71st Airborne Brigade Helmet

[Nickman983]

One last photo from the Austin American, this time on 8/22/1970 this time a photo from an awards ceremony where the 71st recognized the Austin American's public service to military groups

[Nickman983]

Now for a couple of interesting photos I've found. First up is the picture that's been posted in this thread earlier showing the square style marking used by the 71st. As it turns out, that might actually be a photo of the 36th Airborne brigade. It's kind of splitting hairs with semantics here, seeing as the 71st was reorganized as the 36th but still, I found it interesting.

 

These were posted by the Austin American on 5/2/1976. The 71st was active from 1968-1973 and the 36th was active from 1973-1980. Also included is another clear shot and partial shot of the T-Patch with airborne tab.

[Nickman983]

Next is a marking being used by the 71st that I haven't seen an example of posted yet. Of note is the paratrooper in the foreground has a marked Mitchell cover. T-Patch and airborne tab are clearly visible. What's not so clearly visible is the 3rd paratrooper from the right's helmet. This *might* be an example of the circle marking being used. However, I'm not so confident. This was posted by the Wichita Beacon on 5/13/1972. Several other papers across the country appear to have posted this article/image around this time but this was the clearest scan I saw.

 

[Nickman983]

And while not necessarily related to these markings, here's a few close ups of the pictures of Gen Thomas "Jumpin Judge" Blackwell. He earned his nickname for continuing to serve as a judge while also being the commander of the 71st Airborne Brigade.

 

 

This last image comes from a video archive on the 71st that can be found here https://texasarchive.org/2010_01812

[elh1311]

Those are awesome pictures!

 

[elh1311]

 

Thomas D. Blackwell

Thomas D. Blackwell held every rank from private to brigadier general during 34 years of military service.

He enlisted in Company A, 11th Quartermaster Regiment, Texas National Guard on October 18, 1938. He was commissioned a second lieutenant and mobilized with the 36th Infantry Division in 1940. He served in the European Theater of Operations and was separated from the Army in 1946 at the rank of major.

General George S. Patton personally presented Brigadier General Blackwell the Soldiers Medal for bravery for saving the life of a fellow soldier while in Europe.

After rejoining the Texas National Guard in May 1948, he served in a variety of responsible command positions, reaching the rank of brigadier general, line, as the assistant division commander. Upon reorganization of the Texas Guard in January 1968, General Blackwell became the commanding general of the 71st Airborne Brigade.

General Blackwell became one of the first officers of the 71st Airborne Brigade to qualify as a paratrooper. He qualified for his silver wings by completing the airborne course in May 1968, at the age of 50. Later he completed the 82nd Airborne Division's Jumpmaster School and went on to achieve senior parachutist status.

Among General Blackwell's decorations are the Soldiers Medal, the Legion of Merit and the Lone Star Distinguished Service Medal.

 

[Nickman983]

A couple more I ended up finding when searching for individual regiments.

First up is a set of photos from the Mexia Daily on 7/19/1970

 

What's mainly of interest is this photo and caption

 

This is the only vehicle marking I've seen so far and might help with interpreting these markings.

 

The full article is hard to read due to being compressed but the second paragraph states:

"The Mexia National Guard is now the First Rifle Platoon of Company C, First Battalion Airborne, 143rd Infantry of the 71st Airborne Brigade"

 

This matches up with the caption for the image I posted on post #22. So it looks like red square with upper left corner painted white might be indicative of C Company 1st Battalion, 143rd. More photos would be helpful in confirming this though.

 

Also, something I hadn't noticed at first, the duffle bag is marked with the same marking on post #22.

[Nickman983]

Not exactly helmet or marking related, but another cool photo I cam across in my research. Shows a member of the 36th Airborne in training. Posted by the Eagle on 5/7/1978

 

 

I was able to find several photos of the 133rd Field Artillery in my search however, none of those photos showed any clear markings and I don't want to derail this thread too much. If there's enough interest I can post the pictures captioned as the 133rd Field Artillery as well as some other misc pictures of the 71st/36th in a different thread but I don't want to muddy the focus of this thread up too much.

[Nickman983]

2 hours ago, elh1311 said:

 

Thomas D. Blackwell

Thomas D. Blackwell held every rank from private to brigadier general during 34 years of military service.

He enlisted in Company A, 11th Quartermaster Regiment, Texas National Guard on October 18, 1938. He was commissioned a second lieutenant and mobilized with the 36th Infantry Division in 1940. He served in the European Theater of Operations and was separated from the Army in 1946 at the rank of major.

General George S. Patton personally presented Brigadier General Blackwell the Soldiers Medal for bravery for saving the life of a fellow soldier while in Europe.

After rejoining the Texas National Guard in May 1948, he served in a variety of responsible command positions, reaching the rank of brigadier general, line, as the assistant division commander. Upon reorganization of the Texas Guard in January 1968, General Blackwell became the commanding general of the 71st Airborne Brigade.

General Blackwell became one of the first officers of the 71st Airborne Brigade to qualify as a paratrooper. He qualified for his silver wings by completing the airborne course in May 1968, at the age of 50. Later he completed the 82nd Airborne Division's Jumpmaster School and went on to achieve senior parachutist status.

Among General Blackwell's decorations are the Soldiers Medal, the Legion of Merit and the Lone Star Distinguished Service Medal.

 

 

Thanks for posting that! I hadn't had a chance to read up much on his service, seems like he had a very long and storied career

[pump 150]

Great photos to look over Nickman, thanks for sharing!

 

I've been researching this as well over time, and thanks to the work done here I'll add some thoughts.  With both the vehicle photo just shown, and the well-known trooper being checked on Page 1, I'm thinking the Squares quite possibly belong to the three assigned Infantry Regiments.  And follow the commonly used Red/White/Blue. 

 

1-143 = Red, 2-143 = White, 3-143 = Blue. 

 

The tics as shown do follow as well by what has been shown, possibly starting at top right with Batt. HHC, then going clockwise A =br, B= bl, C =tl.

 

That leaves the Diamond, Circle, and Triangle.  One most likely is for the 71st Abn Artillery, 1-133.

 

I've also found that in the forming of the 71st in 1968, the HHC of the TXNG's 1st Brigade, 49th Armored Division was inactivated, with most of its personnel being used to form the HHC of the newly created 71st Abn Brigade.  Also, the TXNG 124th Cavalry Regiment was broken up with only A Troop 1-124 Cav coming under the direct operational control of the 71st Abn.  

 

The varying shapes could relate to those units as well with more research.  Let's see if we can all figure it out and do please add the 1-333 photos you have!  

[Nickman983]

55 minutes ago, pump 150 said:

Great photos to look over Nickman, thanks for sharing!

 

I've been researching this as well over time, and thanks to the work done here I'll add some thoughts.  With both the vehicle photo just shown, and the well-known trooper being checked on Page 1, I'm thinking the Squares quite possibly belong to the three assigned Infantry Regiments.  And follow the commonly used Red/White/Blue. 

 

1-143 = Red, 2-143 = White, 3-143 = Blue. 

 

The tics as shown do follow as well by what has been shown, possibly starting at top right with Batt. HHC, then going clockwise A =br, B= bl, C =tl.

 

That leaves the Diamond, Circle, and Triangle.  One most likely is for the 71st Abn Artillery, 1-133.

 

I've also found that in the forming of the 71st in 1968, the HHC of the TXNG's 1st Brigade, 49th Armored Division was inactivated, with most of its personnel being used to form the HHC of the newly created 71st Abn Brigade.  Also, the TXNG 124th Cavalry Regiment was broken up with only A Troop 1-124 Cav coming under the direct operational control of the 71st Abn.  

 

The varying shapes could relate to those units as well with more research.  Let's see if we can all figure it out and do please add the 1-333 photos you have!  

 

I think you're on to something here. You might be right about the square markings.

 

I also don't think the composition of the 71st is documented clearly online. I looked at the photos I had already posted again, looks like the Diamond shape was used by the 371st Support Battalion, which I hadn't seen referenced online yet.

 

Closer up shot of one of the images captioned as 371st Support

 

And more definitively, some vehicle markings

 

 

Did a quick search on the 371st on Newspapers, I've seen references to it consisting of 5 companies, though I've only ever seen the tac mark in 3 positions.

 

Here's a new photo and article I found during that quick search

 

I can upload some of the photos of the 133nd I found later tonight, though none of them have marked helmets from what I recall

[pump 150]

This photo tells much by the caption and seems to solve another piece. With this being “Col. Bassford, Commander of the 71st Airborne Brigade”, it would seem to indicate both that the Diamond represents the Brigade HHC, and that the top right Tic is the command level of HHC. This would follow along with what I mentioned as a possibility for the other units as well.  
 

Finding what the other Tic positions (or non-tic marked) within the Diamond might be among the supporting units within HHC as shown with Nickman’s 371st photos. This would seem to leave the Circle and Triangle to try and pin down further for battalion level or specialized from what has been found so far.  I was thinking Circle possibly being 1-133 as it too would have tic’s for the individual batteries. 
 

The Triangle I’ve seen  is red/white, my initial thought was A Troop 1-124 Cav just due to being hard to break into multiple Tics.  But who says the colors themselves might change as well within each shape as done with the Squares…lol. 

 

Thank goodness the newspaper writers had the forethought to at least include the colors in some of these markings when captioning these black/white photos many years ago for us!..lol
 

 

[Nickman983]

17 minutes ago, pump 150 said:

This photo tells much by the caption and seems to solve another piece. With this being “Col. Bassford, Commander of the 71st Airborne Brigade”, it would seem to indicate both that the Diamond represents the Brigade HHC, and that the top right Tic is the command level of HHC. This would follow along with what I mentioned as a possibility for the other units as well. 

 

I think that top right could indicate HHC, but the newspaper caption for that image is slightly incorrect unless he took over command from Gen Blackwell temporarily. I have newspaper articles referencing Col Bassford as the commander of the 371st Support Battalion, 71st Airborne Brigade both before and after the article this photo was in was published.

 

I have not seen pictures of  markings on the side of Gen Blackwell's helmet, though that's not to say Brigade HHC didn't use tack markings.

 

The circle is probably a good guess for the 133rd, I haven't seen any photographic proof yet but it. Wouldn't be the first time that an airborne FA unit used circle tac markings.

 

Have you seen any other photos of that triangle marking? That clipping was the first time I've seen it personally though I haven't done much research on the matter outside of the last week or so.

[pump 150]

Well, I could not find any info on Col Bassford being the CO either, relied on the caption so that may throw the Diamond out of HHC and more inline with 371st. So much for that theory…lol. 
 

Here is the only photo I have of the Triangle. I saved this a long time ago, and can’t remember where it was originally posted. I thought here, but  not absolute.  My apologies to the the original poster for not recognizing. 
 

  

[Nickman983]

No worries! That caption threw me off a bit as well at first.

 

Here's where the triangle helmet was posted. No real information outside of the fact that the helmet might have been messed with at some point, due to mentions of there being a crayon like layer on top of the paint.

 

For the time being though I think I've hit a roadblock with the research I've been doing, but to recap where we're at:

 

White diamond with orange corners - 371st Support Battalion

Red square with white corners - 1st Battalion, 143rd Infantry

White square with red corners - 2nd Battalion, 143rd Infantry (??)

Blue Square with white corners - 3rd Battalion, 143rd Infantry (??)

Yellow Circle with Red quadrant - 133rd Field Artillery (?????)

White triangle with orange half - A Troop 124 Cavalry (?????)

 

Position seems to relate to company. Here's what we've seen photos and have examples of so far for each style of marking:

 

We've got examples of the diamond with the top left and bottom right corners painted. Photos also show top right corner painted. No clear photos of bottom right painted yet.

For the Red square markings we've got an example of top right corner being painted, and photo examples of top left and top right. No clear photos of bottom left or right

For the white square markings we've only seen the one photo with the bottom left painted. Getting the source on that would be nice if anyone happens to know where it came from.

Blue square markings we have no photos of at the moment but we do have examples of top right, bottom right, and bottom left. No example of top left yet as far as I'm aware.

I've only seen the one yellow circle posted by gitana, if anyone else has also seen a helmet with that marking please feel free to share that here as well!

White triangle we've only seen one picture and one example, both with the right half painted orange.

[hink441]

Here is a current picture of the crayon triangle helmet I own. 
 

Chris
 

 

[Nickman983]

On 9/22/2022 at 4:41 PM, hink441 said:

Here is a current picture of the crayon triangle helmet I own. 
 

Chris

Thanks for posting it. That's an interesting one for sure, paint seems weird from the photos but it's such an obscure marking I'm not sure why anyone would fake it. Is it actually done in crayon?

[hink441]

Thanks, I agree with you regarding the obscure nature of this helmet and why anyone would fake one.
 

I actually think it is crayon. You can peel it off with your fingernail. 
 

Chris

[patches]

Found this sold one, the WWII type Wide Mesh Net on it may be original to it not sure.

[elh1311]

In the next few days, I intend to add to this helmet forum with a recent purchase. This one has, apparently, has the former owners name in it. Fingers crossed that this will help narrow down the exact nature of this unit's tac markings. 

[Nickman983]

On 11/28/2022 at 9:06 AM, elh1311 said:

In the next few days, I intend to add to this helmet forum with a recent purchase. This one has, apparently, has the former owners name in it. Fingers crossed that this will help narrow down the exact nature of this unit's tac markings. 

 

I'm looking forward to seeing what you've got! Hopefully it'll give us a bit more insight into these markings.

[dmar836]

Boo nets!

[elh1311]

Started another thread but here's the name in the helmet. 

[elh1311]

On 12/2/2022 at 1:01 PM, Nickman983 said:

 

I'm looking forward to seeing what you've got! Hopefully it'll give us a bit more insight into these markings.

Added pics 

[6th.MG.BN]

Here is another 71st. painted helmet to add to the tread. One side of the white/red square has eight cut marks, I'm guessing jumps? Remnants of tape across the front of the helmet were painted over and under U/V light TEXAS jumps out at you. Also looks like MAC?. Liner has two names on '71-'74 sweat band.