Jump to content

My great grandma's WWII quilt


natebazooka
 Share

Recommended Posts

natebazooka

My great grandma put this quilt together during WWII. She was a widow who boarded men from North Texas State (now University of North Texas) and then later Camp Howze at her house, and she began collecting patches, sending care packages in exchange for patches, etc, and then knitting squares to attach them to, which she assembled into this quilt with (if my math is right) 311 patches. I've been trying to work through and identify all of them - I'm sure I've missed some and made some dumb mistakes in regards to what falls under what branch or sub branch, or just plain misidentified some, but I'm getting close to having the whole thing and obviously have come across this place a number of times. So, I thought you guys would be interested in taking a look, and you might be able to help me with some of the more difficult ones (and some of the ones I just haven't gotten yet). Here is the quilt -

 

c9oAJyIl.jpg

 

obviously this is a bit small for viewing all the patches, I have an album and a spreadsheet I've been working off of with more high res pictures, with the quilt oriented with the eagle from the EGA upright, and pictures of each quadrant, located here - http://imgur.com/a/Nog9P

 

ZuqS7vfl.jpg

L4SQVwE.png

 

there's also a link to a shared version of the spreadsheet I'm working on (google docs). One group in particular I'm curious about and haven't been able to figure out yet is the conspicuously line of unidentified patches to the right of the EGA. I don't have the quilt in front of me, but I remember thinking that they don't appear to be the same kind of embroidered thing as the rest of the patches. One of them says Verdun (the top one), which is curious.

1kVF5eN.png

 

I'm also pretty sure I'm going to run into some non American patches on the left side, and there's at least one Nazi patch on there - I'm actually pretty curious if that's the only one.

 

At any rate, hopefully you find this interesting, thanks so much for any help, and I hope I haven't broken any posting guidelines or anything like that - this seems like a great resource.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Garandomatic

That is darned cool... Might be easier to see the detail if you took pictures of it in quarters, would make the patches a little higher-res.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

natebazooka

Definitely - the imgur link ( http://imgur.com/a/Nog9P ) has the photos in high res for each quarter, which is what I've been working off of (wish I had taken one of just the middle as well). I just didn't want to blow up peoples monitors, and I know some forums can be a little touchy about certain stuff : )

 

I can also take pictures closer up if there's interest in anything in particular, although that can take a bit given the need to pull it back out, move the coffee table, etc

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Member Old Marine offers a nice printed color booklet showing the majority of WW2 patches.For the price its a valuable resource and would help you identify the patches and compliment the quilt

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Am I mistaken or is there a German army patch thrown in there on the 5th row in from one of the corners? A really neat item - can't imagine the time that went into that. Thanks for posting.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

natebazooka

Yeah, in the row of pink near the Philippine Division and Iceland Base Command. And one with a black cat that I don't know but maybe I'll try and track down now....

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Patchcollector

Very cool piece.The patches that you cannot ID look to me to be the "souvenir" type that tourists will pick up during their travels.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

natebazooka

Very cool piece.The patches that you cannot ID look to me to be the "souvenir" type that tourists will pick up during their travels.

 

I had thought about that, and maybe that's what it is. It seems strange though - my understanding is that she knew what everything was pretty much, and it looks like things were arranged in a semi-organized fashion, it seems strange that she would have some sightseeing of Europe type patches right between the Marines and the armored divisions.

 

Clip from an old newspaper article about it, although I wonder if they got mixed up with the number of patches she had in her possession vs the number she attached to the quilt

 

v5Dq3pl.png

Link to comment
Share on other sites

natebazooka

Thanks guys!

 

This picture contains a lot of the patches I haven't identified yet -

 

M2osauv.jpg

 

One I'm not sure about is the blue patch with the star and moon. That looks like the 19th regiment, but I'm not sure about that one ever being active during WWII? Or that horseshoe 13 patch nearby either, I've tried to find that a couple of times, actually I thought that one would be easy, but I'm not sure The light blue polar bear patch with "Poland" above it as well... and I'm curious if the other polar bear patch nearby (Iceland) would more likely be British or American. Or, I guess what I have that labeled as now is Iceland Force (British Share), since it looks like American wore that patch which was actually a British one that they were allowed to/agreed to wear with the Brits they were working alongside. Is that right? Is the lighter colored polar bear patch from the same unit?

 

I think the line of patches in orange near the center are French. Looks like the Nazi patch there is the... name for the national emblem which I wouldn't be able to type without about a dozen semesters of German, but that as worn by the navy (since it is in gold rather than silver)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

natebazooka

And actually, since it looks like the forum software resizes the picture to a size to fit the screen, here are the other 3 quadrants of the blanket -

 

dMYFe52.jpg

 

ecdB7iA.jpg

 

nSTzKIU.jpg

 

One that's stumped me a bit in this last picture, though I feel like I've seen it, is the blue shield with a T and a star. near the bottom in mauve. Also, that bullion AAF patch is interesting more towards the top. I guess starting from to the left of the Hawaiian patch is probably more Brit units (RAF, picture of Big Ben). More to the top of that last picture is the 36th regiment patch that I think was Mamaw's favorite (article seems like it has a number of errors and mentions her favorite being 35th, but it mentions that the soldier wore that patch into Rome and was killed in Italy, and a)I don't even see a 35 Infantry Division patch on here (and I don't think they fought in Italy?) and 36th makes sense, given the Texas connection.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

BILL THE PATCH

The t / star patch is the Texas state or national guard, the big Ben patch is American it's the London base cmd. I see some British units also. Some souvenir patches also. What an awesome piece of history.

 

Sent from my XT1031 using Tapatalk

 

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

natebazooka

Knew that T star patch was going to be Texas based. Thanks for that and the Big Ben London cmd patch. Any thoughts on the one that looks like a roman soldier just below it? I've tried finding that one a few times, but haven't hit quite the right combination of words in Google.

 

Where are the Japanese ones? I was not expecting that.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

The blue patch with the star and crescent moon is a Patch King reproduction of a WW 1 1st Div patch. In addition to this one and in post #22, there are several others.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

vintageproductions

Right above the round Texas defense guard patch, is the Victory Task Force patch. To the left of it is a Japanese factory workers patch from WWII.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

AWESOME patch quilt. Thanks for posting.

 

By the way, the four patches at the extreme left corner are British.

British Second Army at the extreme corner;

Next row: British Eighth Army; East Scotland District (Scottish Command); West Scotland District (Scottish Command).

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
 Share

×
×
  • Create New...