Thursday, December 20, 2012

Field Guide to US Paratrooper Badges

I am proud to announce that my book is finally in print. It took about a year to put this together and I am very happy with the outcome. While it won't make the NY Times best seller list it will help collectors of insignia and it fills a void on these badges. I started my engineering career in the Aerial Delivery and Air Cargo Branch of the US Air Force. This is the research and development group charged with design of delivering cargo by both parachute and cargo aircraft. I spent my first 10 years of engineering in this branch which included four years in uniform. So I am coming full circle with this book and paratrooper badges back to my first job. One of these days I will put together a posting of my Air Force days. It was rather unusual and maybe even fill in the details on the flying saucer (Secret) blueprints I found in the history vaults. A Field Guide to United States Paratrooper Badges is a comprehensive illustrated guide to hundreds of paratrooper badges to aid the collector community. All paratrooper badges are the same but to the collector they are not, small details can provide information as to when they were manufactured and by who. This guide shows the various manufactures and the details of the badges. Hundreds of photographs provide both the details of the badges and the hallmarks of the manufacturing companies where ever possible. While not 100% complete it provides the most comprehensive guide ever produced on paratrooper badges. In addition un-official badges are shown as well as badges for supporting roles to the paratrooper. A history of parachutes dating back to Leonardo da Vinci in 1495 provides the reader a sense of how parachutes came into being and the start of combat operations in WWII. A list of United States combat jumps is also provided. As is a section on un-official awards granted to people who lives were saved when jumping from a disabled aircraft such as the "Caterpillar" award. If you collect United States military insignia this book is a must for your reference library. 155 Pages, 100’s of color photos. Ordering info: Just do a search on the following at www.Amazon.com The site will let you look at inside pages, etc. In the USA - ISBN:148118105X In Europe - EAN13:9781481181051