was largely made up of Regular Army soldiers augmented in some areas, to flesh it out, with National Guardsmen (most likely) or recent inductees from civilian life.

Here's how the unit was formed.

Headquarters, 3rd Division

5th Infantry Brigade, consisting of;

4th Infantry Regiment, a regular Army regiment.

7th Infantry Regiment, also a regular regiment

8th Machine Gun Battalion.  I don't know the make up of this unit but machine gun battalions were a recent introduction into the Army.  World War One would prove to be unique for the combat use of such battalions and they'd not really reappear in the U.S. Army during World War Two.

6th Infantry Brigade, consisting of;

30th Infantry Regiment. Regular Army.

38th Infantry Regiment.  Regular Army.

9th Machine Gun Battalion

3rd Field Artillery Brigade, consisting of;

10th Field Artillery Regiment (75 mm)  Newly formed in 1916 at Camp Douglas, Arizona.

18th Field Artillery Regiment (155 mm).  Newly formed in 1916 at Ft. Bliss, Texas.

76th Field Artillery Regiment (75 mm).  Converted from regular U.S. Army's 18th Cavalry Regiment wholesale.  The 18th Cavalry was a newly formed Cavalry regiment authorized in 1916 which had a brief existence before being converted to cavalry Quite a few of the newly authorized cavalry regiments from the National Defense Act of 1916, and National Guard cavalry regiments, were reorganized from cavalry to artillery or transport.  Indeed, even some National Guard infantry was so reorganized.  The reorganization of available cavalry regiments made sense in context as the men in them were familiar with handling horses, and artillery was horse drawn at the time.

3rd Trench Mortar Battery.  Another new formation. Trench mortars were a major feature of World War One but would be obsolete by World War Two.

7th Machine Gun Battalion

6th Engineer Regiment

5th Field Signal Battalion

Headquarters Troop, 3rd Division.  This was a cavalry troop.  I'm not sure what cavalry regiment provided the troops for it.  Basically, however, cavalry troops were individual troops assigned from prewar cavalry regiments, quite a few of which were National Guard cavalry troops.

3rd Train Headquarters and Military Police.  Military police as a regular establishment was new to the Army at this time, and reflected its enormous growth.

3rd Ammunition Train.

3rd Supply Train

3rd Engineer Train

3rd Sanitary Train

5th, 7th, 26th, and 27th Ambulance Companies and Field Hospital