Who Are the Tough 'Ombres ?

  THE 90TH “TOUGH ‘OMBRES” DIVISION

THE 90TH INFANTRY DIVISION OFFICIALLY CAME INTO BEING AT CAMP TRAVIS, TEXAS , ON AUGUST 23, 1917 UNDER THE COMMAND OF MAJOR  GENERAL HENRY T. ALLEN .  THE 90TH WAS THE TWENTY-SECOND DIVISION TO JOIN THE AMERICAN EXPEDITIONARY FORCE (A.E.F.) UNDER THE COMMAND OF GENERAL JOHN J. PERSHING. 

GENERAL PERSHING WROTE , AFTER THE WAR , "THE 90TH IS ONE OF THE VERY BEST DIVISIONS SENT OVER HERE,.  EVERYONE  SAYS SO" .  THE WAR ENDED FOR THE DIVISION AS THE MEN STARTED RETURNING HOME ON MARCH 26, 1919 . THE PERSONNEL OF THE 90TH,  AS SOLDIERS, CEASED TO EXIST .  THE SOUL OF THE DIVISION CONTINUED .

 World War I

click here for a short history of the 90th at Camp Travis

• The 90th Division’s first baptism under fire came during the St. Mihiel campaign.
• 90th Division troops were the first to attack from the trenches on September 12, 1918.
• The other great offensive in which the 90th Division played an important role was the Meuse-Argonne campaign.
• The 90th Division’s total casualties in WW I were: 1,387 killed; 6,623 wounded; and more than 2,000 gassed.
• When WW I ended, the 90th Division served in the army of occupation in Germany  from December, 1918 to May, 1919.

World War II
A TRIBUTE TO THE 90TH DIVISION: “Sometimes I think you don’t know how good you are. You are the best soldiers in the world. It was a great honor to command you.” General George S. Patton, Weiden, Germany, July 13, 1945
• The 90th had more days of combat than any other Division in the ETO.
• The 90th had at least one unit in contact with the enemy every day from D-Day to VE- Day.
• The 90th mcluded more than 35 000 men at one time or another [not more than 14000 at any one time]
• The 90th earned the Invasion Arrowhead and all five Battle Stars for Normandy  Northern France Ardennes [Battle of the Bulge] Rhineland Central Europe and also  the French Croix de Guerre.
• The 90th is a highly decorated Division with four Congressional Medal of Honor recipients; 85 Distinguished Service Cross recipients; 115 Air Medals; 4 Distinguished Flying Crosses 1 311 Silver Star recIpients 40 Soldier s Medal recipients 5 057  Bronze Star recipients and 21 371 Purple Hearts 3 889 of which were awarded  posthumously
• The 90th took 83,437 prisoners [the equivalent of 6 divisions] and knocked out 501German tanks 195 self propelled guns 1 228 other artillery pieces 5 572 other German vehicles 82 locomotives 134 airplanes and 3 steam boats
•  The 90th crossed dozens of rivers, liberated hundreds of towns and several million people. The 90th liberated Flossenberg Concentration Camp and captured the Merkers Salt Mine intact with all of Germany s store of gold and art treasures
• The 90th forced the surrender of the German 11th Panzer Division en masse and met the Russians in Czechoslovakia
• The 90th suffered over 15,000 battle wounds. The total number of men treated by medics to include all injuries (trench foot and frostbite) was 25,988.
 

TODAY:
•  In 1990, the 90th Army Reserve Command [ARCOM] mobilized approximately 3,000 troops to participate in Operations Desert Shield and Desert Storm.
•  Today, the 90th Regional Readiness Command [RRC] has mobilized more than 7,000 soldiers in support of the American efforts against terrorism in the Middle East.
•  During Operations Noble Eagle, Enduring Freedom, and Iraqi Freedom, there were almost 400 mobilization actions of from just one soldier to an entire battalion of almost 460 soldiers.
•The TOUGH ‘OMBRE soldiers are serving wherever they are needed in the United States, Europe, and the Middle East.

Originally, the red T-O stood for Texas-Oklahoma, since the division was made up almost entirely of men from those two states. Later, however, men were drawn from every state in the nation, and the T-O came to represent, by common consent, “TOUGH ‘OMBRES”.