WW2 US Army Eritrea Service Command Early cut edge patch.

WW2 US Army Eritrea Service Command Early cut edge patch. A red gazelle’s head facing left, on a tan/khaki shield, bordered by a blue laurel wreath. This was the WWII-era shoulder sleeve insignia for the Eritrea Service Command, a subcommand under U.S. Army Forces in the Middle East (USAFIME), later folded into the Africa-Middle East Theater (AMET) in 1945.

The history: After Italian forces in Asmara, Eritrea surrendered to the Allies in 1941, the U.S. Army moved in and took over an existing Italian naval radio facility (Radio Marina), turning it into what would eventually become the famous Kagnew Station — a strategic communications and signals site that the Army held onto for decades, right through the postwar years and into the 1970s. Kagnew Station operated as a U.S. Army installation in Asmara until 1977, home to the Army’s 4th Detachment of the Second Signal Service Battalion.  Eritrea Service Command administered U.S. logistics, supply, and personnel support for that whole corner of the theater — feeding the war effort in North Africa and the Middle East and, crucially, keeping the Red Sea shipping lanes open.

Why the gazelle: The species is a nice bit of local color, literally. The Eritrean gazelle is a species native to the region east of the Nile, found in Eritrea, Ethiopia, and Sudan  — so the designer picked an animal specific to the ground troops were actually standing on, rather than a generic heraldic device.