Military Ranger Patches History Page 2

Below are the First through Ninth Battalion scrolls. All were approved for local wear only. The First through Sixth Ranger Battalions were formed as elite commando units. They were trained as raiding parties and were used to accomplish the army's most impossible assignments. The mission taken on by the Second Ranger Battalion, which involved scaling the high cliffs at Point du Hoc, Omaha Beach, on D-Day, demonstrates the danger of their assignments. Half of the 900 rangers of the First Battalion became casualties on the beaches at Anzio. Few survivors from the Third Ranger Battalion could tell stories about the terrible suffering in the valley of San Pietro, Casino, Anzio and Cisterna. During the terrible fighting at Anzio and at the town of Cisterna di Littoria, the Fourth Ranger Battalion was literally cut to pieces while trying to hold the line against a vastly superior number of Germans. The Fifth Ranger Battalion, along with the Second Battalion, made the perilous assault on the enemy coastal battery located on the cliffs of Point du Hoc. Among the well-known exploits of the Sixth Ranger Battalion was theirr aggressive search-and-destroy mission against the Japanese prior to the invasion of the Lingayen Gulf in the Philippines and their famous dash to the Cabanatuan prison camp 29 - 30 January 1945.

Information extracted from the book "US ARMY PATCHES" by Barry Jason Stein

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