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History of the California State Militia and National Guard
578th Engineer Battalion
 
 
The 578th Engineer Battalion's mission is to mobilize and deploy to conduct mobility, countermobility, survivability and limited sustainment engineering in support of a division maneuver brigade. It is also charged with conducting stability and support operations.
 
The 578th Engineer Battalion was originally organized on 12 October 1916 in the California National Guard at Los Angeles as Company B, 1st Battalion of Engineers. It was drafted into Federal service on 5 August 1917. It was reorganized and redesignated on 14 August 1917 as Company E, 117th Engineers, an element of the 42nd Division. It demobilized on 14 May 1919 at Camp Jackson, SC.
 
For more information about the this period, CLICK HERE.
 
It was reorganized and Federally recognized on 1 April 1937 in the California National Guard at Los Angeles as Company C, 115th Quartermaster Regiment, an element of the 40th Division.
 
The unit was inducted into Federal service on 3 March 1941 at Los Angeles. It was reorganized and redesignated on 18 February 1942 as the 184th Quartermaster Company and relieved from assignment to the 40th Division. It reorganized and was redesignated on 1 April 1942 as teh 184th Quartermaster Depot Company. It inactivated on 2 May 1946 in Germany.
 
It consolidated on 23 April 1947 with the 2nd Battalion, 115th Quartermaster Regiment, and the 139th Transportation Corps Truck Company and the consolidated was reorganized and Federally recognized as the 578th Engineer Combat Battalion, an element of the 40th Infantry Division, with Headquarters at Torrance. The unit was one of the four new battalions designed to offer engineer support for the western United States. The headquarters of the 578th started out in a few left over Army Air Corps building located at the Torrance Airfield. The line companies were formed over a two year period from 1948 to 1949 with Company B being located in Manhattan Beach. At the time there was no armory, so buildings were borrowed from the local property owners association. The personnel of this new engineer battalion were a diverse group of people coming from a wide range of professional backgrounds. A majority of the officers were graduate engineers from the University of Southern California.
 
On September 1, 1950, the 40th Infantry Division was mobilized for the Korean War. The 40th, including the 578th Engineer Combat Battalion mobilized at Camp Cooke (Vandenberg Air Force Base). For the first few months the troops found themselves cutting down five years growth of weeds and repairing the old buildings from the camp. After several months of intensified training, the Division loaded up its equipment on to rail cars and headed for the Oakland Army Depot.
 
At Oakland, the Division loaded cargo and troop ships for Japan, the first leg of the journey to Korea. On January 1, 1952 the advance party for the 40th Division arrived shortly after and the 578th Engineers arrived in Korea. The 40th Division saw a great deal of a action in Korea most notably in a place called the Punch Bowl, so named due to the shape of the terrain. The Guardsmen of 578th Engineers stayed in Korea until July of 1952 at which time the was restaffed with active duty personnel and volunteers from the National Guard.
 
1952 the 40th Infantry Division (NGUS) was organized in Southern California as a mirror unit of the Division in Korea. So two 578th Engineer Combat Battalions existed until 30 June 1954 when the "active" division was deactivated and the Federal recognition was withdrawn from the California battalion. However, on the next day the 40th was reconstitiuted as the 40th Armored Division and the 578th was reorganized as the 132d Armored Engineer Battalion.
 
As the result of their performance in Korea, the Sixth Army stated that the 578th Engineers had all the earmarks of a highly trained unit. The colors of the 578th were rolled up and the unit was deactivated in Korea in 1954.
 
The battalion contued as the divisional engineers until 1968 when the 40th Armored Vision was broken into an armored brigade and an infantry brigade and the 132d became the 140th Engineer Company of the 40th Infantry Brigade. In 1973 when the 132d Engineer Battalion was reconstituted as the the divisional engineers, the 140th became the Company B of that battalion
 
With the expansion of the divisional engineers from a single battalion to a full three-battalion brigade, the 578th was reactivated on 1 September 1997.
 
To view the Lineage and Honors of the 578th, CLICK HERE
 
 
Original drawing of proposed Distictive Unit Insignia. Although produced and worn by the unit, it never was officially approved by the Army. Image courtesy of the Instiitute of Heraldry, US Army
 

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