The 178th Field Artillery Regiment Distinctive Unit Insignia, also called a unit crest or DUI, bears more than a passing resemblance to the DUI of the 178th Engineer Battalion. That’s because the Engineer Battalion’s lineage includes the 178th Field Artillery Regiment, and to acknowledge this ancestry it displays the shield from the 178th’s FA’s coat of arms on its DUI—the same shield seen in the 178th FA unit crest.
Red is used to denote the 178th’s status as an Artillery organization, and the dashing fox is a reference not only to the speed and maneuverability of the unit in the field, but also the code name it used to reference itself in field communications. “True And Tried,” the unit motto, proudly points to the unit’s successful combat record.
The 178th Field Artillery Regiment DUI was originally approved on 18 June 1941 and was redesignated in January 1944 for the 178th Field Artillery Battalion. It was redesignated twice after that: in July 1960 for the 178th Artillery Regiment and in August 1972 for the 178th Field Artillery Regiment.
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Originally constituted as the 1st Battalion, Engineers in the South Carolina National Guard on 7 June 1917, the 178th Artillery Regiment spent more than a decade designated as an Engineer unit. During World War I, it would fight as the 1st Battalion, 117th Engineer Regiment as part of the 42nd Division, earning credit for participation in six campaigns.
It would become an Artillery Regiment in April 1929 through the consolidation of the 2nd Battalion, 105th Engineer Regiment and the 2nd Battalion, 115th Field Artillery. In 1941, however, the Regiment was broken up, its two battalions becoming the 178th and 248th Field Artillery Battalions and its HQ and HQ Battery becoming the HQ and HQ Battery, 178th Field Artillery Group.
During World War II, the units that would remain in the 178th Field Artillery lineage fought in a half-dozen campaigns, earning the Regiment a French Croix de Guerre with Silver-Gilt Star. (Battery C, 3rd Battalion is individually credited with participation in the Somme Offensive, Ypres-Lys, and Flanders 1918 campaigns in World War I and the Northern France and Rhineland campaigns of World War II.)
The 178th and 248th FA Battalions were consolidated in April 1959 to form the 178th Artillery, a parent regiment in the Combat Arms Regimental System comprising four howitzer battalions, all elements of the 51st Infantry Division. The Regiment would undergo several reorganizations affecting its allotted number of battalions and what units they would serve under; the Regiment was reduced to a single Battalion, the 1st, by the mid-2000s. When not called to active Federal duty, it is a unit in the South Carolina Army National Guard that is attached to major commands as needed, such as the 218th Maneuver Enhancement Brigade or the 65th Field Artillery Brigade.