The 38th Infantry Division was first constituted in July 1917 as the Headquarters, 38th Division in the National Guard with troops from Indiana, Kentucky, and West Virginia. The new Division was organized at Camp Shelby in Mississippi, but before it could be deployed to France to fight in World War One, a tornado hit its training camp and leveled all the tents, inspiring the nickname “Cyclone Division.”
The letters “CY” were added to the proposed Shoulder Sleeve Insignia, and approval for wear of the new design arrived by telegram 30 October 1918, just a couple of weeks after the unit arrived in France. Ordered to Le Mans, the Division was broken up to meet troop replenishment needs and was awarded an World War I campaign streamer with no inscription.
Reorganized and redesignated as the 38th Infantry Division, the unit was assigned to the Pacific Theater during World War II, where it fughtin three named campaigns—New Guinea, Leyte, and Luzon. For the last of these, the Division was honored wih an Arrowhead device indicating it had taken part in an Assault landing. Its most notable achievement of the war, the clearing of the Philippinne peninsula of well-entrenched and highly fortified defenders in less than three weeks, led the Division’s commanding general, Major General William Chase, to dub them the “Avengers of Bataan.”
This is now their official Special Designation, leaving the Division’s members with a unit insignia featuring a reference to a discontinued nickname and a Special Designation that isn’t specifically referenced on either its Shoulder Sleeve Insignia, Combat Service ID Badge, or its Distinctive Unit Insignia.
Related Items
38th Infantry Division Unit Crest (DUI)38th Infantry Division Combat Service ID Badge (CSIB)