The 25th Infantry Regiment (Colored) entered World War II as a Regular Army regiment at Fort Huachuca, Arizona, and was assigned to the 93rd Infantry Division on January 1, 1942. After desert and maneuver training it moved to Camp Young, California, staged through San Francisco, and reached Guadalcanal by echelon between February and March 1944. Its Pacific service was not a single continuous front line, but a series of detached island missions shaped by the South and Southwest Pacific campaigns.
On Guadalcanal the regiment worked docks and warehouses before moving to Empress Augusta Bay, Bougainville, on March 28, 1944. Attached to the Americal Division, it crossed the Laruma River on April 2, patrolled the Torokina Valley from April 7 to April 12, and conducted limited offensive operations against Japanese positions along the Kuma and East-West Trails in May. The regiment then shifted to the Green Islands between late May and June, where it built and manned fortifications, protected installations, and trained while larger Allied operations bypassed Japanese-held bases.
From October to November 1944 the 25th moved from the Green Islands to Finschhafen, New Guinea. There it defended the area and supplied labor and port details until late March 1945. It sailed for Morotai at the end of March, arrived by April 12, and rejoined the 93rd Division after months of dispersed service. On Morotai the regiment furnished stevedore crews, trained, and took part in offensive patrol and clearing operations in the Bosoboso area of eastern Morotai. After the Japanese surrender it moved to the Philippines, returned to San Francisco on February 1, 1946, and was inactivated at Camp Stoneman two days later.
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