The 38th Infantry Division was formed in 1941 and was deployed overseas on 1944. Spearheading the drive which annihilated Japanese forces on Bataan, in the battle that liberated Luzon, is an achievement of which men of the 38th are justly proud. The division first saw action in Leyte December 1944, when the 149th Infantry Regiment was sent into Leyte P. I., for a month of mopping-up campaigning. It then moved on to Luzon, P. I., to make its now famous Subic Bay landing on Bataan Peninsula on 29 January 1945. Division troops poured in for 16 days of fierce action to smash through an intricate maze of Japanese fortifications at Zig-Zag Pass, key defense to the rapid reduction Bataan Peninsula. While one division regimental combat team made an amphibious landing at Mariveles, on the tip of the Peninsula, another force struck swiftly down the east coast through Balanga, Pilar and across the neck of land to Bagac the March of Death route to gain control of the entire peninsula. Some units of the 38th then landed at D plus 4, on Corregidor to assist in the defeat of the strong Jap garrison there. The division was then divided up into three regiment combat teams. One force mopped up remnants of enemy troops on the Bataan Peninsula. Another regimental combat team plus a provisional company organized from the 38th division artillery, struck north and west of Zig-Zag Pass against powerful Jap defense in the Zambales mountain ranges, while the third regimental combat team was charged with the reduction of enemy defenses on the remaining three islands – - Cabello, Fort Drum and Carabao – - guarding the entrance to Manila Bay. Later sent to the Marakina watershed, the Cyclone boys worked in May 1945, to free Eastern Luzon from the Gaps and helped preserve Manila’s water supply. This involved fighting in the Sierra Madre mountains northeast of Manila to oppose Jap forces drawn up behind the Shinbu Line, an area defended by almost impassable terrain in addition to a well developed and interlocking series of caves, pillboxes, tunnels and artillery emplacements. Here division troops defeated the Japanese in a series of bitterly contested engagements culminating in the seizing of the Marakina River line and the capture of strategic Wawa Dam, an important source of water supply to Manila. Division troops engaged in combat with the Japs in the bamboo thickets and mountainous terrain of the Marakina area up to and after V-J Day. The division was alerted for home in late September; elements arrived during October with inactivation shortly thereafter.