Active 1947–2004 Branch United States Army Role Armored warfare | Country United States Type Armor Size Division | |
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The 49th Armored Division —nicknamed the "Lone Star"— was one of two armored divisions of the United States Army National Guard, redesignated from the 36th Infantry Division (the "T-Patchers") after World War II, and organized and federally recognized on 24 February 1947.
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History
A number of the original divisional units received federal recognition from the National Guard Bureau on February 27, 1947, a date used thereafter as the formation's "birthday". In 1947, all four battalions of the 144th Infantry Regiment were placed into the Division as Mechanized infantry units. Beginning in the northern and northeastern areas of the State, there were 111 units in 56 Texas cities by 1952.
In September 1961, an executive order alerted the division for mobilization at Dallas due to the 1961 Berlin Crisis. On October 15, 1961, the division entered federal service, and it subsequently deployed to Fort Polk, LA. The division was to stay there ten months. In May 1962, the division staged the large-scale Exercise Iron Dragoon, still remembered among National Guard armor exercises. Also while at Fort Polk the division's missile unit became the first Army National Guard unit to fire the Honest John nuclear-tipped surface-to-surface missile. The 49th Armored Division reverted to Texas State control in August 1962.
The 49th was deactivated in 1968 and re-organized into three separate brigades, the 36th, 71st and 72nd. The division was reactivated on 1 November 1973, with its headquarters at Camp Mabry, Austin, Texas.
On 18 July 2004 the division was re-flagged and again designated as the 36th Infantry Division. Prior to its redesignation, the 49th was capstoned to the U.S. Army III Corps and stood as the only fully functional, reserve component, armored division in the United States Army. (The 50th Armored Division in the north eastern states had been eliminated by consolidation with the 42nd Infantry Division in the early 1990s.)