Artifact of the Month
Unit Crest of the 36th Transportation Battalion.
The 36th Transportation Battalion (Truck) was constituted in the Regular Army on 1 May 1936 and redesignated on 8 January 1940 as the 21st Quartermaster Regiment (Truck). On 5 January 1943, the 21st Quartermaster Regiment departed Fort Benning from the Fort Benning Embarkation Point via ocean transport bound for the China-Burma-India (CBI) Theatre of War. The regiment’s operations centered on the Ledo (or Burma) Road, a main supply artery from Southern Asia into China The mission of the 21st Quartermaster Regiment was supply to the forward areas. For their work in the Burma Campaign and China Campaign, the 36th was awarded the China-Burma-India and Central Burma Campaign Streamers.
On 1 August 1946, after the conclusion of World War II, the unit was converted and redesignated as the 36th Transportation Corps Truck Battalion and served at Ft. Sill, OK until it was inactivated on 20 February 1956. The battalion was reactivated at Ft. Polk in 1958 and then would remain in almost continual service serving in such places as Ft. Bragg, Germany, Vietnam, Ft. Dix, Ft. Bliss and, finally, Ft. Leonard Wood.
The symbolism of the 36th Battalion’s unit crest represents the Battalion’s two campaign honors for World War II service in Burma and India are represented are represented by the two stars; the Asiatic elephant, native to both Burma and India and a beast of great strength and intelligence, is symbolic of transportation in that part of the world. The red annulet, suggesting the rim of a wheel, alludes to the more modern means employed by the 36th Transportation Battalion.