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Uncommon and Obscure Combat Patches Being Worn.


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One of General Vineger Joe Stilwell's boys, a Sergeant formerly of the Chinese Training and Combat Command, Kunming China, this patch, which appears to be a U.S. made one, was approved for local wear only, but I guess here it was well deserved to wear as a Combat Patch. No Discharge Patch is seen, so maybe this guy who ever he was stayed in the Army post war.

 

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And finally for tonight, the Greenland Base Command, this has a bullion USAAF patch as we see on the left shoulder, and a pair of the Air Transport Command DIs. Again no Discharge patch, indicating a serving soldier post war, though there is that lack of Overseas Bars ( guys in Greenland did get Overseas Bars right? ) and Service Stripes.

 

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A bull's-eye sighting for sure but which one? Is that an ex-I Corps soldier queued up for the tram in Frankfurt ca. 1946 or is he ex-37th ID?

 

post-1963-0-34912300-1388624089.jpg post-1963-0-82779100-1388624204.jpg

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carbinephalen

Here is one that used to be in my collection!

 

Strangely, not a patch on the jackets left shoulder.

 

Even MORE strange is this unofficial/early 6th Army patch that he has on his right shoulder.

 

 

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I wonder if Ltc Cloud left the Pacific early and came home Stateside till he left the Army altogether in 1946? if so this might account for the wear of the first type 6th Army patch, as this would really have been the offical patch of the unit till January 1945, it was then the 6th Army got it's now familar patch.

 

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  • 3 weeks later...

Here's a soldier wearing the Seventh Army as a combat patch. Now the Seventh certainly wouldn't be an obscure unit from WWII, but what I find interesting is that if you read the story in the attached article http://hhsalum.org/profiles/blogs/cpl-charles-p-sonett-member-submitted-bio, you will see that he was a combat infantryman assigned to the 410th Infantry Regiment of the 103rd Infantry Division. In fact, the article tells about how he lost his leg in a mine explosion in 1945.

 

My question is why a combat infantryman who served with the 103rd Division would wear a Seventh Army SSI as his combat patch. Yes the 103rd served under the Seventh Army in France and Germany, but it still seems odd to me.

 

Also note he is not wearing enlisted collar discs.

 

By the way, after reading this article, I realized that a man from my hometown (pop. 800) who I knew all my life growing up was the commander of this man's company in WWII when he was wounded (Company K 410th Infantry). Small world.

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Here's a soldier wearing the Seventh Army as a combat patch. Now the Seventh certainly wouldn't be an obscure unit from WWII, but what I find interesting is that if you read the story in the attached article http://hhsalum.org/profiles/blogs/cpl-charles-p-sonett-member-submitted-bio, you will see that he was a combat infantryman assigned to the 410th Infantry Regiment of the 103rd Infantry Division. In fact, the article tells about how he lost his leg in a mine explosion in 1945.

 

My question is why a combat infantryman who served with the 103rd Division would wear a Seventh Army SSI as his combat patch. Yes the 103rd served under the Seventh Army in France and Germany, but it still seems odd to me.

 

Also note he is not wearing enlisted collar discs.

 

By the way, after reading this article, I realized that a man from my hometown (pop. 800) who I knew all my life growing up was the commander of this man's company in WWII when he was wounded (Company K 410th Infantry). Small world.

Ehh probably one of those guys who affected the wear of their Higher Command unit post war right before they left the Army and got out, ie 1st Abn Army, 6th Army, etc etc.

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  • 4 weeks later...

Lieutenant Colonel Harold L. Dorsett of the 408th Airborne Quartermaster Company, congratulates WO (jg) John L. Bogue, platoon leader of the new Heavy Drop Section, 11th Airborne Division, on the successful drop of a 105-mm howitzer at the Cooley Drop Zone, Fort Campbell, KY, Mr. Bogue is from S. Pasadena, Calif.,
3 April 1952, U.S. Army Photo

 

It's a little hard to tell, but the The LTC appears to be wearing the General Headquarters reserve SSI as a combat patch. While the patch was worn during WWII by unassigned airborne units int eh U.S., I was not aware that it was ever worn in a combat theater to be eligible for wear as a combat patch. Panama maybe?

 

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Lieutenant Colonel Harold L. Dorsett's GHQ patch if it is what that is, and it sure does look like the GHQ patch from here, then maybe another obscure wear of a Stateside unit as a Former Wartime unit rather than a Combat Patch, we already seen at least one maybe two other examples of this here in this topic.

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I think he might be wearing the Hawaiian Department patch...which is still fairly odd.

 

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That's a possiblity, good eye. Anyone got the goods on Lieutenant Colonel Harold L. Dorsett's Wartime service? I can find it so far online.

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I think he might be wearing the Hawaiian Department patch...which is still fairly odd.

 

Why "fairly odd"? The Territory of Hawaii was located entirely within the Asiatic-Pacific Theater. Service in Hawaii was counted as “overseas service” for just about every soldier stationed there during the war (permanent residents of the Territory excepted) and “service overseas” was all that mattered for the right-sleeve patch entitlement, as neither actual combat nor campaign participation credit were required. And the Dorsett patch does look like a Hawaiian Department/Central Pacific Base Command patch, which seems a more likely possibility than GHQ Reserve.

 

 

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Why "fairly odd"? The Territory of Hawaii was located entirely within the Asiatic-Pacific Theater. Service in Hawaii was counted as “overseas service” for just about every soldier stationed there during the war (permanent residents of the Territory excepted) and “service overseas” was all that mattered for the right-sleeve patch entitlement, as neither actual combat nor campaign participation credit were required. And the Dorsett patch does look like a Hawaiian Department/Central Pacific Base Command patch, which seems a more likely possibility than GHQ Reserve.

 

 

I did consider the Hawaiian Department patch and that makes more sense as a combat patch but I'm still leaning towards General Headquarters Reserve because that's what it looks like to me. However, I found the following article about Col. Dorsett online that indicates he served in the Pacific (Philippines) during WWII and that he didn't go to jump school until 1950.

 

http://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1407&dat=19511129&id=oKpkAAAAIBAJ&sjid=R4YNAAAAIBAJ&pg=1750,4704224

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Why "fairly odd"? The Territory of Hawaii was located entirely within the Asiatic-Pacific Theater. Service in Hawaii was counted as “overseas service” for just about every soldier stationed there during the war (permanent residents of the Territory excepted) and “service overseas” was all that mattered for the right-sleeve patch entitlement, as neither actual combat nor campaign participation credit were required. And the Dorsett patch does look like a Hawaiian Department/Central Pacific Base Command patch, which seems a more likely possibility than GHQ Reserve.

 

 

 

"Fairly Odd" Because the TH Command patch, while authorized as an overseas "combat" patch, is not as common as let's say Central Pacific Command, Western Pacific Command, or any of the other large organizations operating in the PTO. I've maybe only seen one worn on the RIGHT sleeve of a WWII uniform, but I have seen a lot of them on the LEFT sleeve....

 

 

I would think that a TH Command patch on the right sleeve in 1950 would meet criteria for "uncommon".

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I did consider the Hawaiian Department patch and that makes more sense as a combat patch but I'm still leaning towards General Headquarters Reserve because that's what it looks like to me. However, I found the following article about Col. Dorsett online that indicates he served in the Pacific (Philippines) during WWII and that he didn't go to jump school until 1950.

 

http://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1407&dat=19511129&id=oKpkAAAAIBAJ&sjid=R4YNAAAAIBAJ&pg=1750,4704224

Good find on Dorsett, the plot thickins.

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That's a photo from the Quartermaster Foundation website Aerial Delivery and Rigger page that I created years ago. I'll check to see if I have a larger scan, but it's unlikely since we had to use very small file sizes when I stood up the website in the late 1990s. You can see this and other Korean War era Aerial Delivery photos on our website at: http://www.qmfound.com/airphoto_korea2.htm

 

Also note that the Quartermaster Museum is in the process of conducting an extensive renovation of their Aerial Delivery gallery to include bringing a Huey helicopter into the display. It should be completed in the Spring.

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It's the Hawaiian Department patch, I asked the Quartermaster Museum to pull the photo. I have a scan that shows a tighter view of the patch, but am unable to post it at the moment.

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Yes, thanks for nailing this one down, eherntitle. Your post provides the first confirmed sighting on this thread of a Hawaiian Dept. and/or Central Pacific Base Command SSI being worn as a former wartime overseas unit patch (i.e., on the right sleeve). Nice work.

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Yes, thanks for nailing this one down, eherntitle. Your post provides the first confirmed sighting on this thread of a Hawaiian Dept. and/or Central Pacific Base Command SSI being worn as a former wartime overseas unit patch (i.e., on the right sleeve). Nice work.

 

No problem, thanks for alerting me about this post.

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I'm not sure how uncommon or obscure the Army Air Forces SSI was as a combat patch. However, if the officer on the right is wearing the same current unit SSI as the soldier he is decorating, that would mean he is wearing the AAF "sandwich" which surely would be rare during WWII for any patch, not just the AAF.

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...if the officer on the right is wearing the same current unit SSI as the soldier he is decorating, that would mean he is wearing the AAF "sandwich" which surely would be rare during WWII for any patch, not just the AAF.

 

Yes, any WWII patch "sandwich" would be rare (primarily because these were an A.R. "Be No" at the time). However, it seems likely this scene was situated in an overseas theater (the man in the background appears to be wearing a turban or some sort of head wrapping). In that case, the officer probably was wearing one of the AAF's overseas command patches on his left sleeve. Maybe CBI? And the corporal...? Well, who knows. Perhaps a recent arrival from the ZI who has not had time to change his patches or simply just another out-of-uniform G.I.

 

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As long as Stilwell commanded the CBI, he insisted HIS patch be worn on everybody's LEFT sleeve, with any subsidiary unit's on the RIGHT sleeve.

 

When Stilwell left, this practice began dying off, but going-home Class A jackets often had the CBI on the left and 10th or 14th AF or Ledo Road patch on the right.

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