U.S. ARMY SIGNAL CORPS SUSPENDERS

Signal Corps suspenders are manufactured in Orange (cable 65004) and are worn with Dress, Mess, and Evening Mess uniforms, with the provision that they are not visible when worn. We feature two types of suspenders, clip-on and button-loop, both manufactured to meet or surpass Army regulations.
 

Almost from its inceptions, the Signal Corps recognized the potential of aerial observation as a means of collecting information that could be relayed to commanders on the ground. Despite an abortive effort to launch a balloon at the First Battle of Bull Run, after which ballooning functions were transferred to the short-lived Union Army Balloon Corps, the Corps remained mindful of the utility of balloons, and in 1892 Chief Signal Officer Adolphus Greely established a Balloon Section to accompany the Corps’ telegraph trains (the first balloon was named “General Myer” after Corps founder Albert J. Myer). Greely also established the Signal Corps’ first balloon company at Fort Logan, Colorado in 1896.

Related Signal Corps Items

• Shoulder Straps
• Cap / Sleeve Braid
• Collar Devices
• Regimental Distinctive Insignia
• Branch Scarf
• Ceremonial Belt

Greely had been appointed to a board looking in to the potential of heavier-than-air flying machines in 1898, and the following year he presented Army grant money to Samuel Pierpont Langley to purse improvements to his steam-powered aircraft (he called it an “aerodrome”) that had flown for half-a-mile back in 1896. Though Langley’s experiments never yielded a practical flying machine, they did keep the Signal Corps up to date on the entire concept of airplanes and their military uses. On August 1, 1907, the Signal Corps established an Aeronautical Division—the first military organization devoted to heavier-than-air aviation. The Division was subsumed under the Aviation Section of the Signal Corps in 1914; the Aviation Section was responsible for all Army aircraft and their operations until the creation of the Air Service, U.S. Army in May 1918.

With this move, the future of Army aviation was removed from the Signal Corps. The Air Service became the United States Army Air Corps in 1926, which in turn morphed into the United States Army Air Force in 1942. The significant role Army Air Force played in achieving victory in World War II, coupled with advances in aerospace technology in general and ballistic missiles in particular, led to the creation of the United States Air Force as a separate branch of the U.S. Armed Forces in 1947. While other basic branches of the United States Army have spun off new, independent branches, the Signal Corps is the only branch to have spawned a new entirely new military branch of the United States Military.