Field ArTillery - US Army Center Of Military History

wOrld war ii
L–4 from the 29th Infantry Division Artillery
flying over a 105-mm. howitzer battery
161
A chief feature of the new division artillery was the addition of ten light slowspeed
airplanes, two in each headquarters battery, for observation. The concept was
tested in 1942, and aerial observers first saw action in the invasion of North Africa
in November of that year. Except for minor reductions, the infan try division artillery
remained essentially the same through out the remainder of the war (Table 14). 10
The functions of the division artillery batteries also remained essentially as they
had in previous years. The headquarters batteries furnished communications, fire
direction, sur vey, and administrative support. The headquarters batteries of both the
105-mm. and 155-mm. howitzer battalions each had an opera tions platoon and a
communications platoon, the former having an operations and fire direc tion sec tion
and an instrument and survey section and the latter having wire and radio sections.
Battalion person nel and battery maintenance sections, along with headquarters
person nel, com pleted the headquarters batteries. The howitzer bat teries each contained
a headquarters, battery detail, a firing battery of four howitzer sections, a
fifth (ammunition) section, and a maintenance platoon. The service batteries, each
consisting of a headquarters, a service platoon (with supply and motor maintenance
10 Memo, WDGCT 320.2 (2-5-42) for CG, AGF, 6 Jun 1942, sub: Organic Air Observation for Field
Artillery, copy in Richard Tierney, The Army Aviation Story (Northport, Ala.: Colonial Press, 1963), pp.
68–69; TO 6–10, 15 Jul 1943, and related tables.