112th U.S. Air Defense Artillery guidon, Battery B of the 6th Battalion.
This wool government made and issued guidon complies with the specifications for guidon sizes introduced for the US Artillery Corps in 1931. It bears the insignia of the 112th Air Defense Artillery (ADA).
The 112th US Field Artillery was organized out of venerable New Jersey National Guard units to serve along the Mexican Border. They also served in WWI and WWII. During the Cold War, the 112th underwent successive redesignations and reorganizations. While they were designated as an Air Defense Artillery organization, Battery B of the 6th Battalion carried this Philadelphia Quartermaster Depot made guidon; doubtless at one of the many Nike missile installations in New Jersey and perhaps under the 19th Air Defense Artillery Group (ZFC2413). They remain to this day a unit of the New Jersey National Guard.
From 1953 to 1979, the United States Army operated almost 300 Nike missile batteries as the penultimate line of defense against aircraft and missiles of the USSR.
Provenance: Acquired by purchase in 2010, at the Bay Area Militaria Show San Jose, California.
ZFC Noteworthy Flag
Sources:
112th Field Artillery Regiment, 20 May 2012, From: http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~gregkrenzelok/veterinary%20corp%20in%20ww1/112thfahorsedrawn1941.html
112th Field Artillery, State of New Jersey, Department of Military & Veterans Affairs, 20 May 2012, from: http://www.nj.gov/military/museum/112.html
Air Defense Artillery, Wikipedia, 20 May 2012, from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_Defense_Artillery
Image Credits:
Zaricor Flag Collection
CSG
USAG
4March1921
