While millions of Americans can name Western Front battles like Belleau Wood or the Meuse-Argonne, almost no one remembers the 332nd Infantry Regiment. These Ohio doughboys were the only American combat unit to fight against the Central Powers in a WWI theater outside of France and helped end the war in Italy.
The regiment formed at Camp Sherman, Ohio, on August 30, 1917. Its ranks filled with men from Cleveland, Akron, and Youngstown. They trained through Ohio's brutal winter at Camp Perry near Toledo, enduring mud, freezing rain, and even a smallpox scare.
They expected to join the fight in France. Instead, they got orders that would make them one of the most unique units in American military history.
General John Pershing refused to scatter American forces or let them fall under the command of Allied nations. He opposed sending troops anywhere but the Western Front. But Italy was desperate.
The disaster at Caporetto in October 1917 had nearly knocked Italy out of the war. Austrian and German forces had smashed through Italian lines, capturing nearly 300,000 prisoners and pushing the front back to the Piave River. Italian morale collapsed.
Pershing's "Propaganda Regiment"
At a tense Supreme War Council meeting in May 1918, Italian officials begged for American troops. Not divisions. Just one regiment. Enough to show the Italian people that America stood with them, and enough to make the Austrians worry.
Pershing reluctantly agreed. He selected the 332nd Infantry Regiment, commanded by Colonel William Wallace, a veteran of the Spanish-American War. On June 8, 1918, the regiment boarded the RMS Aquitania in New York. When they reached France, Pershing and French Prime Minister Georges Clemenceau reviewed them. Clemenceau praised their military bearing. Days later, Wallace received his orders.
"Your regiment has been selected to go to Italy," the chief of staff told him. Wallace later called it a prize coveted by every officer and man in France.
The 332nd reached northern Italy in late July 1918. About 4,000 soldiers and 125 officers arrived at Villafranca di Verona. King Victor Emmanuel III personally inspected them on August 1. The Italians welcomed them as saviors. Crowds cheered "Viva l'America!" as they marched through their towns.
Commander of the Italian Army, Gen. Armando Diaz, praised the arrival of the Americans in his order of the day to his forces.
“These strong troops have come today to fight by our side and I, in your name, welcome them with faith in the future, in our brotherly union of arms, and in our mutual successes,” he said.
The Americans were amazed at the reception they received and the scenery surrounding them. One American soldier, Enoch Gunter, expressed his admiration for the land in a letter to his father.
“In the land of song! And it is really the most beautiful place one could imagine,” he said. “Had a fine trip through the Alps and saw some of the most famous resorts in the world. The scenery is so wonderful that one would have to see it to really know how beautiful it is.”
The men soon set up their camps, including Camp Wallace, and prepared for battle. But the 332nd's main mission wasn't just fighting. It was grand military deception.
The Phantom Army
Italian commanders stationed the regiment behind the Piave River front, away from combat. Then they put Wallace's men to work creating an illusion. Every day, American battalions marched out in full view of Austrian observers across the lines. One company wore campaign hats. Another wore overseas caps. A third wore helmets. They took different roads, carried different equipment, made themselves visible at different locations.
At night, they snuck back to base in Treviso and prepared to do it again tomorrow.
The ruse worked brilliantly. Austrian aerial reconnaissance reported massive American reinforcements flooding into Italy. Intelligence officers estimated six American divisions had arrived, possibly 300,000 men. In reality, it was one regiment.
The deception achieved exactly what Italy needed. Italian morale surged. The Austrians grew extremely cautious, uncertain of how many Americans they actually faced. The 332nd soldiers endured the endless marching, though one doughboy later admitted he would have gladly killed any enemy encountered just to stop the tedious routine.
While marching, the regiment trained for mountain warfare with Italy's elite Arditi shock troops. These hardened assault specialists taught the Americans the tactics needed for the brutal Alpine terrain that characterized much of the Italian front.
The Americans formed tight friendships with the Italian Bersaglieri marksmen and infantrymen from numerous units. For the first time in history, American and Italian soldiers worked together and formed the basis of an alliance that exists today.
Into Battle
On October 24, 1918, Italy launched the Vittorio Veneto offensive. The Austrian forces, fearing a massive assault of a combined Allied force, fell back in disarray.
The 332nd finally got its chance to fight. Attached to the Italian 31st Division as part of the British XIV Corps, the Americans formed the advance guard pursuing the retreating Austrian forces.
The Austrians collapsed faster than anyone expected. By November 3, the 332nd reached the Tagliamento River, 40 miles east of their starting position. Austrian rear guards defended the far bank. That night, enemy troops called across the water to Captain Austin Story, commanding the 3rd Battalion.
An armistice was imminent, the Austrians asked why even fight?
Story was unaware of an armistice. His reply was "We're going to blow you up–get your heads down."
At 5:40 a.m. on November 4, Wallace ordered Major F.M. Scanland's 2nd Battalion to cross. In the predawn darkness, the soldiers crawled along the wreckage of a destroyed bridge at Ponte della Delizia. Austrian defenders waited on the opposite bank, but their artillery and machine guns ranged too far. Most fire flew far over American heads.
Scanland's battalion attacked in a single wave with rifles, grenades, and machine guns across a front of nearly a mile. They smashed through Austrian positions in under 20 minutes. One American died. Six were wounded. The 2nd Battalion became the first Allied infantry to cross the Tagliamento.
The 332nd pressed forward, seizing the town of Codroipo with its vital supply depots. At 3 p.m. that afternoon, the Armistice of Villa Giusti took effect. The war on the Italian Front ended.
The Regiment’s Shocking Success
Austrian prisoners flooded in by the thousands. When Austrian commanders learned they had faced only one American regiment, they refused to believe it. They insisted at least six divisions had been deployed against them. Wallace realized his deception had worked beyond imagination.
The Battle of Vittorio Veneto shattered the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Within days, the empire dissolved. The 332nd's role, though brief, helped deliver the knockout blow. Yet the regiment paid a strange price for its unique accomplishment.
Seven soldiers had died in a training accident back in September when a Stokes mortar exploded during a drill. The regiment lost more men to that single accident than to combat during the entire war. Only Corporal Charles A. Kell of Company G died in battle. Several others were wounded. These were the regiment's total combat casualties.
When addressing his men, Wallace congratulated them on their achievement and their good conduct while fighting alongside the Italians.
“Italy’s ancient foe was humbled beyond possibility of recovery, her lost provinces reconquered, and, let us hope, her people again cemented together in bonds of lasting loyalty to her good king and government,” he said.
After the armistice, the 332nd served on occupation duty in Austria, Dalmatia, and Montenegro. Battalions scattered across former Austrian territory to maintain order. The regiment didn't reunite until March 29, 1919, when all of the units finally boarded the SS Duca d'Aosta to go home.
They reached New York on April 14, paraded through the city, then returned to Camp Sherman. On April 26, Cleveland held a parade for its returning heroes. Wallace led the regiment down Euclid Avenue while the Italian-American community presented awards to the men. Within two weeks, demobilization finally reached the unit, which was deactivated on May 5, 1919.
The regiment's men carried home memories no other Americans shared.
They wore the Vittorio-Veneto battle clasp on their Victory Medals. Italy awarded them Italian War Medals in 1926. They adopted as their insignia the winged Lion of St. Mark, Venice's symbol, with the number 332 inscribed on an open Bible. Veterans called themselves "Wallace's Circus" and held reunions for years.
Why They Vanished From History
The Western Front dominated the American memory of WWI. The massive battles at Belleau Wood, Saint-Mihiel, and Meuse-Argonne involved hundreds of thousands of American troops. The 332nd was too small, too far away, too brief in action to compete for attention. Their greatest success, the deception operation, wasn't even a traditional military victory to celebrate.
No major monument honors their service in Italy. The American Battle Monuments Commission planned one in the 1920s, designed and funded it, but political complications prevented the construction. The memorial was never built.
In December of 1941, Fascist Italy declared war on the U.S. forcing many in the nation to forget the brief combat relationship the two nations had forged only two decades prior. American soldiers and Italian Bersaglieri, whose predecessors fought alongside each other, were now killing one another in Tunisia and Sicily.
Today, a small museum in Vittorio Veneto maintains an exhibit about the 332nd. Italian researchers also created a website called "Faces in the Book" to honor the American soldiers who fought there. Back in the United States, descendants of 332nd veterans work to preserve their ancestors' experiences. But mainstream American military history rarely mentions them.
The 332nd Infantry Regiment remains what it was in 1918, the only American combat unit to fight outside the Western Front in World War I. They helped win a decisive battle that ended the war on an entire front. They created one of the most successful deception operations of the conflict.
Their only combat mission shattered a centuries-old empire. Then they came home, mustered out, and disappeared from national memory. While the American doughboy remains one of the most iconic warriors of WWI, the 332nd Infantry remains the most unique American unit to fight in Europe during WWI.
