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Army Jungleers making a GOYA comeback

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The Army is getting a newfound interest in jungle warfare.

COL Keith W. Benedict and CPT Christian M. Hert have a great article in Line of Departure (How Panama’s Crucible is Yet Again Testing Soldiers’ Mettle) detailing how legendary jungle training has returned to former Fort Sherman, Panama– now a Panamanian aeronaval base, Cristóbal Colón– after more than two decades of hiatus.

Before the doors closed in 1999 and the course moved to Hawaii, the Fort Sherman-based “Green Hell” Jungle Operations Training Center (JOTC) was training up to 9,000 personnel annually and awarding the Jungle Expert patch to successful units. JOTC also offered a 10-day air crew survival course and a four-week engineers’ course.

Today the course is back as an 18-day event, using lots of old-school sweat, blood, and mud, blended with new technology.

U.S. service members and Panamanian partners, all candidates of Jungle Operations Training Course – Panama, make it to the finish line of the green mile at Aeronaval Base Cristóbal Colón, Panamá, July 2, 2026. The event tested participants’ endurance, teamwork, and ability to move equipment through physically demanding jungle terrain under stressful conditions. (U.S. Army photo by Pfc. Carolyn Dodge)

Moreover, the Army has announced it is making the Jungle Tab, retroactively to 1990, a permanent tab.

The GOYAs Return

The U.S. Army is reactivating the historic 551st Parachute Infantry Battalion as a full regiment, with sequenced ceremonies at Fort Benning and in Panama, set for 14 August.

The new unit will comprise four battalions to support joint training under the United States Army Western Hemisphere Command– which in itself was stood up last December, uniting U.S. Army Forces Command, U.S. Army North, and U.S. Army South into a single, four-star operational headquarters.

The 551st was one of the independent PIBs established by the Army in 1942-43, formed at Fort Kobbe, Panama Canal Zone, on 26 November 1942. After a stint in Panama, they were sent for more training at Camp Mackall, North Carolina, and then moved up to recently liberated airfields in Italy in 1944 to join the 1st Airborne Task Force. By that time, they had earned the nickname GOYAs, which, depending on who you talked to, meant “Great Outstanding Young Americans” or “Get off Your Ass(es).”

On 15 August 1944 at 1804hrs local time, the 46 officers and 796 NCOs and enlisted “GOYAs” of the 551st PIB conducted their only combat parachute assault during WWII into Drop Zone “A” at Valbourges near Le Muy in Southern France during Operation Dragoon.

Marching 5km through the night, they liberated the French town of Draguignan the next morning, fighting on foot all the way into the Alps.

By the Battle of the Bulge, they had been attached to the 82nd Airborne Division, and the 96 remaining men from the 551st PIB, not dead or in hospital, were folded into the 82nd in March 1945, erasing the hard-fighting “Lost Battalion.”

Forgotten by history, they only recived their hard-earned Presidential Unit Citation in 2001.

It will be nice to see the old 551st returned to service– this time with Jungle Tabs.

Yankees Across the ETO, 1944-45

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And in a follow-up to yesterday’s post on the ‘Minutemen’ of the old 328th, here is a second piece from the TEC4 William Faucett collection: the Grapevine unit newspaper of the 26th (Yankee) Infantry Division from October 1945, which details the outfit’s march from Utah Beach to Czechoslovakia and Austria. The 328th was one of the 26th’s three infantry regiments, along with the 101st and 104th, all of which are touched on.

Fresh off the scanner!

These are large images, so be patient.

Remembering the ‘Minutemen’ of the old 328th

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The U.S. 328th Infantry Regiment was a war baby.

Initially stood up at Camp (now Fort) Gordon on 25 August 1917, it made it “Over There” as part of the 82nd (All American) Infantry Division, back when they were “legs” and fought in the Lorraine, St. Mihiel, and Meuse-Argonne offensives. One of their members you may have heard of was one Sgt. Alvin York.

Reformed as a USAR unit in the 1920s, it was carved away from the 82nd in 1943 when the Army switched from four-regiment “square” divisions to three-regiment “triangular” divisions. This saw the 328th ordered into active federal service on 12 February 1943, and shifted to the forming 26th (Yankee) Infantry Division in preparation for deployment to Europe.

That brings us to our tale here today.

A good family friend is the septuagenarian daughter of the late William Earl Faucett of Warrior, Alabama, who served in the 328th for the duration of WWII, ending his enlistment in 1946 as a TEC4.

Among TEC4 Faucett’s war chest was this great booklet, compiled by Sgt Jermoen Theise and printed by Verlagsdruckerei Weis (Weis Publishing House) in Austria in early 1946, before the 328th came home. The unit was disbanded in July 1946, some 80 years ago this month.

I scanned it in preparation for sending the scans to the 26th Infantry Museum and the CMH, but thought you guys would also appreciate it.

You can thank TEC4 Faucett for keeping it safe for decades and his daughter for continuing to do so, in his honor.

 

 

The Forgotten Coast Guard Paras of WWII

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Sure, everyone knows about at least two of the five U.S. Army Airborne Divisions (11th, 13th, 17th, 82nd, and 101st) that stood up in World War II, along with several separate parachute infantry regiments and battalions (like the stand-alone segregated 555th Parachute Infantry Battalion).

Plus there were the three short-lived battalions of “Para-Marines” in the 1st Marine Parachute Regiment, and the Navy Parachute School (founded in 1924 no less!) at the NAS Lakehurst, which schooled thousands of riggers and both blimp and aircraft crews in the art.

Add to that the covert secret squirrel types of the OSS and their off-books school at Area A-2 in Virginia’s Prince William Forest Park, training to drop into occupied Europe and Asia.

But did you know the Coast Guard also stood up a specialist airborne unit during the war? No, we aren’t talking about aircrew training to “hit the silk”; we are speaking of the USCG’s Para-Rescues.

I can’t find a ton of information on the subject, but the background is that at least a few dozen Coasties underwent parachute and survival training in the U.S. Forest Service’s smokejumper program (which started in 1939) to be dropped into the harsh Alaskan wilderness for extreme search-and-rescue missions.

As any WWII buff knows, the Alaskan theatre went from being a backwater in June 1942 to being an active frontline, and the military buildup in the territory saw aircraft go missing almost every day. For instance, in the Aleutian campaign alone, the USAAF lost 225 aircraft, with only 1:6 of those in combat.

The National Archives and WWII Museum have some great images to help color the tale. All official captions:

Coast Guardsman M. L. Nelson, parachute rigger third class, Canton, Illinois, is one of this group of hardy, aerial trained to leap into the Alaskan wilderness to ‘bring-.” No date WWII Museum 2015.063.081

USCG Grumman JRF Goose. Original caption: (July 1945) The search is on — A twin-motored Coast Guard plane skims the rugged, ice-crusted mountains of Alaska in an effort to spot wreckage of a missing aircraft. Aboard the Coast Guard plane is a para-rescue squad that will drop into the desolate area when the survivors are sighted to administer first aid and guide the victims to safety. The para-rescuers are thoroughly familiar with the northern country and are equipped and trained to live for days in the icy wilderness. USCG Image 26-G-4397. National Archives Identifier 205592335

July 1945. Original caption: Men Against the Icy Wilderness — After jumping from a Coast Guard plane, these Coast Guard para-rescuers pit their hard-won experience of the north against a maze of snow, woods, and mountains as they search for plane-crash victims in a bleak section of Alaska. Laden with enough supplies to last for many days, the husky para-rescuers trudge through heavy snow banks to the spot where they located the wreckage while still in the plane. After administering first aid to survivors, the Coast Guardsmen will tackle the giant job of moving them to safety. USCG Image 26-G-4398. National Archives Identifier 205592344

July 1945. Original caption: Mercy Mission — This is how a fully equipped Coast Guard para-rescuer looks as he gets set to leap from a Coast Guard plane to carry aid to plane-crash or other victims swallowed by Alaska’s rugged expanse of mountains, timber and ice. Outfitted and trained to master the wilderness for days, husky para-rescuers provide food and medical care for survivors and move them to safety. USCG Image 26-G-4396. National Archives Identifier 205592341

July 1945. Original caption: Mountain-top Vigil — Search for plane-crash victims carries a Coast Guard para-rescuers to a vantage point atop a mountain towering over a snow-and wood-covered valley. Other mountain peaks punch through a thick sheet of fog, which teams with snow, ice, and woods in hindering the searching party. Dropped into the Alaska wilderness from a Coast Guard plane, the para-rescuer carries a heavy pack of emergency rations and other equipment to help care for survivors until they can be moved to safety. USCG Image 26-G-4399. National Archives Identifier 205592347

July 1945. Original caption: “That’s the Spot” — as a Coast Guard rescue plane hovers over snow-covered Alaska woodland, Coast Guard Paratrooper Bruce Johnstone (left), of Ketchikan, Alaska, points out the spot where he believes a missing plane has crashed to Lt. Comdr. Joseph F. McCue (center), of Washington, D.C., and Ensign James P. Gwynn, of Red Bank, N.H., Coast Guard pilots. Johnstone is a member of a para-rescue squad which will bail out to care for crash victims and move them to safety. The rugged para-rescuers are trained and equipped to exist for days in the bleak expanse of ice, snow, and woods. USCG Image 26-G-4393. National Archives Identifier 205592338

While Cold War experiments towards fielding “fully-qualified para-scuba rescue men” occurred (keep in mind the service sent crews to fly Air Force Jolly Greens on C-SAR missions in Vietnam), the concept was never put into use by the USCG.

Today, no Coast Guard units are actively trained or equipped for tactical parachute insertion, which is probably a shame. Still, Coast Guard Aviation Survival Technicians (Rescue Swimmers) have to prove themselves in other ways that would make some airborne guys weak in the knees.

Raise one for Flora-bama Pat

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If you spent more than 30 seconds involved in Naval Aviation in and around Pensacola for the past 40 years, you know of the Flora-bama, a (formerly) tiny (formerly) biker bar on the Florida/Alabama Gulf Coast line between Orange Beach and Perdido Key. 

Purchased by Pat McClellan in 1984, the hole-in-the-wall honky tonk bar had a transformation and became nearly infamous for its events such as the “Inter-State Mullet Toss” and New Year’s “Polar Bear Dip,” while, alternating with McGuires in P-Cola proper, becoming a Mecca for young naval aviators, who had a habit of returning when they came back as an instructor, then circling back around once after they retired.

Pat has a lot to do with that.

A University of Minnesota (NROTC ’71) alum, Pat went through the Navy Flight Program and ended up spending four years on the Blue Ghost, Pensacola’s own USS Lexington (AVT-16), as PAO back once upon a time when studs pulled their first traps on T-2C Buckeyes.

Quick with a joke and a little rough around the edges, my favorite observation of ol Pat was sitting in the dining room at the Flora-bama years ago, back before the big expansion, and watching him handle a complaint from a very fired-up tourist lady, who had pressing concerns about every single thing in the bar.

After listening patiently to her for about five solid minutes, Pat sat back and concluded.

“I’m sorry, I don’t think you ate here,” he told her confidently, “because we don’t serve bitches,” and walked away.

Pour one out for Pat, who just picked up his helmet bag for the last time and went to a Tailhook party somewhere where the visibility is unlimited, and, of course, the bar is open. If they don’t already know how to make bushwhackers, I’m sure Pat is already on that.

Pour one out for Mr. Reilly

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Unless you are under a rock, you have no doubt heard of the passing of Irish-born Kiwi actor Sir Nigel John Dermot “Sam” Neill.

While everyone else is talking Jurassic Park, we, of course, remember Mr. Neill as the fictional though composite Australian commando Sergeant Dan Costello in Attack Force Z (his first movie) and as the very real Sidney George Reilly in the BBC’s Reilly, Ace of Spies, before moving on to Capt. Vasily Borodin in The Hunt for Red October.

Even as a lad, the extensive use on-screen of a suppressed M3 Grease Gun was nothing short of magic, while Reilly was even more Bond than Bond.

While Mr. Neill never served in the military, his pop was a Sandhurst-minted career officer in the Royal Irish Fusiliers (Princess Victoria’s) for over 20 years, including WWII, and the actor was born near and grew up in the regimental depot in Gough Barracks, Armagh.

In 2013, he purchased a Bannockburn vineyard and renamed it ‘‘The Fusilier” in honor of his father and the regiment itself, which had been amalgamated out of existence in 1968.

So, be it a New Zealand pinot or a nice Irish whisky, raise one to Sam, lads.

Here’s hoping he found his “round American woman, rabbits, pickup truck, and recreational vehicle.”

Clouds on Cape Cod: The (Four of the) Five Sisters Cup Finish

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The 400-mile run from the Hudson through the Cape Cod Precautionary Area to Boston by four of the Gorch Fock-class training barques over the weekend was won by Gorch Fock II, which also won the original OpSail76 Five Sisters Race and is the current holder of the Tiffany Trophy.

Ironically, the ship’s skipper, Capt. Elmar Bornkessel is a USN vet, sort of, having previously served as an exchange officer aboard USS Lake Erie (CG 70) from 2004 to 2006.

German Navy ship Gorch Fock transits Boston Harbor during the Sail250 Boston Parade of Sail, July 11, 2026. Sail250 Boston is a global gathering of tall ships and military vessels in Boston’s historic waterfront to celebrate the 250th Anniversary of the founding of the United States. This milestone maritime festival includes more than 50 ships from around the world. From the first Continental Navy to today’s global force, the Navy’s story is America’s story — one of courage, innovation, and an unbreakable commitment to winning and preserving independence. Sail250 Boston honors the maritime heritage that helped build the nation and the Navy’s enduring role in protecting freedom, preserving prosperity, and defending America’s independence. (U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 3rd Class Coronado)

The Five Sisters’ Cup is awarded to the ship that has the fastest time from New York to Boston as part of Sail250 celebrations July 9-10, 2026. German Navy training vessel Gorch Fock won the cup in 1976 and again in 2026. (U.S. Coast Guard photo by Petty Officer 3rd Class Rajesh Harrilal)

The USCGC Eagle (ex-SSS Horst Wessel) came in second while NRP Sagres (ex-SSS Albert Leo Schlageter) and NS Bricul Mircea brought up the rear.

Marine Traffic showed the quartet running– canvas only on the final 57-mile leg- between 6.5 and 8 knots, which isn’t surprising as they were tacking upwind (south-westerly, Force 4–5 on the Beaufort scale) while off the Cape.

All in all, the event produced some epic images.

A mix of USCG and Romanian Navy photos:

Seaman Matheus Kirchner, a deck member assigned to U.S. Coast Guard Cutter Eagle (WIX 327), climbs down from the shrouds to the main deck while underway in the Atlantic Ocean, July 8, 2026. Eagle is participating in the Five Sisters Race from New York to Boston as part of Sail250. (U.S. Coast Guard photo by Petty Officer 3rd Class Ashly Murphy)

Petty Officer 1st Class Christopher Trader, left, and Petty Officer 3rd Class Jacob Haslem, boatswain’s mates assigned to U.S. Coast Guard Cutter Eagle (WIX 327), replace the flying jib staysail aboard Eagle while underway, July 8, 2026. Eagle carries spare sails for each sail aboard to support continued operations. (U.S. Coast Guard photo by Petty Officer 3rd Class Ashly Murphy)

The USCGC Stone served as escort for the Sisters

Among the souvenirs and tokens exchanged, the skippers of the three allied square riggers all recived a painting of Eagle via the USCG’s Art Program

Of course, the “one owner” German-manned ship is much newer (1958) than the other three circa 1930s ships, built to an improved design, and has a Constant Speed Propeller on her auxiliary diesel which can be feathered rather than freewheeling like her older sisters, but it was a close-run event and a perfect day for sailing.

And waiting for them in Boston was the Navy’s oldest commissioned warship and only frigate, USS Constitution, “Old Ironsides.”

All in all, Sail250 was just all-around outstanding.

George M. Neal, Arriving

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The U.S. Navy christened the future Flight III Arleigh Burke-class destroyer USS George M. Neal (DDG 131) during a ceremony at Ingalls in Pascagoula on Saturday, after launching back in April.

She is the first warship named for Ohio-born Aviation Machinist’s Mate 3rd Class George M. Neal, who was awarded the Navy Cross for his heroism during a search-and-rescue mission over North Korea.

While serving in a detachment of Helicopter Utility Squadron One (HU-1) deployed aboard the Australian carrier HMAS Sydney in 1951, Neal volunteered for a perilous mission deep in enemy territory to rescue a downed aviator. After their helicopter crashed under heavy enemy fire, he aided his fellow crew members in evading capture for nine days, enduring subsequent imprisonment as a POW before his release.

Her sponsor was AMM3 Neal’s daughter, Kelley Neal Gray, who saw the ship for the first time this weekend. The elder Neal passed in 2016 at age 86 and is interred at Arlington (Section 76, Grave 1082), as he should be.

The fourth Flight III Burke and, amazingly, the 62nd hull of her class (36 of them delivered by Ingalls already), Neal is expected to be commissioned in 2027 after fitting out, trials, and delivery.

Ingalls has delivered two FIIIs already: USS Jack H. Lucas (DDG 125) and Ted Stevens (DDG 128).

Flight IIIs currently under construction in Pascagoula include Jeremiah Denton (DDG 129), George M. Neal (DDG 131), Sam Nunn (DDG 133), Thad Cochran (DDG 135), and John F. Lehman (DDG 137). Ships in pre-planning include Telesforo Trinidad (DDG 139), Ernest E. Evans (DDG 141), Charles French (DDG 142), Richard J. Danzig (DDG 143), Intrepid (DDG 145), Robert Kerrey (DDG 146), and Ray Mabus (DDG 147).

By the way, looking at the list above, I would like to stress again that destroyers should only be named after naval heroes, not politicians or previous ships not named after heroes.

Flight III Burkes were ordered to fill the AAW Commander gap in carrier strike groups with the block retirement of the Tico-class CGs. As such, they will be the most advanced air defense escorts in the world and the first to field the new AN/SPY-6(V)1 Air and Missile Defense Radar (AMDR) and the Aegis Baseline 10 Combat System.

NASA’s Next Moon Mission includes a Coastie and an Army Astronaut

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Following up on yesterday’s NASA color birds article on their patriotic-themed 42-year-old F-15D and F-18B, let us take a look at the interesting lineup of Artemis III astronauts.

While we noted Artemis II was replete with Hornet drivers, both U.S. Navy and RCAF, the quartet at bat for AIII has a very different flavor.

With no USAF or Navy personnel, it is commanded by a Marine Hornet vet joined by an Italian test pilot, a Coastie and an Army astronaut.

The NASA Artemis III crew poses for an official portrait (from left: CDR Andre Douglas, USCGR; Col. Luca Parmitano, AM; Col. Randy Bresnik, USMC (Ret); Col. Frank Rubio, U.S.Army).

NASA astronaut Randolph “Randy” James Bresnik, Mission Commander, is a 58-year-old retired Marine colonel and Citadel graduate who flew F-18Cs with VMFA-212 on three overseas deployments before seeing combat in OIF with the Vikings of VMFA(AW)-225 and wrapping up his service as ops officer of VMFA-232. In NASA service, he flew on one of the last Shuttle missions (STS-129) and logged 138 days aboard the ISS, catching Soyuz MS-05 up and back for that one.

The Pilot for AIII is ESA (European Space Agency) astronaut Luca Salvo Parmitano, a 49-year-old colonel in the Italian Air Force who formerly flew zippy little AMXs before shifting gears to become a test pilot. He’s racked up 366 days in space between two stints on the ISS, both carried back and forth via Soyuz.

Things start to get really interesting with mission specialist CDR Andre Douglas, USCGR.

Douglas is a USCGA grad (regimental commander, class of ’08) who went on to earn advanced engineering degrees from the University of Michigan, Johns Hopkins, and George Washington University. He spent four years on active duty, including as an engineering officer on the old 210-foot Reliance-class USCGC Vigilant (WMEC-617) working out of Florida, then reactivated his commission in the reserve in 2024. A Group 23 class ‘naught, this will be his first time in space, the only “rookie” on the crew.

Douglas, 40, is the only third Coast Guard astronaut since 1996, following in the footsteps of Capt. (ret.) Daniel Burbank and CDR (ret.) Bruce Melnick. Burbank, now a professor of mechanical engineering at the Coast Guard Academy, spent 188 days in space on two Space Shuttle missions and one mission aboard the ISS. Previously, Melnick, a 20-year veteran of the U.S. Coast Guard, logged over 300 hours in space.

AIII’s fourth member is the very well-traveled Col. Frank Rubio (USMA 1998) of the U.S. Army Space and Missile Defense Command. One of just 20 Army astronauts since 1978, Rubio has the American record for the longest single spaceflight, having spent 371 consecutive days aboard the ISS on Expeditions 68 and 69 from September 2022 to September 2023, during which he logged 5,963 orbits of the Earth, traveled more than 157 million miles, and conducted three spacewalks totaling 21 hours and 24 minutes.

Colonel Rubio on the ISS in 2017. Photo 221001-A-D0431-1001

Rubio definitely “walked the walk” before heading to NASA, flying over 1,100 hours in Army aircraft– including more than 600 as a Blackhawk pilot in Bosnia, Afghanistan, and Iraq- before serving as a member of the Black Knights parachute team, a flight surgeon at Redstone Arsenal, and as a battalion surgeon with “The Originals” of the 10th Special Forces Group.

New: Army Space Branch

Of note, the Army recently established its new Space Operations Branch, giving FA40 Space Operations Officers a dedicated “forever home” and, for the first time, joining it with newly created 40D enlisted Tactical Space Operations Specialists.

While FA40s have served the Army since 1999, they previously lacked an enlisted counterpart. The Army previously sheep-dipped enlisted personnel from the Air Defense Artillery, Signal, and Military Intelligence branches to temporarily execute space missions.

U.S. Army Space Branch will continue to use the USAF/USSF Space Operations Badge in Basic, Senior, and Master grades. The badge dates back to 1982 when it was first adopted by the Air Force and has been authorized for Army use since 2006.

The Master Space Badge, seen above Army jump wings.

NASA Looking for Folks for Year-long Simulated Mars/Moon missions

And in further NASA news, the agency is “recruiting research participants for the agency’s next simulated deep space mission. Beginning no earlier than August 2027, research volunteers will spend one year living and working in interplanetary environments at the agency’s Johnson Space Center in Houston, operating under isolated conditions expected during crewed missions to the Moon or Red Planet.”

13th Horse on the March

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Some 90 years ago today.

Fort Riley, Kansas, 29 June 1936.

The 13th U.S. Cavalry Regiment is seen returning to garrison from its last march as a horse cavalry outfit before shipping off their mounts, trading horse shoes and oats for tires and tracks. The regiment’s colonel at the time was Charles “Lutie” Lewis Scott (USMA 1905), a noted horseman, prominent in the Cavalry Branch as a across an array of organized horse shows, polo matches, fox hunting, and endurance races.

Note, they are outfitted in marching order, complete with gun belts and M1911s. U.S. Signal Corps Photo 111-SC-108064, National Archives Identifier 523751061

The 13th Cavalry Regiment was first constituted on Groundhog’s Day 1901 with its first unit, Troop K, standing up at Fort Meade, South Dakota, on 26 July of the same year.

Spending much of its early years in the Philippines on counter-insurgency operations, the 13th Horse then shifted gears to police the border with Mexico from 1911 through 1916, which included pursuing Mexican outlaw Pascual Orozco.

With about 350 men (four Troops and the MG Troop) already stationed at “Cavalry Camp” in Columbus, New Mexico, they were on hand to repulse Pancho Villa’s raid on the border town that left the unit with 14 casualties versus 100~ suffered by the Villaristas in a 90-minute firefight, which led to Blackjack Pershing’s Punitive Expedition to chase old Panch into the Chihuahua desert.

Mexican Punitive Expedition, 13th Cavalry marching out of El Valle, 1916 111-SC-93333

Retiring from the border in 1921 after missing out on going “Over There,” with the rest of the Doughboys to France in the Great War, the horse soldiers helped film several early western movies, including “The Pony Express” in 1925 and “His First Command” in 1929.

They also notably conducted a 625-mile march from Fort D.A. Russell (now Francis E. Warren AFB, west of Cheyanne, Wyoming) to Fort Riley in good order over 30 days, carrying all their own supplies and bivouacking in the field long before there were interstates and rest stops.

13th Cavalry marched 625 miles to Fort Riley, Summer 1927 111-SC-91997

The regulars of the 13th started to receive their first trucks and motorcycles in 1927, in the slow decade-long transition to becoming a mechanized unit.

Leaving Ft Riley, they were assigned to the 7th Cavalry Brigade (Mechanized) at Fort Knox and began to receive the brand-new M1 Combat Car in 1937.

13th Cavalry M1 Combat Car operating cross-country. Fort Knox, Kentucky. August 1938 111-SC-108927

Thompson submachine gun mounted on a Harley flathead motorcycle of the HHC Troop, 13th Cavalry Regiment, August 1938, at Fort Knox, Kentucky. Note the early round “Old Ironsides” sleeve patch and the riding boots. 111-SC-108934

By 1940, re-badged as the 13th Armored Regiment (Light), they had an allowance for 82 M3 Scout Cars and 136 M3 Stuart Light Tanks, tasked with armored recon, and would soon be receiving M3 (Lee) medium tanks.

Shipping out with the “Old Ironsides” of the 1st Armored Division, the 13th landed in North Africa for Torch in November 1942, went on to lock horns and learn from the Afrika Korps the hard way in Tunisia. They saw their first major combat since 1916 at the Battle of Kasserine Pass, which was one tough proving ground for American armor.

M3 medium tank crew from Company F, 13th Armored Regiment, displays assorted 75mm ammunition. North Africa, 1942-43. Rounds from left to right are 75mm APCBC-HE-Ta shell M61, 75mm AP-T shot M72, and 75mm HE shell M48. Signal Corps 167328 via NARA.

The unit then traded its M3 Stuarts for M5s and M3 Lees for M4 Shermans to land in Europe for the invasion of Italy in November 1943. They pushed all the way up the Italian “boot,” ending the war nearly at the Swiss border, and earned seven battle streamers: Algeria-French Morocco (with arrowhead), Tunisia, Naples-Foggia, Anzio, Rome-Arno, North Apennines, and Po Valley.

Then came occupation duty as the 13th Constabulary Squadron (which ironically included some horses), Cold War reorganization, activation, and inactivation until the 1st Battalion, 13th Armor (1-13 Armor), was stood back up on 16 February 1996 at Fort Riley, Kansas, and assigned once again to the 1st Armored Division. Of note, it had been nearly 60 years on the nose since the unit had hung up its horses at that very base to switch to tracks.

Since then, they have been overseas again to South Korea, Bosnia, Iraq, and Afghanistan, and today the only active Squadron, 2-13 Armor, is the armored recon unit for Old Ironsides’ 3rd Brigade, and is based at Fort Bliss. They ride Bradleys and Abrams.

Their motto is “It Shall Be Done,” and they are still nicknamed the 13th Horse.

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