Bataan Cyclone
It happened 80 years ago this month.
Philippines. Soldiers from the 38th Infantry “Cyclone” Division’s 152nd Infantry Regiment use a 57mm M1 anti-tank gun against Japanese positions on Luzon near “Woodpecker Ridge” in Marikina, 11 May 1945. Note the shell cases piled in the foreground.
US Army Photo 173-12
Raised in Indiana, the 38th was a National Guard division that was ordered into federal service on 17 January 1941, nearly a full year before Pearl Harbor. Finally sent overseas on 3 January 1944 after much reorganization and retraining, they warmed up in New Guinea and then hit the beaches at Leyte, landing in the Philippines in December 1944, only to respond to one of the last Axis parachute assaults of the war.
They remained in close contact with the Japanese for the next eight months and continued taking prisoners well into October 1945, ultimately collecting 13,000 of the Emperor’s troops.
Pfc. Elmer S. Pitlik, Air Sect., 139th F.A. Bn, lights a cigarette for one of the Japanese guards. 22 August 1945. On a mountain top in the Sierre Madres, Northern Luzon, eight Japanese officers and five American officers met to discuss surrender arrangements. The American officers, accompanied by twenty enlisted men, made a two-hour march over difficult terrain to the area marked by a Japanese flag on a bamboo pole. The ranking American officer was Maj. Richard F. Jaffers, Artillery Liaison Group, 38th Inf. Div. The ranking Japanese officer was Lt. Col. Shizume Sushimi. SC 211603
The 38th suffered 3,464 battle casualties in the PI, earning the Philippine Presidential Unit Citation and the nickname “Avengers of Bataan,” for obvious reasons.
There are 35 soldiers of the 38th Infantry Division from World War II still listed as missing in action.
The 38th remains the principal combat unit of the Indiana guard, with its members drawn from across the Midwest, and is headquartered in Indianapolis.