Equipment for training was chronically short, forcing leaders to fabricate dummy artillery pieces from wood and iron scrap, while the soldiers drilled with pieces of wood to simulate rifles and machine guns. In April 1918, a tornado struck Camp Shelby, damaging the division's camp and killing one soldier, PVT Vaughn D. Beekman. On his assumption of command of the 38th Division on 30 August 1918, Major General Robert Lee Howze commemorated the tornado by announcing the division would be known in the future as the "Cyclone Division". The division arrived in France in October 1918, at the height of the Meuse-Argonne offensive. Upon arrival, the division was largely stripped of officers and men, who served as replacements for American units already in combat. Several of the regiments remained intact and conducted operations behind friendly lines. The 113th Engineer Battalion constructed railroads, telegraph and telephone wires. The 138th and 139th Field Artillery took part in collective training when the Armistice took effect on 11 November 1918. Of the officers and men from the 38th Division detailed to other units, 301 died during the Great War: 105 died in combat; 47 died from wounds; 68 from non-combat accidents or incidents; and 81 from complications arising from influenza or pneumonia. Commanders: Maj. Gen. William H. Sage (25 August 1917), Brig. Gen. Edward Mann Lewis (19 September 1917), Brig. Gen. H. H. Whitney (8 November 1917), Maj. Gen. William H. Sage (12 December 1917), Brig. Gen. William Sage (15 March 1918), Brig. Gen. William V. Judson (15 April 1918), Brig. Gen. Augustine McIntyre Jr. (12 July 1918), Brig. Gen. F. M. Caldwell (18 July 1918), Maj. Gen. Robert L. Howze (30 August 1918), Brig. Gen. F. M. Caldwell (18 October 1918), Maj. Gen. Robert L. Howze (27 October 1918). Inactivated: June 1919. Interwar period (1919-41) After the end of the World War, the National Guard divisions briefly remained inactive while the United States rapidly demobilized and returned to a peacetime footing. The experiences of the war convinced the War Department and Congress to retain a reserve structure in the event of a future war. A series of amendments to the National Defense Act of 1916 codified the structure of the Army of the United States to include the National Guard when in federal service. Within the text of the final amendment of August 1921 was the provision to "preserve the names, numbers and other