Company B, Fifty-Sixth Pioneer-Infantry

The Fifty-Sixth Pioneer Infantry was originally organized by Colonel Arthur T. Balentine as a regiment of Heavy Field Artillery in the National Guard of the State of Maine, under the name of The Milliken Regiment’. The regiment, which was strictly a volunteer organization, was organized in nineteen days, being completed July 25, 1917, under the title The First Maine Heavy Field Artillery Immediately after its organization, on August 20, 1917, by order of the War Department, Colonel Balentine formed from the personnel of the regiment the One Hundred And First Trench Mortar Battery. This was the first Trench Mortar Battery organized in the United States. It comprised one hundred and eighty-one men and two lieutenants under the command of Captain Roger A, Greene. They were assigned to the 26th Division and shortly afterwards sailed for France. At the same time one hundred men were transferred to the One Hundred And First Regiment Of Engineers of the same Division. After these transfers were made, and the physically unfit eliminated, there remained eight hundred men of the original command. Of these, two hundred were later commissioned as officers, or sent to Officers’ Training Schools.