401st Combat Engineer Battalion

[Walt's Daughter]

Fort Ord in World War II

From the Fort Ord Panorama Newspaper Fort Ord began its evolution into what we would recognize today in June 1940. The area purchased in 1917 and known to the troops at the Presidio of Monterey as the “devil’s own acres†had been used by them as a training and maneuver area since World War I. The area sometimes known as the Gigling Reservation then consisted of 15,000 acres of manzanita scrub brush and sand. Elements of the 3rd Infantry Division participated in exercises here in early 1940 before building began in earnest.

 

The 7th Infantry Division was activated by order of the War Department on 1 July 1940 at Fort Ord with the soon to be famous Brigadier General Joseph Stilwell as its first commander since World War I. It began moving into a tent city at Camp Ord (later called East Garrison), while a more permanent post was hurriedly constructed in an area close to Highway 1, known as Camp Clayton. One of the units stationed at the Presidio of Monterey during the inter-war years, 2/76th Field Artillery, became the first unit of the new division. The other unit that was stationed at the Presidio of Monterey, the 11th Cavalry, was soon moved to southern California for duty on the Mexican Border. The 17th Infantry Regiment, a unit traditionally associated with the 7th Infantry Division, was pulled from various posts throughout the country and assembled at Fort Ord. Other units assembled or activated at Fort Ord for inclusion in the Division were: the 32nd Infantry, the 53rd Infantry (activated 1 August 1940), and the 31st Field Artillery (activated 1 July 1940). Non-divisional units at Fort Ord were: the 19th Engineer Regiment (Combat, Corps) -- this unit originally activated as the 39th Engineer Regiment (General Service) on 27 June 1940 was redesignated as the 19th four days later -- and the 1st Medical Regiment.

 

This was takend from this page:

 

http://www.militarymuseum.org/FtOrd.html