9th Infantry Regiment
Modern Era, United States, Infantry
The 9th Infantry Regiment, the "Manchus," traces its active lineage to 3 March 1855, when it was organized in the pre-Civil War Army and sent to the Pacific coast. Its early service included campaigning in the Pacific Northwest, later frontier fighting in the west, and service in the Mexican and Civil War eras through the inherited battle honors of its consolidated elements. At the dawn of the twentieth century the regiment earned its famous nickname in China during the Boxer Rebellion and China Relief Expedition, when its soldiers fought with distinction around Tientsin.
The regiment also served in the Philippines and remained one of the Army's active regular regiments as the United States entered the age of large divisional warfare. In 1917 it was assigned to the 2d Division, and that divisional affiliation became the central thread of its twentieth-century combat history. The 9th Infantry fought with the 2d Division in World War I, World War II, and the Korean War, giving it one of the most continuous division-centered records of any regiment in the Army.
In World War I the 9th Infantry served in the 2d Division through the Aisne, Aisne-Marne, Saint-Mihiel, and Meuse-Argonne campaigns. In World War II it again fought under the 2d Infantry Division, landing in Normandy and then advancing through northern France, the Rhineland, the Ardennes, and into central Europe. The regiment's decorations from both world wars reflect the hard fighting of one of the Army's premier divisions.
The Korean War continued that same pattern. Still with the 2d Infantry Division, the regiment fought in the mobile defensive battles of 1950 and the brutal positional fighting that followed, including some of the most famous engagements of the war. Its Korean honors and decorations show that the Manchus remained one of the division's core regiments across all three of the major mid-century wars.
Vietnam was different. By the 1960s the Army no longer deployed whole regiments in the old sense, so the 9th Infantry's Vietnam service came through battalions under different higher formations. The 4th Battalion was relieved from the 171st Infantry Brigade and assigned to the 25th Infantry Division in 1966, then deployed to South Vietnam. The 1st and 2nd Battalions remained tied to the 2nd Infantry Division structure in Korea, while the 4th Battalion carried the regiment's principal Vietnam combat record under the 25th Infantry Division.
In later decades the regiment served in Korea, Alaska, Panama, Iraq, and Afghanistan through various battalions, but the central twentieth-century pattern remained clear: the 9th Infantry was primarily a 2d Infantry Division regiment in World War I, World War II, and Korea, then a battalion-based regiment whose Vietnam combat service ran through the 25th Infantry Division. That combination of divisional continuity and later modular adaptation defines the modern history of the Manchus.
Battalion Page
A dedicated battalion subpage now collects the regiment's known battalion icons and short sketches for the 1st, 2d, and 3d Battalions. Open the 9th Infantry Regiment Battalions page.