The Delta of the Triple Elevens : $b the history of Battery D, 311th Field Artillery, United States Army, American Expeditionary ForcesBachman, William Elmer
History
The Delta of the Triple Elevens : $b the history of Battery D, 311th Field Artillery, United States Army, American Expeditionary Forces
Bachman, William Elmer
United States. Army. Field Artillery Battalion, 311th. Battery D; World War, 1914-1918 -- Regimental histories -- United States
(Extracts from a Document)
Written from data furnished
by
E. F. HENRI VIARD
B. A. Paris University
Late London Correspondent of "Le Journal"
Sometime Technical Translator to the Ordnance
Department A. E. F.
The Lorraine Cross, official insignia of the Seventy-Ninth Division,
United States Army, was adopted shortly after the armistice was
signed.
Despite the fact that the Seventy-Ninth Division Artillery did not
share in the fighting with the rest of the division, the artillerymen
were accorded the privilege of wearing the emblem.
In all its war operations, the Seventy-Ninth Division faced the enemy
in Lorraine, the province which the United States was pledged to win
back for France.
Victory, in the face of stubborn opposition, crowned the efforts of
the Seventy-Ninth Division. It was only appropriate, therefore, that
the division should select as its emblem the ancient symbol of
victory, The Lorraine Cross.
The divisional insignia was worn on the left sleeve of the uniform
blouse at the shoulder.
THE CROSS OF LORRAINE.
A national emblem of the independent Duchy of Lorraine for centuries,
and even now a distinctive cognizance of the Border Province of
France, the double traverse cross, known as the Cross of Lorraine,
forms part of the armorial bearings of no less than 163 noble
families. And several military units engaged in the world war adopted
the cross as an emblem. These units include, besides the Lorraine
Detachment of the French Army, the Seventy-Ninth Division.
Before its adoption as an emblem by the reigning house of Lorraine,
the double traverse cross had a long and interesting history.
Important in the history of the development of the shape of the Cross
with its two beams, the design being Byzantine and emblematic of the
triumph of Christ over Death, are ancient double traverse crosses,
each containing fragments of the Real Cross of the Crucifixion. They
are preserved in different sections of France.
The double traverse of the Cross of Lorraine comes from the
substitution, for the Titulus, or inscription originally used to mark
the Cross upon which Christ was crucified, of a plain horizontal arm.
The origin of the double traverse cross is Eastern, and, students of
the subject point out, it undoubtedly represents the Jerusalem
Cross--the True Cross--with its main horizontal beam and the Titulus,
represented by a plain beam in the Cross of Lorraine.
Reliquaries containing parts of the Red Cross upon which the Savior
was crucified, including the reliquaries in Poitiers and Limoges, are
double traverse in form. On an enamelled plate in the Treasury of Graz
Cathedral, Hungary, the figure of Saint Helena, credited with the
recovery of the True Cross, is represented draped in a dress which is
emblazoned with a double traverse cross.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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