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Maine’s 103rd Infantry Regiment
42 Greater Kennebec & Androscoggin River Valleys
Maine’s 103rd Infantry Regiment
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by Greg Davis A long legacy of service
The National Guard, older than our nation itself, has the longest continuous history of any military organization in the United States. In the immediate vicinity of Rumford, the forerunner of the guard, a state militia, dates back to the Civil War with some units in the Bangor and Waterville area dating to the Revolutionary War and the War of 1812.
Company B, 103rd Infantry Regiment of the Maine National Guard was the Rumford contingent. They trained in the municipal building and other sites until an armory was built in 1941. Rumford men served on the Mexican border and in World War I. Some ancestors of local residents could have been among those who formed the 103rd’s predecessor, the Second Maine Infantry.
A Capt. Emerson organized a company of infantry in Bangor, the first volunteer infantry company in the U.S., and it was accepted into immediate service by then Governor Washburn who said, “Rendezvous the troops; the state will pay.”
Two other companies, the Gratten Guards and Bangor Light Infantry, then volunteered and were incorporated into the Maine regiment. The regiment participated in the Civil War engagements at Bull Run, Peninsula, Manassas, Virginia 1863, Gettysburg, Wilderness, Spotsylvania, and Cold Harbor.
One of the early commanders, Joshua Chamberlain (later a four-term Maine Governor) was awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor for the regiment’s famous defense of Little Round Top at Gettysburg on July 2, 1863.
The Second Maine Infantry was the first to leave Maine to fight in the Civil War and was the first Union contingent to set foot on the soil of Virginia. At Falls Church, Virginia they faced the Confederate lines for three weeks.
The regiment was next called out for federal duty on May 2, 1898 for the Spanish-American War. Some men made up a battalion of heavy field artillery but did not see any action. Follow-
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ing the war with Spain, the regiment was once again formed as a militia unit.
Trouble on the Mexican border in 1916 necessitated the call to arms once again, and the regiment was hastily mobilized and rushed to the border where it remained on duty until mustered out four months later. On April 13, 1917 the Second Maine Infantry was recalled to active service. The regiment, under the command of Col. Frank M. Hume, did guard duty at bridges and public property before training for entry into World War I.
On Aug. 21, 1917 the regiment was expanded to 2,002 officers and men and redesignated the 103rd Infantry Regiment of the 52nd Brigade, 26th (Yankee) Division. It then moved to Westfield, Massachusetts where another 1,500 men were absorbed from New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Vermont, and Rhode Island detachments. These men of the 103rd Infantry Rgt. received final training in the Neufchateau area of France. In February of 1918 the men first saw action just north of Soissons. Later fighting in Chateau Thierry to relieve the 2nd Division, the Maine participants were engaged in the great counterattack started by the Allies in July of 1918.
Men of the 103rd captured Torcy, France in the first offensive launched by an American unit in the war. In that action, some 25 German prisoners were taken.
The regiment participated in the St. Mihiel salient, where 800 prisoners and large amounts of supplies were taken. They were at Verdun and experienced heavy fighting through the morning of the armistice. This was not without some cost. The regiment entered the war with about 2,900 men, and only 900 survived. Rumford area casualties included Lucien Arsenault and John Lavine of Mexico, Harry Bryant and Napoleon Willette of Rumford, and Albert Lavergus of Canton.
After serving valiantly in World War I, the men of the 103rd Infantry were mustered out at Camp Devens, Massachusetts in 1919. The 3rd Maine Infantry was redesignated 103rd Infantry in 1922, thereby saving for posterity the numerals “103.”
From the end of World War I to 1932 the Maine unit was commanded by Harry M. Bigelow of Portland. Under the command of Col. Spaulding Bisbee, the 103rd was once again inducted into federal service as part of the 43rd Infantry Division on Feb. 24, 1941.
Prior to World War II induction, the unit had helped out in times of fires and floods. Almost every regiment of the unit served in the Lewiston-Auburn shoe strike of 1937. Men were on duty for 28 days straight because of the tensions.
(cont. on page 44)
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(cont. from page 43)
A defiant vow to defend the inalienable rights of mankind is contained in the regiment’s slogan: “To the Last Man.” The regimental badge is a blue Maltese cross on a white background. The cross signifies Civil War service. On the arms of the cross are six fleursde-lis, symbolizing the unit’s World War I engagements in France.
At its induction into federal service in 1941, the 103rd was made up of National Guardsmen from Augusta, Portland, Auburn, Lewiston, Buckfield, Mechanic Falls, Biddeford, Rumford, Newport, Waterville, Dexter, Millinocket, Belfast, Skowhegan, and Gardiner.
The original 103rd possessed a decidedly French accent, and commands in many of the companies could be given and understood in French. As World War II progressed, the personnel of the regiment changed rapidly until it was a conglomeration of accents from throughout the U.S.
The 133rd Engineer Battalion, Maine National Guard, Portland, carries the 103rd’s lineage. At the end of World War II, as part of the 43rd Division, Maine’s 103rd became an armored unit for a time before being given the engineering battalion designation. Thus, no unit now carries the 103rd numerals.
When called to duty in 1941, men from throughout the state boarded trains and buses for the Portland Exposition Building, where they completed the processing for federalization. Many Rumford, Mexico, and area men formed Company B and were given an enthusiastic send-off by their communities.
A 103rd veteran, Ivan Churchill noted that the Rumford men left from the old railroad station. An old newspaper clipping states, “Thousands of residents of Rumford, Mexico, and other nearby towns crowded the grounds at the station as the militia boarded the long train. There were shouts of cheer and good luck, mingled with solemn faces and some tears as mothers and sweethearts bid farewell to the lads, wondering whether it was to be just a year’s training or more...”
The Rumford Falls Times article noted the train left at 8 a.m. with the local contingent under the command of Capt. Ulric Bouffard who had also bid goodbye for the company nearly a quarter of a century before when it left for World War I service.
Under the command of Col. Spaulding Bisbee, the 103rd departed Portland by train and truck convoy to Camp Blanding, Florida where men spent the next year undergoing rigorous training which included maneuvers in Louisiana and the Carolinas.
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Former 103rd member Gerard Lavoie noted the song We’ll be Back in a Year, Little Darling came out about the time he and his fellow soldiers departed. “Well, we didn’t come back in a year. With Pearl Harbor it was four and a half years later,” he added.
After the Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbor, the 103rd, as part of the 43rd Infantry Division, moved to Camp Shelby, Mississippi, and on to Ft. Ord in California where it awaited embarkation for overseas service. The 103rd finally left San Francisco on Oct. 1, 1942 with its troopship arriving at Auckland, New Zealand on October 22nd. There they underwent special jungle training in preparation for what lay ahead.
Ivan Churchill, a former machine gunner, said Rumford area men served in five major Pacific Theater campaigns. They were in the lines for 63 days without relief at one point during fierce fighting in which a number of local men lost their lives. The 103rd’s World War II casualties totaled 339 men, most killed in action.
After training in New Zealand, the regiment was ordered to defend the island of New Caledonia which had served as a nickel supply for Japan for many years and thus was a primary target of its war machine.
The regiment participated in the mop-up of Guadalcanal. Although its Marine counterparts got most of the publicity, 103rd soldiers were among those who captured part of Anderson Field on Guadalcanal. They also participated in Operation Clean Slate which cleared the Japanese from the Russell Islands. They continued in the New Georgia offensive through January of 1944.
After a short rest period in New Zealand, the 103rd participated in the amphibious landings at the Lingayen Gulf in the Philippines and many of the subsequent battles on the island of Luzon. One of its major achievements was the capture of the Ipo Dam which provided a third of the water supply for Manila. The 43rd Division (and 103rd Rgt.) took the dam before the Japanese could detonate charges placed on the structure. If they hadn’t, Manila would have been flooded. The 103rd’s campaign in the Philippines lasted a total of 173 days.
In the course of the war, the men were involved in the testing of some new weapons. They observed the first use of napalm (jellied gasoline) and tested some recoilless weapons. Gerard Lavoie remembers using a recoilless, shoulder-held bazooka, “One time, we fired into a cave and the shell blew the whole top off the mountain because there was so much ammunition stored (cont. on page 46)
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(cont. from page 45) in there,” he said.
The effectiveness of such highly accurate weapons is noted in a declassified wartime report. “One to four rounds were fired on each type target, scoring an average of better than 75 percent direct hits, and produced the following results: Cave entrances were closed, enemy troops were eliminated, artillery positions and AAA gun positions were destroyed, and sandstone barricades were penetrated up to 24 inches.”
The 103rd awaited the invasion of Japan, in what was to be known as Operation Olympic. The dropping of atomic bombs on Nagasaki and Hiroshima precluded that operation, with the Japanese suing for peace. The regiment participated in the occupation for a short period before returning to the States via San Fransisco, about three years after it had departed from that location.
The regimental colors are in the Hall of Flags at Augusta, but many local men still have vivid memories of their service. From its staff hang 18 battle streamers, dating back to Bull Run and Gettysburg. Its memory is kept alive through reunions which began at the Sons of Italy Club in Lewiston in 1956.
The Maine National Guard was not federalized again until the Berlin crisis of 1961. At that time some Maine men were involved with the Berlin Airlift to thwart the Soviet Union’s attempt to close off the city. More recently, many Guardsmen went to Saudi Arabia and Kuwait with Operations Desert Shield and Desert Storm, as well as contingents traveling to other hot spots around the world since that time.
Peacetime Guard work has included the construction of athletic fields, bridges, campsites, picnic areas, and other facilities for local and county governments.
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