504th Airborne Infantry Regiment Patch Strike Hold

The sword on the 504th's shield is wrapped in flame, and in the regiment's heraldry the blue field is the color of the infantry, whose work the sword stands for. The motto beneath it, Strike Hold, says the rest, hit fast and keep the ground you take. The design was approved for the 504th Parachute Infantry Regiment on 25 January 1943, months before the regiment's first combat jump. It has stayed with the unit through every redesignation since, from the 504th Airborne Infantry Regiment of the 1950s to the 504th Infantry Regiment of today. Paratroopers from Sicily to Afghanistan have worn the same flaming sword.

The 504th Parachute Infantry Regiment was activated on 1 May 1942 at Fort Benning, Georgia, and was assigned to the 82nd Airborne Division that August. In July 1943 it jumped into Sicily, and that September it took the high ground at Altavilla during the fighting at Salerno. At Anzio in early 1944, a German officer's diary gave the regiment the name it still answers to, the Devils in Baggy Pants. In Operation Market Garden the 504th landed in the Netherlands on 17 September 1944 and made the assault crossing of the Waal River at Nijmegen. That December it was rushed into the Battle of the Bulge and fought Kampfgruppe Peiper at Cheneux.

This patch is 3.25 inches wide and 3.5 inches tall, cut to the outline of the shield and the gold scroll beneath it. A royal blue shield carries the sword on the diagonal, its blade white, its hilt and pommel gold and its edges licked with yellow flame, all set inside a gold border. STRIKE HOLD is stitched in blue letters across the scroll, which curls up at each end like a rolled parchment. The edge is cut close to the design, and the iron-on backing lets it go straight onto a jacket, or you can sew it down.

Colonel Reuben Tucker led the 504th from 1942 to 1946, starting as a 31-year-old lieutenant colonel, and his answer at Altavilla, that his men had the hill and were going to keep it, sounds a lot like the motto. After the war the 504th stayed with the 82nd, deploying to the Dominican Republic in 1965, to Panama for Operation Just Cause in December 1989 and to the Gulf for Operation Desert Storm in 1991. Its battalions went on to Iraq and Afghanistan. The battalions are still known as the Red Devils, the White Devils and the Blue Devils. Every one of those names traces back to that diary at Anzio.

It mounts well in a shadow box beside a set of jump wings and a photograph from jump school, and it rides fine on a vest at an 82nd Airborne reunion. It also makes a good gift for a paratrooper's son or grandson who grew up hearing about the Waal crossing. Strike Hold is two words, and every Devil knows what they mean.