11th Air Assault Division

Before the 1st Cavalry Division flew into the Ia Drang Valley, its helicopters, tactics and soldiers spent more than two years proving themselves under another name, the 11th Air Assault Division (Test). The division was activated at Fort Benning, Georgia on February 15, 1963, with one job: find out whether an infantry division could fight and move by helicopter. Under Brigadier General Harry W.O. Kinnard it worked out how to lift infantry, artillery and supplies into battle by air. On July 1, 1965 it became the 1st Cavalry Division (Airmobile). The patch keeps the winged 11 of the 11th Airborne Division, whose number it carried.

The idea came from the Howze Board, which released its findings on the airmobility concept on August 20, 1962, after computer wargames and field exercises. The Army ordered the test division on January 7, 1963, reactivating the 11th Airborne Division on February 1 and redesignating it two weeks later. The 227th Assault Helicopter Battalion joined the division, and the 3rd Battalion, 187th Infantry trained with it from April 1963, with rocket-firing UH-1 Hueys covering the landing zones. Air Assault I tested a battalion at Fort Stewart, Georgia in September 1963. Air Assault II in October 1964 spread across the Carolinas with about 35,000 troops, pitting the division against the 82nd Airborne Division.

The patch is a 2.25 by 3.5 inch shield on a royal blue field, with a cut edge and a sew-on backing. An arched AIR ASSAULT tab in red letters sits across the top, set off by a thin gold stripe. Below it, white wings spread above a red disc outlined in white, with the numerals 11 stitched in white at the center. The red, white and blue and the winged disc come straight from the division's 11th Airborne lineage, with the airborne tab replaced by the words that named the new mission. It is small enough for a shoulder and clear enough to read across a room.

The men of the 11th Air Assault Division (Test) built the playbook the Army flew in Vietnam. Twenty-seven days after the division became the 1st Cavalry Division (Airmobile), President Johnson ordered it to Vietnam. In November 1965 its air assault forces met North Vietnamese regulars at Ia Drang and defeated them, using the tactics drilled at Benning, Stewart and in the Carolinas. Veterans of the test years were there for the start of something the Army still does today. For them, the 11th was where it began.

Sew it onto a vest next to a 1st Cavalry Division patch, or mount it in a shadow box with Fort Benning photos and an aviation badge. It is a good gift for a veteran of the test years, a helicopter crewman, or a grandson who wants to know where air assault came from. At 2.25 by 3.5 inches it sits well on a shoulder or a vest panel. It is a small patch with a big piece of Army history behind it.