A Proud Artillery Heritage

The 116th Field Artillery Regiment

The 116th Field Artillery Regiment was originally organized during World War I at Camp Wheeler, Georgia, in October and November 1917 as part of the 31st (Dixie) Division. The regiment was transported overseas but saw no combat, and was mustered from federal service on January 16, 1919.

On December 5, 1921, Major Sumter L. Lowry Jr. of Tampa presented three batteries for federal recognition, forming the 1st Battalion, 116th Field Artillery. Batteries A, B, and C were inspected and mustered by Lieutenant Colonel Vivian Collins, Adjutant General of Florida. Artillery has held a proud heritage in Florida ever since.

World War II and the Dixie Division

Reorganized between the wars, the 116th Field Artillery again answered the call in World War II as part of the 31st Infantry Division — the “Dixie Division.” The unit served in the Pacific theater, earning campaign credit for the New Guinea and Southern Philippines campaigns, with the New Guinea streamer carrying an arrowhead device for its assault landing. For its part in the liberation of the Philippines, the regiment shared in the award of the Philippine Presidential Unit Citation. The 116th Field Artillery Battalion was inactivated on December 20, 1945, at Camp Stoneman, California, and relieved from the 31st Infantry Division the following year.

Cold War Reorganizations

Like most of the Army’s field artillery, the 116th was reshaped repeatedly in the decades after the war. The battalion was consolidated in 1946, reorganized in 1955 as the 149th Armored Field Artillery Battalion, and in 1959 consolidated once more to form the 116th Artillery as a parent regiment under the Combat Arms Regimental System. Through each redesignation the guns stayed in Florida hands, crewed by Guardsmen from the same central-Florida communities that had raised the original batteries.

The Modern Battalions

In 1993 the regiment was reorganized into the structure Floridians know today: the 2nd Battalion, 116th Field Artillery, and the 3rd Battalion, 116th Field Artillery. The 2nd Battalion, headquartered at the Lakeland Armory, serves as the fires battalion of the Florida Army National Guard’s 53rd Infantry Brigade Combat Team. The 3rd Battalion operates the M142 High Mobility Artillery Rocket System (HIMARS), keeping the regiment’s rockets and cannon rooted in the Tampa, Lakeland, Winter Haven, and surrounding communities that have filled its ranks for a century.

The War on Terror

The regiment’s Soldiers answered again after September 11, 2001. In 2005 the 2nd Battalion deployed to Afghanistan with the 53rd Infantry Brigade as part of Task Force Phoenix, the coalition mission to train and stand up the new Afghan National Army. Reorganized into a security force, the battalion secured Camp Phoenix and regional headquarters across the country and escorted convoys throughout the theater, service recognized with the Meritorious Unit Commendation.

Today the Gator Redleg Chapter carries those traditions forward in support of the Soldiers of the 2nd and 3rd Battalions, 116th Field Artillery.