Infantry Division at Fort Devens, Massachusetts. 45th Infantry Division Upon returning to Florida in early June 1942 to pick up his personal effects, Middleton received his orders for Fort Devens, and also word that he had been promoted to brigadier general. In mid-June he reported to the 45th, known as the "Thunderbirds," an Army National Guard division consisting mostly of troops from Oklahoma, but also including some from Colorado, Arizona, and New Mexico. The commanding general of the 45th, Major General William S. Key, anticipated being replaced with an active duty officer. Though Middleton was not informed of this, in late summer 1942 Key was replaced, and Middleton was given the command of the division, along with a promotion to major general. In the summer, the 45th did its training at Cape Cod, Massachusetts, after which Middleton was in command for winter training at Pine Camp, New York. Here the temperature dipped to 36 degrees below zero (F) and snow drifted head-high. A soldier in the division by the name of Bill Mauldin did a cartoon showing slop from the kitchen frozen in a column as it descended into the garbage can outside. Mauldin later became famous for his cartoons during World War II, and won two Pulitzer Prizes for his work. In February 1943 the training moved from Pine Camp to Camp Pickett, Virginia for mountain training, and then to the Atlantic Coast for ship-to-shore training between Norfolk, Virginia and Solomons, Maryland. In early April, while the division was at Camp Pickett, Middleton was sent to North Africa with some of his staff to begin planning the ensuing military operation. Here he went to the headquarters of the Seventh Army commander, Lieutenant General George S. Patton, in Morocco and stayed nearly a month. Patton would command the Seventh Army in the Sicily landings during the summer, and the 45th would be the only combat-loaded division coming from the United States. With the division scheduled to sail from Norfolk on 5 June, Middleton left beforehand to complete the planning for the landing on a hostile shore, this time reporting to the II Corps headquarters of Lieutenant General Omar Bradley in Algiers, Algeria. For this operation, Bradley was subordinate to Patton, under British overall direction. By the time the division arrived in Oran, Algeria, the planning was complete, and the unit was able to run one rehearsal in western Algeria before