91st Chemical Mortar Battalion

91st Chemical Mortar Battalion. “High Dawn”. Activated on 15 February 1944 at Camp Joseph T. Robinson, Arkansas, as the 91st Chemical Battalion Motorized, the battalion was redesignated the 91st Chemical Mortar Battalion on 22 February 1944. Lt. Col. Roy Muth assumed command on that day and remained the battalion commander until becoming the Chemical Officer of VIII Corps on 15 April of the following year. Over the next five weeks the new battalion was populated largely by former antiaircrait personnel, and on 2 April it boarded a train for Camp Swift, Texas, where it began training in the tactics of chemical warfare. , , By summer's end, at full strength and equipped well, the battalion was ready to ship out for Europe. Colonel Muth moved his troops to Massachusetts, and on 11 October the 91st left Boston embarked on the USS Wakefield. The last elements of the battalion debarked at Omaha Beach on 22 October. This first-person account provides a poignant snapshot of D+138: “as we staggered off with our duffle bags we met our first combat men, Air Corps personnel who were to use the same ships we had crossed the Channel on to go home on rotation. They were dirty, tired, and jubilant. We were clean, fresh, and downhearted. The contrast was one which impressed us a great deal." , , Two days later the battalion was assigned to XII Corps, the spearhead of the Third Army, but remained bivouacked in the Valognes Staging Area for more than a month while it secured additional equipment and supplies. The battalion's first operational mission in the ongoing consolidation of the Normandy trains area was to patrol and provide security for the vital gasoline pipeline from Cherbourg to the limit of the Normandy Base Section. Relieved of that mission on 10 December, the 91st assembled in the Abbe de Blanchlande to join the Third Army's drive eastward, which began three days later. Once in combat, the 91st Chemical Mortar Battalion fought continuously for 117 days. Battalion veteran Kenneth Goosman remembers that "we stood toe to toe with our mortars and answered our enemy with whatever was necessary. Our firepower was overwhelming. With just one platoon of mortars, the usual request for ‘fire for effect’ would place 300 pounds of high explosives on our target.” , , The 91st Chemical Mortar Battalion fought alongside the infantry it supported, suffering forty-nine casualties, fifteen battle deaths among them. Expending a combat total of 68,789 high explosive and chemical rounds (eg. white phosphorous), High Dawn earned battle stars for the Rhineland, Ardennes-Alsace, and Central Europe Campaigns. , Given in honor of TEC5 Charles C. Starwood Jr. by his family. TEC5 Starwood served in Company A of the 91st Chemical Mortar Battalion for all three of its campaigns.