USMC unit insignia

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USMC unit insignia

Marcus K

Total Posts: 3368

Joined 06-05-2005

Sr. Member

Total Posts: 3368

Joined 06-05-2005

Posted: 17 July 2008 15:27

Found the Wikipedia atricle on the Organization of the USMC, here you also can see the various unit insignia. Most are however not Heraldic. Happy scrolling.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Organization_of_the_United_States_Marine_Corps

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/6/6a/US1mardivlogo.jpg/150px-US1mardivlogo.jpg

1st Marine Division, Camp Pendleton,CA.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/a/ab/2nd_Mar_Divdivlogo1.gif/150px-2nd_Mar_Divdivlogo1.gif

2nd Marine Division, Camp Lejeune, NC.

Marcus K

Total Posts: 3368

Joined 06-05-2005

Sr. Member

Total Posts: 3368

Joined 06-05-2005

Posted: 17 July 2008 15:31

Some rather more unheraldic insignia, 1st Battalion, 2nd Marines (or 2nd Marine Regiment).

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/c/cd/BLT_1-2_Logo.jpg/225px-BLT_1-2_Logo.jpg

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/2/21/6thmarlogo2.gif/150px-6thmarlogo2.gif

6th Marine Regiment.

eploy

Total Posts: 768

Joined 30-03-2007

Sr. Member

Total Posts: 768

Joined 30-03-2007

Posted: 17 July 2008 22:12

The first badge above is pretty good by US government heraldry standards. To improve the design, the number "1" could be fimbriated in Argent or Or so as to satisfy the tincture rule of no color on color/no metal on metal. In lay terms, it would make the "1" stand out more.

For the shape of the shield, a heater shield or round shield might be more appropriate than a lozenge assuming of course that most of the Marines in that division are men.

Marcus K

Total Posts: 3368

Joined 06-05-2005

Sr. Member

Total Posts: 3368

Joined 06-05-2005

Posted: 18 July 2008 07:24

Yes I think the personnel of the 1st Marine Division is for the major part men, but I think they didn’t take the Heraldic implication in to account when designing the emblem. It might be added that the stars in the emblems of the 1st and 2nd Marine Divisions denotes the Southern Cross Constellation under which they fought during World War II.

Joseph McMillan

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Joined 08-06-2004

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Total Posts: 7658

Joined 08-06-2004

Posted: 18 July 2008 09:11

These are shields at all—they aren’t even intended to be coats of arms. The divisional insigia were worn as patches during World War II, but not since 1947. They are still more or less official emblems of the divisions, but not as formal as the coats of arms of Army regiments and battalions.

As I understand it, the rest of the devices are pretty much informal in the ground part of the USMC—they get painted on signboards in front of battalion headquarters, printed at the masthead of newsletters, that kind of thing, but they aren’t worn as badges and don’t appear on unit battle colors.

Aviation squadron badges are a different matter. They are worn on the flight suit/flight jacket and have to conform to standards set for all naval service aviation unit badges by the Chief of Naval Operations. But these standards are not heraldic in nature—things like what can and can’t be on the badge (no recognizable aircraft types, for instance) and how big, what shape, etc.

On the 1st MARDIV insignia, this is from http://www.nettally.com/~jrube/patch.htm

Quote:

As recalled by General Merrill B. Twining, a lieutenant colonel and the division’s operations officer on Guadalcanal, for a short time before the 1st left Guadalcanal for Australia, there had been some discussion by the senior staff about uniforming the troops. It appeared that the Marines might have to wear Army uniforms, which meant that they would lose their identity and Twining came up with the idea for a division patch. A number of different designs were devised by both Lieutenant Colonel Twining and Captain Donald L. Dickson, adjutant of the 5th Marines, who had been an artist in civilian life. The one which Twining prepared on the flight out of Guadalcanal was approved by Major General Alexander A. Vandegrift, the division commander.

General Twining further recalled that he drew a diamond in his notebook and "in the middle of the diamond I doodled a numeral one ... [and] I sketched in the word ‘Guadalcanal’ down its length ... I got to thinking the whole operation had been under the Southern Cross, so I drew that in, too ... About an hour later I took the drawing up to the front of the aircraft to General Vandegrift. He said, ‘Yes, that’s it!’ and wrote his initials, A.A.V., on the bottom of the notebook page."

After he arrived in Brisbane, Australia, Colonel Twining bought a child’s watercolor set and, while confined to his hotel room by a bout of malaria, drew a bunch of diamonds on a big sheet, coloring each one differently. He then took samples to General Vandegrift, who chose one which was colored a shade of blue that he liked. Then Twining took the sketch to the Australian Knitting Mills to have it reproduced, pledging the credit of the post exchange funds to pay for the patches’ manufacture. Within a week or two the patches began to roll off the knitting machines, and Colonel Twining was there to approve them. General Twining further recalled: "after they came off the machine, I picked up a sheet of them. They looked very good, and when they were cut, I picked up one of the patches. It was one of the first off the machine.

and this is from the official history of the 2d MARDIV:

Quote:

Designed and approved in late 1943, the insignia is in the official Marine Corps colors of scarlet and gold. The insignia displays a spearhead-shaped scarlet background with a hand holding aloft a lighted gold torch. A scarlet numeral "2" is superimposed upon the torch, and the torch and hand is [sic] encircled by five white stars in the arrangement of the Southern Cross constellation, under which the division’s first World War II combat took place—at Guadalcanal.

It was General Vandegrift, who approved the first patch, who also made the decision as commandant in 1947 to terminate the wearing of such unit distinctions on the uniform.

The patches of the 3rd and 4th Marine Divisions are also still in use as semi-official divisional emblems:

http://www.usmilitarystuff.com/images/3rd marine division.jpg

http://www.usmilitarystuff.com/images/4th marine division.jpg

Marcus K