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38th Infantry Division (United States)

active United States Army National Guard formation

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General referenceInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionSep 10, 2026
Entity authorityQ4636022
Source-derived summary

The 38th Infantry Division is an infantry division of the United States Army and part of the Indiana National Guard. It is headquartered in Indianapolis, Indiana, and contains Army National Guard units from across the Midwest.

Formed in 1917, the division's special designation "Cyclone" refers to when the division's training camp at Camp Shelby, Mississippi, was damaged by a tornado. It is also nicknamed "Avengers of Bataan" due to its efforts during the Pacific War in World War II.

Deployed to France in the closing days of the Great War, the 38th Division was broken up to fill vacancies in units already in combat. After the war, the 38th Division demobilized. After a brief period of inactivity, it was reconstituted and reorganized in the National Guard on 16 March 1923.

The 38th Division was inducted into federal service on 17 January 1941 as the United States prepared for entry into World War II. The Division returned to Camp Shelby to reorganize as a triangular infantry division and train for combat. The 38th Infantry Division deployed to the Pacific theater in January 1944, initially to New Guinea where the division saw limited combat after final training. In December, the division deployed into Leyte, Philippines to support clearing and security operations. On 29 January 1945, the 38th Infantry Division took part in the combat landing against the Japanese held Southern Zambales Province on the island of Luzon.

Editorial summary

Begin with the source’s own compact description: “38th Infantry Division (United States)” is active United States Army National Guard formation. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through 38th, Infantry and Division, not as a finished interpretation.

Editorial reviewA practical starting point whose main value is the path it opens into stronger specialist and primary sources. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1917, 1923, 1941, 1944—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 1917-01-01. For this dossier, 38th, Infantry and Division is the immediate research focus.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

The phrase “active United States Army National Guard formation” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.

Evidence profile

The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 10, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q4636022. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1917, 1923, 1941 and 1944.

Critical limits

Overview language is designed for orientation and should not be treated as a substitute for the evidence cited beneath it. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Use the entry as an orientation point, then follow its citations and revision history. Names, dates and institutional relationships should be checked against the original record.

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  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “38th Infantry Division (United States)”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow 38th Infantry Division (United States) primary sources, 38th Infantry Division (United States) archive and 38th research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from 38th Infantry Division (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.