The 96th Infantry Division was activated on September 5, 1918, during World War I and demobilized on January 7, 1919. It became Oregon's Reserve Division in 1923 and was activated to active duty on August 15, 1942, at Camp Adair with orders to be combat ready as soon as possible. It trained at Camp Adair, Fort Lewis, San Luis Obispo, and Bend Desert, then left the United States on July 25, 1944, for Hawaii. The division landed on Leyte on October 20, 1944, as one of the first combat units to invade the Philippines, where 603 were killed and 1,402 were injured. It landed on Okinawa on April 1, 1945, where 1,598 were killed and 5,614 were injured. The division returned to the Philippines in July 1945 for training for the invasion of Japan and returned to the United States in February 1946.