Jacket, Field, Wool, Olive Drab, the M1944 pattern known universally as the Ike jacket. Manufactured by Herman D. Oritsky of Philadelphia on Purchase Order 8774, contract dated 18 December 1944, to a pattern date of 10 May 1944, under Philadelphia Quartermaster Depot specification P.Q.D. No. 437. Stock No. 55-J-384-650, size 38S. Insignia’d to a staff sergeant of the Corps of Engineers, Ninth United States Army, with an Advance Section, Communications Zone combat patch.

The contract date is worth noting. The German Ardennes offensive opened on 16 December 1944. This jacket was contracted two days later, and the label reads Spec. P.Q.D. No. 437, the Quartermaster Corps working to a specification issued that May while the war it was clothing men for was at its most violent.

The insignia constitute the wearer’s service record in cloth and brass, and should be read in that order.

The left shoulder carries the shoulder sleeve insignia of the Ninth United States Army, approved 21 September 1944: a white letter A within a white nine sided figure on a red ground, the nine sides denoting the numerical designation. The Ninth Army was activated eight weeks before the Normandy landings, originally as the Eighth Army and redesignated on arrival in the United Kingdom to avoid confusion with the British formation of that number. Lieutenant General William H. Simpson commanded it from first to last. It came into the line on 5 September 1944 to reduce the German garrison at Brest, took the port fifteen days later, then moved east between Third Army and First Army before shifting in November to the northern flank of 12th Army Group and closing to the Roer. When the German counteroffensive opened on 16 December it cut Simpson off from Bradley’s headquarters, and on 20 December the Ninth Army passed to Field Marshal Montgomery’s 21st Army Group over Bradley’s objection, holding the Roer line while the salient was reduced. In late February 1945 it launched Operation Grenade as the southern jaw of a pincer with First Canadian Army, stood on the Rhine along its entire front by 10 March, crossed after 20 March, and swung around the northern shoulder of the Ruhr to help seal Army Group B inside the pocket. It reached the Weser by 4 April, the Elbe by 12 April, halted on 2 May at the agreed demarcation line, and took in the order of 100,000 prisoners in the first week of that month.

The right shoulder carries the shoulder sleeve insignia for former wartime service, and it is the Advance Section, Communications Zone, European Theater of Operations, with its ADSEC tab above. The heraldry is composite: the blue five pointed star on a white six lobed field is the device of the Army Service Forces, and the gold lightning and chain links come from the ETOUSA insignia, signifying the Allies breaking the chains of Nazi oppression. The tab matters. ADSEC soldiers wore a section tab above the Com Z patch, and it identifies the wearer with the most forward logistical organization in the theater.

ADSEC was activated in February 1944 and attached initially to First Army. Unlike the base sections behind it, it held no permanent installation. It moved with the front, displacing forward roughly every forty days as the armies advanced, and it was the first American logistical agency ashore on the continent after the landings. It ran field hospitals and blood banks, rations, ordnance and petroleum, finance and pay, heavy maintenance, and the Red Ball Express, the truck route that kept the armored columns moving across France in the autumn of 1944. A man wearing this combination served in the supply organization that pushed forward behind the fighting divisions and finished the war under Simpson.

The branch is established by the collar disc, the castle of the Corps of Engineers, worn opposite the national U.S. disc. Rank is staff sergeant, three chevrons above one arc, worn on both sleeves in olive drab on dark blue wool.

The left forearm records service. Two overseas service bars represent twelve months outside the continental United States, one bar per six months. A single service stripe below them denotes three years of service.

Two ribbon bars are worn. The upper carries the Good Conduct Medal, the American Campaign Medal and the European-African-Middle Eastern Campaign Medal. The lower carries the World War II Victory Medal. The Good Conduct Medal, instituted in 1941, recognized exemplary conduct, efficiency and fidelity among enlisted men. The American Campaign Medal covered service within the American theater, and the European ribbon is deliberately geographic: brown for the ground contested, the green, white and red of Italy at one end, and the blue, white and red common to the United States, Great Britain and France. The Victory Medal was awarded for any service between 7 December 1941 and 31 December 1946.

Above the right breast pocket is the Honorable Service Emblem, the gold eagle within an olive drab lozenge, known to soldiers as the ruptured duck. It was issued at separation and authorized the wearing of the uniform for thirty days thereafter, so that a discharged man travelling home would not be taken for a deserter. Its presence in the regulation position indicates the jacket left service on the wearer.

The lining retains its purple stencilled laundry marking, which under the system then in use combined the first letter of the soldier’s surname with the last four digits of his Army serial number. It reads as L followed by 7117. That is not a name, but it is a documented starting point: a surname beginning with L and a service number ending 7117, in an Engineer unit of Advance Section, Communications Zone. It is offered as a research lead rather than a completed identification.

The uniform is offered as found. No insignia has been added, removed or repositioned.

CONDITION AND DETAILS

Size 38S per the label, a 38 inch chest in short length
Stock No. 55-J-384-650
Herman D. Oritsky, P.O. No. 8774, dated 18 December 1944
Pattern dated 10 May 1944, Spec. P.Q.D. No. 437, Philadelphia Quartermaster Depot
Olive drab wool sound throughout, good color and nap, no significant moth damage
Ninth Army insignia, left shoulder, firmly sewn, colors bright
ADSEC tab and Advance Section Communications Zone ETO combat patch, right shoulder, both firmly sewn, colors bright
Staff sergeant chevrons on both sleeves, secure
Two overseas service bars and one service stripe, left forearm, all secure
Honorable Service Emblem present above the right breast pocket, secure
Two ribbon bars present and secure: Good Conduct Medal, American Campaign Medal and European-African-Middle Eastern Campaign Medal on the upper, World War II Victory Medal on the lower
Brass U.S. national collar disc and brass Corps of Engineers castle disc, both present and secure
All front, epaulette, cuff tab and pocket flap buttons present
Both waist adjustment tabs present, buckles intact
Both patch pockets and flaps sound
Cotton twill lining complete and sound, retaining the purple stencilled laundry marking
Contract label complete and fully legible
No holes, tears, repairs or alterations noted

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