KW Era 710th Tank Battalion Ike

[Brian Keith]

A museum Im associated with recently received this Korean War era Ike with several other items of the veterans. Mr. Dickson enlisted from Jan. 1951 for three years, was discharged in Jan. 1954. He served in Headquarters and Service Company of the 710th Tank Battalion of the 11th Airborne Division. This was an airborne tank battalion. He did not serve overseas. His discharge lists only the Parachute Badge and the National Defense Service Medal.

Of note are the 710th Tank Battalion Dis and Airborne Qualification Badge with the armored oval. Oddly, there is a pin on SSG rank attached to the green leadership tab on the right epaulet of his Ike. Of course, this particular insignia was not in use when SSG Dickson was in service. It is not known when this was attached to his uniform. Also, probably most interesting is the WW II era Honorable Discharge insignia. I think it is quite unusual to be used in 1954!

I knew the vet for about 20 years; saw him most Sundays at church. He was very proud of his parachute badge and his service. If I recall correctly, he did 11 parachute jumps. He felt a bit of disappointment he wasnt sent to Korea where he lost a few buddies. His widow donated his things.

Thanks for looking, comments welcome!

BKW

[manayunkman]

Very nice!!

[Brian Keith]

Oval and back of badge.

 

 

Photo marked on the back; Camp Irwin, CA. Aug. 1953. Dickson is holding the glass, this is the same Ike, note the snaps in lew of the buttons.

 

BKW

[Brian Keith]

Thanks for the comments! You must be on break from Latrine Duty to comment so fast! I didn't mention that his pockets are sewn down to for a clean look.

BKW

[patches]

Nice one.

 

Here's a topic with additional links to the RD patch post WWII.

 

http://www.usmilitariaforum.com/forums/index.php?/topic/285081-korean-war-ruptured-duck/

[Brian Keith]

Very Interesting Patches! Seems like the 11th AB used these into the 1950's! Thanks for posting!

BKW

[Teamski]

Ruptured ducks weren't used after WWII were they?

 

-Ski

[BILL THE PATCH]

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Oval and back of badge.

 

{style_image_url}/attachicon.gif Drink Crop.jpg

 

Photo marked on the back; Camp Irwin, CA. Aug. 1953. Dickson is holding the glass, this is the same Ike, note the snaps in lew of the buttons.

 

BKW

The guy on the right has a light colored border cap patch, looks like it would be light blue. Also a throwback to WW2, they would have changed to the generic red bdr combo glider - parachute cap patch by then.

 

Sent from my Moto G (5) Plus using Tapatalk

 

 

[Martinjmpr]

Ruptured ducks weren't used after WWII were they?

 

-Ski

 

If you follow the other links posted, there sure seem to be a lot of them around.

 

Quite a few seem to be 11th Airborne, too.

 

From what I've seen posted, there's nothing about the ruptured duck patched uniforms themselves that seems out of order. It seems unlikely that someone would "put together" an otherwise perfect uniform and then deliberately sew a ruptured duck on it.

 

Those of us who have served in the military know that when an organization is spread as far and wide as the US military was during and after WWII, there's always some poor schlub who either doesn't get the message, or who just makes up his own rules despite guidance from higher saying otherwise.

 

So here's my theory: Somewhere in Japan (because as I said, most of the Korean-war era Ruptured Duck uniforms seem to be 11th Airborne, which was stationed in Japan after WWII) there was an outprocessing depot that soldiers passed through. Some of the soldiers were KW vets who passed through Japan on their way back to the US, others were soldiers who, for whatever reason, never went to Korea and separated from the Army in Japan.

 

In that outprocessing depot, there was an old WWII checklist that showed all the things that needed to be done before a soldier could be shipped back to the US, and one of the things that was on that checklist was that the Honorable Discharge insignia (AKA ruptured duck) had to be sewn onto the uniform.

 

So some low-level clerk, who might himself have been a draftee, has this checklist and since the RD is on the checklist, he sends the soldiers over to the person with the sewing machine, who sews on the ruptured duck.

 

Either they "never got the memo" that the RD was discontinued after 1946, or they got the memo and someone ignored it.

 

Who knows, maybe the NCO in charge of the outprocessing depot was a WWII vet who said "well, when we sent people home at the end of WWII they had a RD sewn onto their uniform so these guys returning from Korea need one too."

 

Occam's Razor, i.e. the notion that the simplest explanation is probably right, would seem to support a scenario like I described above. Because it makes zero sense for someone trying to "fake" a uniform to put an RD onto a uniform that never should have had one in the first place.

 

I've always thought that when given the choice between attributing a mistake to malice or ignorance, ignorance is usually the correct answer.

 

[Gentleman1943]

Such a cool uniform!

[Brian Keith]

Glad everyone is enjoying this post and seeing a few other RD's on Korean War era uniforms. Like was posted above, somebody probably didn't get the memo! Thanks for all the comments.

BKW

[manayunkman]

Weaseled out if latrine duty.

 

Great uniform!