The Fifth Marine Brigade Insignia:
Collector’s Commentary

Following behind the Fourth Marine Brigade, the newly formed Fifth Brigade, made up of the 11th and 13th Regiments of Marines also served in France. Not committed to the fighting as a brigade, men from these two regiments carried out support duties until the wars end. As a result the Fifth Brigade, sometimes confused with the “Fifth Marines” or regiment, did not receive the same distinction on the field of battle, in spite of the fact that they provided many of the replacements to the battle weary fourth Brigade.

As a result of this distinction between the two Marine Brigades, many collectors have ignored the Fifth (Brigade) and focused their attention on the uniforms and equipment identified by the Indian head insignia on tunics and helmets.

The Fifth (Brigade) was required to adopted an insignia of their own and display it on their uniforms and equipment much the same as any other AEF unit in France. It’s interesting to note that although at first glance, the two Brigades had very dissimilar insignia there is also commonality. The insignia devised consisted of the eagle, globe and anchor, (ega) superimposed on a circle for Brigade headquarters and on a square or diamond shaped background for the 11th and 13th regiments respectively.

Within the insignia itself, was included a “V” identifying the “Fifth” Brigade. The color of the “V” coincided with those of the corresponding units in the Fourth Brigade. If we look at the two regiments then, the 11th Marines, mirror the Fifth Marines in both the shape* of the insignia (square) and the unit colors (as designated by either the “V” or the background color behind the Indian head) and the 13th Marines (diamond) mirror those of the 6th Marines of the other Brigade in a similar way.

Fifth Brigade Headquarters insignia is sometimes identified as having a black eagle, globe and anchor, with V superimposed, on a circular red background. There is agreement on the image and shape, but not always on the colors of the ega or the background. For example there was a color description in print that described the circle or disc as black and the ega as red and I have in my collection a vintage helmet in early paint with that same color scheme.

What about the original? I have seen many hand sewn, HQ period insignia with different background colors. The image displayed here is on army type cloth, which is convincing to me. One or two of the tunics displayed on this site show variations in both background color and ega. This does not however extend to the colors of the “V” that indicate unit designation, which seem to have continuity from patch to patch.

Like most collectors, I am looking for answers to these and other questions relating to this WWI period and the Marine Corps commitment in France. As usual, they are not clear cut and always require a bit of “detective work”. This is no exception. The purpose of this short article is to emphasize the consistencies, which when understood can be very helpful to the collector while at the same time pointing out those contradictions which require a case by case interpertation.

* Exceptions have been noted; however there is a great deal of consistency in both the shape and colors of the 11th and 13th Marine Regiment insignia(s).

Robert Hunt
USMC Collector