This outstanding Airborne jump jacket and pants turned up recently at an estate auction in Talladega, AL and was purchased by a local collector. The jacket and pants are both named to John I Collins, a member of Co. A, 551st Parachute Infantry Battalion and originally from Talladega. Collins was killed in action at Dairomont, Belgium on January 3, 1945, during the initial spearhead of the counter offensive in the northern shoulder of the Bulge. The jacket is adorned with the Airborne Command patch which would be absolutely correct for the 551st as an unattached unit. The jacket and pants are in nearly mint condition with some minor staining from a metal coat hanger on one leg of the pants and a use stain on both knees. The set was either an extra that was possibly a walking out uniform or was in his baggage as it is known that the unit quartermaster was trying to obtain jump suits for the 551st just prior to the jump into Southern France as part of Operation Dragoon indicating that the men’s baggage had not caught up with them from Italy. The group includes the jump jacket, pants, a binder of research and Orfalea’s book “Messengers of the Lost Battalion” which I purchased and am including with the set.
551ST PARACHUTE INFANTRY BATTALION
The 551st Parachute Infantry Battalion (551st PIB), for many years, a little-recognized airborne unit of the United States Army raised during World War II that fought in the Battle of the Bulge. Originally commissioned to take the French Caribbean Island of Martinique, they were instead deployed to Western Europe. With an initial strength of 800 officers and enlisted men, the remaining 250 members of the Battalion were ordered on January 7, 1945, to attack the Belgian village of Rochelinval over open ground and without artillery support. During the successful assault, the unit lost more than half its remaining men. The Battalion was inactivated on January 27, 1945, and the remaining 110 survivors were absorbed into the 82nd Airborne Division. Virtually nothing of the unit’s history was known to the American public until the 1990s, when renewed interest prompted its veterans to seek recognition for their costly success at Rochelinval. The battalion was awarded a Presidential Unit Citation in 2001, recognizing its accomplishments.
