159^th Infantry Regiment

The 159th Infantry Regiment was a California National Guard regiment inducted at Oakland on March 3, 1941. It first belonged to the 40th Division, then was relieved and assigned to the 7th Division on September 29, 1941. The regiment trained on the West Coast, briefly carried a motorized designation, and returned to a standard infantry designation on January 1, 1943. Unlike the 17th and 32nd Infantry, it did not take part in the May 1943 assault on Attu. It remained in preparation and staging while the 7th Division fought through Jarmin Pass, Clevesy Pass, and Fish Hook Ridge.

The regiment sailed from San Francisco on June 25, 1943, after attachment to Amphibious Training Force No. 9. It landed on Attu on July 9 and relieved the 17th Infantry as the garrison regiment after organized Japanese resistance had ended. Its Aleutian service was therefore a security and occupation mission on a recently captured island rather than an assault role in the main battle. When the Kiska operation took place in August, the 159th Infantry remained tied to Attu duties, and the 17th and 184th Infantry made the unopposed Kiska landing. On August 23, 1943, the 159th was relieved from the 7th Infantry Division and assigned to the Alaskan Department.

The regiment stayed in the Aleutians until August 1944, then returned to the continental United States for further movement and reassignment. It passed through Camp Swift, Camp Callan, Camp Kilmer, and New York before sailing for Europe in March 1945. Attached to the 106th Infantry Division, it entered Germany on April 25. Its late-war European record was brief and does not match the continuous combat arc of the 7th Division's Pacific regiments. The 159th ended the war as a separate regiment with Aleutian garrison service and late European attachment duty, not as a participant in the 7th Division's Kwajalein, Leyte, or Okinawa campaigns.