The 163rd Montana Infantry Regiment

Operation Upshaw:

New Iraq Operations Get Old Names

By Martin J. Kidston

of The Helena Independent Record

When Joe Upshaw’s grandfather took a minie ball in the hip while
charging Little Round Top at the Battle of Gettysburg in 1863, he
unknowingly started what would eventually become a military legacy and
a proud family heritage.

Less than 80 years later, Upshaw himself went on to fight in World War II
with the 163rd Infantry Regiment, Montana National Guard — a tour that
placed him at the bloody battle of Sanananda where a bout of scrub
typhus, not a Japanese bullet, nearly did him in.

While Upshaw’s military career ended long ago, his name lives on beside
the legacy of Montana’s 163rd Infantry.

Both Upshaw and the 163rd were honored for that legacy this past year in
Iraq by the young Montana soldiers who served there with the new
1-163rd Infantry Battalion of the state Guard.

Lt. Col. John Walsh, commander of the 1-163rd, said the battalion used a
book written about their WWII predecessors — the old 163rd — to come
up with names for new military operations in Iraq.

As a result, Operation Upshaw became a memorable page in military
history, along with Operation Doe and Operation Wakde, among others.

Col. Gens Doe led Montana troops into battle in New Guinea in 1943,
much like Lt. Col. Walsh did in Iraq this past year. As for Operation
Wakde, that name stems from a small tropical island off the northern
coast of New Guinea, which Montana soldiers stormed in 1944, taking its
airstrip from an entrenched Japanese force. The battle, along with others,
was described in detail in the book, "From Poplar to Papua: Montana's
163rd Infantry Regiment in WWII." “There’s a lot of history and lineage in
Montana’s 163rd Infantry,” Walsh said. “The guys before us, they went to
annual training and came back five years later. It’s unbelievable what they
had to go through.”

Upshaw, who chuckles proudly when asked about the operation bearing
his name, first heard the news on his way to a wedding. He was at the
airport in Minneapolis when he saw Gen. Randy Mosley, adjutant general
of the Montana National Guard, waiting for a flight.

“He just received this e-mail,” Upshaw said. “He had one of these portable
things and he showed me that right there at the airport. It was quite a
surprise.”

That e-mail, originating from Iraq, was sent by Capt. Cory Swanson.
Dated Sept. 15, it was addressed to his father, Lt. Col. John Swanson.

“We conducted a very successful operation a couple of days ago named
Operation Upshaw, after Mr. Joe Upshaw,” the e-mail began.
The operation involved a large-scale search of Hawija. The mission
involved a full task force and took six hours to complete, resulting in the
detention of more than 40 men.

“Of those, we had enough intelligence for about 20 of them to be sent up
for further detention, and several of them were very significant AIF
leaders,” Swanson’s e-mail said.

Walsh explained further.

“It was the industrial district in the city of Hawija and intelligence
reported insurgents in the area,” he said. “We cordoned off the area and
searched everyone. We had informants with us who knew who the bad
guys were.”

Other operations followed. They took on names relating to the history of
Montana’s 163rd, including Operation Doe and Operation Wakde — the
famed WWII battle that lives on in military circles.

“We did simultaneous raids on 22 different targets — either houses or
shops — spread out over six objectives around a town called Riyadh,”
Swanson wrote of the operation. “We captured 12 of our key targeted
individuals and ended three IED cells in the area.”

Swanson wrote that the information behind Operation Wakde came from a
single soldier, Spc. First Class Paul Larson, a sniper team leader.“

He spent a day hiding in an Iraqi army checkpoint talking to the soldiers,
and got some informants to give us all this intel,” Swanson wrote. “It was
a complex and coordinated operation.”

Upshaw said the naming of operations in Iraq for elements of Montana’s
historic 163rd was an honor that he and his peers were proud of.

But each year the ranks of the old 163rd grow smaller. Because of it, the
WWII soldiers are looking to the young soldiers with the new 1-163rd to
carry on their proud heritage through the 163rd Infantry Association.

“We’re working on a drive to get our soldiers — the 163rd guys — to join
their organization,” Walsh said. “We’d like to carry on what they’ve
started. We have a lot of respect for them.”

Reporter Martin Kidston, author of From Poplar to Papua: Montana's
163rd Infantry Regiment in WWII, can be reached at 447-4086, or at
mkidston@helenair.com.

About Joe Upshaw

By Ronald Fischer
bcj_fischer@yahoo.com

Joe Upshaw, a native of Chinook, served in the 163rd Infantry “M”
Company of the Montana National Guard and the regular Army for 40
years.

“M” Company was called to active duty on September 16th, 1940 and
served for an average of five years during World War II. The 163rd was
deployed to Australia when the war started and fought in New Guinea and
many other islands. They had an outstanding war record and were named
by General Douglas MacArthur as the “Montana Jungleers.”

Upshaw went on to serve on the General Staff of the Montana National
Guard, retiring at the rank of Colonel in1977. Currently, Upshaw is the
Chairman of the Annual Reunion Committee of the 163rd Organization,
and notes “there are not many of us left.” It is his hope that the current
members of the 163rd will join the organization in order to keep the
tradition going.

Another accomplishment that Upshaw is very proud of is his effort, with
many other 163rd veterans, to designate the entire length of Highway 2
in Montana as a memorial to the 163rd Infantry. The “163rd Infantry
Regiment (Sunset Division) Heritage Highway” Bill was passed as Montana
Senate Bill 413 during the 58th Legislature in 2003, the 60th anniversary
of the 163rd’s participation at the Battle at Sanananda, the first major
land victory against Japanese forces.


The present 163rd of the Montana National Guard has just recently
returned from a one-year deployment in Iraq, where they again
distinguished themselves as a unit that Montana can be proud of.

Regarding the September 2005 “Operation Upshaw” in Iraq, Colonel
Upshaw says that “The honor was not just for me, but for all the WWII
163rd Infantry boys, especially those of “M” Company of Chinook, Harlem
and Fort Belknap.”


Cutlines:



This map shows the locations of Operations Upshaw (at Hawija) and
Wakde (at Riyadh) in Iraq. (Graphic Design by Matthew Wolfe of HIR)

Joe Upshaw, a native of Chinook, served in the 163rd Infantry “M”
Company of the Montana National Guard during World War II and was
recently honored by the present-day 163rd by having an operation in Iraq
named after him. (Photo by George Lane of HIR)

Mark Kidston’s book, From Poplar to Papua: Montana’s 163rd Infantry
Regiment in World War II, is a compelling, and until now untold, story of
courageous young Montanans in the Pacific during WWII. Kidston shares
the soldiers’ sometimes humorous, often chilling, and always fascinating
accounts of the years they spent fighting the Japanese after the bombing
of Pearl Harbor. The stories are collected from personal journals, news
stories and survivor interviews. The book includes a list of names of the
officers and enlisted men of the 163rd Infantry Regiment inducted into
the U.S. Army in September/October 1940. This book is available from
Farcountry Press in Helena by calling 1.800.821.3874. (HIR Photo)