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87th Infantry Regiment (United States)

military unit

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General referenceInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionJul 5, 2026
Entity authorityQ12052649 ↗
Source-derived summary

The 87th Mountain Infantry Regiment is an infantry regiment in the United States Army. The regiment's 1st and 2nd Battalions are light infantry units assigned to the 1st and 2nd Brigade Combat Teams respectively of the 10th Mountain Division located at Fort Drum, New York. The 3rd Battalion was active in the U.S. Army Reserve in Colorado. The 4th Battalion was a Regular Army unit assigned to the 3rd Brigade Combat Team of the 25th Infantry Division (Light) at Schofield Barracks, Hawaii.

History

World War II

The 87th Mountain Infantry Battalion was activated on 15 November 1941 at Fort Lewis, Washington, with Lieutenant Colonel Onslow S. Rolfe as the commanding officer. This unit was the first American unit of mountain troops. According to Captain George Earle, 12 officers and one enlisted man had met at Fort Lewis and were designated as the cadre of this battalion. However, another source reports that when its first recruit, Charles McLane, reported for duty at Fort Lewis 8 December of that year, and asked to be directed to his battalion. After some discussion among the staff, the duty officer replied, "Corporal, as far as I can figure out, you are the ski troops."

Over the following months, skilled skiers recruited by the National Ski Patrol, mostly Europeans, some of whom had fled the encroachment of Nazi Germany, arrived at Fort Lewis. Peer Shelton notes that "as the companies of the first battalion filled up—A Company, then B Company, and so on—the roster ...

Editorial summary

“87th Infantry Regiment (United States)” enters the record as military unit. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what 87th, Infantry and Regiment can confirm, complicate or overturn.

Editorial reviewA concise reference frame for defining the subject, testing terminology and identifying the institution closest to the evidence. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1941—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 1941-01-01. Its strongest next move is a source search built around 87th, Infantry and Regiment.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

“87th Infantry Regiment (United States)” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, 87th, Infantry and Regiment provides the most credible route into that argument.

Evidence profile

Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jul 5, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q12052649. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1941.

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A concise general-reference account can conceal disagreements about scope, terminology or the weight assigned to individual sources. The source lead contains qualifying language; that uncertainty should survive quotation, summary and reuse. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “87th Infantry Regiment (United States)” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.