Help with US Army Italy collar insignia

[Ilin1979]

Help, what were these used as?

[patches]

 

 

PX stuff is my guess, post war Italy, Italian made. The one on the left being for the 88th Infantry Division's 351st Infantry Regiment. On the right, Mediterranean Theater of Operations United States Army or MTOUSA, MTOUSA active there till 1947, don't know what the PBS on patch stands for though.

[atb]

Peninsular Base Section 

[KurtA]

Those are really nice and quite scarce 

[Com-Z]

The Peninsular Base Section was the logistics operation in Italy 43-44, mostly under the command of COL/BG William A. Pence.  This was part of the Army Service Forces, MTO under BG/MG Thomas Larkin, initially spun off from the ASF-ETO for TORCH-North Africa in July 42, and had continued through Sicily and into Italy.  Pence rotated back to the ZI in April-May 44 to command a training center, but by then the MTO was gearing up for southern France/DRAGOON, where logistics were centered in the Delta Base Section under BG John P. Ratay.  More on Pence - 
https://www.arlingtoncemetery.net/awpence.htm

[MHD]

Was the PBS associated with the North Africa Theater?  

[patches]

15 hours ago, MHD said:

Was the PBS associated with the North Africa Theater?  

The patch was first used by the North African Theater of Operations, United States Army , known as NATOUSA, then well after the Invasion of Italy, the patch was retained and the NATOUSA was then redesignated Mediterranean Theater of Operations, United States Army known as MTOUSA.

 

 

Form the US Army website.

 

"The American command in the Mediterranean, co-existing with the Allied command, was the North African Theater of Operations, U.S. Army (NATOUSA) established on 4 February 1943, which was superseded by the Mediterranean Theater of Operations, U.S. Army (MTOUSA) on 1 November 1944."

 

Here one GI of the NATOUSA  in Italy in the Summer of 1944, in the summer it was still called NATOUSA.