Your thoughts on these WWII field phone markings?

[bellasilva]

I've had this WWII field phone for many moons now, and posted a thread on it almost 4 years ago, but it was inconclusive.

 

What are your thoughts? I initially believed it to be 286th Armored Field Artillery, but that unit was formed in the late 50's, early 60's from what I understand. I'm also posting a shot of the markings on the back. Any help is much appreciated.

[sgtpeter]

You are probably correct about the ABA. The EE8 phones were in use well after the end of the war, into the 1960s and maybe later for some units. The EE8 was replaced by the TA-1 and TA-312 at company/battery level - both being introduced in the late 1950s. The letter 'B' would indicate it belonged to B Battery/Company and either assigned to gun 3 or just the third phone that belonged to the battery/company. The yellow MWO marking indicates that work order (11-333-4) was applied to the phone. The work orders were improvements or fixes to the items to make them work better. I'm not sure what 11-333-4 was supposed to fix (maybe its mildew proofing?), but it is pretty common on EE8 phones.

 

Peter

[robinb]

The 11-333-4 refers to the manual. TM 11-333 is the tech manual for the EE8. I imagine the -4 means the 4th amendment to the manual.