on 6 march 1942 the men of the 182nd broke camp outside melbourne and boarded troop trains for the docks in melbourne. with the rest of the task force, the 182nd traveled to a classified destination which turned out to be new caledonia, where they arrived on 12 march 1942. on 27 may 1942, task force 6814 was redesignated the americal division, one of only two american infantry divisions to be assigned a name instead of a number (americal is a combination of the words american and caledonia).