Evening Republican, Volume 22, Number 104, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 3 May 1919 — LAST UNITS OF “RAINBOW” MEN REACH STATES [ARTICLE]

LAST UNITS OF “RAINBOW” MEN REACH STATES

Washington, May 2.—Only about thirty-five per cent of the more than 22,000 men composing the fortysecond (Rainbow) division, as it returned from France, were members of the original division as organized at Camp Mills, New York, to embark for the front. Practivally all of these men, it was learned today, have been wounded or otherwise incapacitated during the months of service. They had been returned from the hospitals and rest camps to the division and when it received orders for home a special effort was made by the division staff to get together all the original Rainbow personnel who had survived the rigors of the campaign. _ . The intense activity of the division during the fighting is shown by the number of replacement troops which passed through its muster rolls ( during that period. This number is placed by officers of the division at approximately 67,000 men against the full war strength of 27,500. Each time it was withdrawn for rest it was necessary practically to reconstitute 1 the divisions’s personnel because of casualties. Toward the end of the fighting, however, many of the men sent forward in replacements were original members of the Rainbow division, who had recovered and returned to duty. This, officers say, accounted for the percentage of its original rolls which came back with the organization. The last elements of the fortysecond arrived yesterday at Newport News.