Original Item. One-of-a-Kind. The 555th Parachute Infantry Battalion, nicknamed The Triple Nickles, was an all-black airborne unit of the United States Army during World War II. The battalion did not serve overseas during World War II, primarily because it never reached full strength for an Airborne Infantry Battalion. In reaction to the German counterattack that began the Battle of Bulge, the Airborne Command considered reorganizing the 555th PIB as a single reinforced Airborne Rifle Company, and sending it to Europe to reinforce the battered Airborne units already there. However, before this could happen the crisis had passed, and the 555th PIB was instead alerted for deployment to the West Coast. The men of the 555th PIB hoped that they would get into the war against the Japanese, but that was not their new mission. According to Sergeant Walter Morris, "It was a secret mission called Operation Firefly. We thought we were going overseas to [Gen. Douglas] MacArthur's theater." It wasn't until they arrived in Oregon, in May 1945, that they learned they would be fighting the Japanese on the fire line in the Western United States.

This is a gorgeous custom-made Master Parachutist Badge, marked STERLING B on the reverse, which has incorporated three Buffalo Nickels for a member of the 555th Parachute Infantry Battalion, nicknamed the “Triple Nickles”. The badge measures 1¾ x 2¾” and is in gorgeous shape with a great patina. Included is a great WWII period airborne oval for the 555th P.I.R., along with two red & white Airborne patches, one having a black scroll at the top instead of red. 

A fantastic set, ready for further research and display.

During the winter of 1944–45, the Japanese sent 9,300 Fu-Go balloon bombs toward North America. It was believed 1,000 succeeded in reaching the United States; 312 balloon bombs have been found. After three days, each balloon dropped an incendiary bomb. The balloon bombs employed a ballast system designed to maintain an average altitude of 30,000 feet. Incendiary bombs would be dropped one at a time (four 11-pounders) and a single high-explosive bomb (33 pounds) would be dropped followed by a self-destruct device. In order to conceal the efficacy of these attacks, the missions of the 555th PIB was kept clandestine in nature. By January 1945, however, both Time and Newsweek reported the mission.

Although there were no significant wildfires, small ones nonetheless developed from some of the balloon bombs being detonated suddenly after landing on the forests undisturbed for weeks or months mainly in California, Oregon, or Idaho. Stationed at Pendleton Field, Oregon (formerly the base of the pilots and aircraft selected for the Doolittle raid on Japan), with a detachment in Chico, California, unit members participated in fire-fighting missions throughout the Pacific Northwest during the summer and fall of 1945. The 555th worked on twenty-eight fires during the 1945 season. Of these, fifteen fires were "jumped" or parachuted to. While some United States Forest Service reports refer to some employees as smokejumpers, the 555th were reported as paratroopers on all fire reports. The only fatality in the unit died while jumping on 6 August 1945. The activities of the unit & Project Firefly were reported in the fourth episode of Your AAF, 'Firefighting Paratroopers' segment broadcast September 13, 1945, which can be found on YouTube and most old-time radio websites. It includes a brief interview by AAF reporter Sergeant Douglas Cooley with jumpmaster Captain Richard Williams, executive officer of the paratroop battalion, in a C47 piloted by Colonel Frank McNees, who commanded the 435th group of the 9th troop carrier command which carried the first airborne divisions over the beaches of Normandy, & later across the Rhine.

The 555th Parachute Infantry Battalion was nicknamed the "Triple Nickles" because of its numerical designation and the selection of 17 of the original 20-member "colored test platoon" from the 92nd Infantry (Buffalo) Division. Hence, the origin of the nickname, Buffalo Nickles. Not to be confused with the U.S. 5-cent coin that had a bison (buffalo) on it, which was first minted long before the war, the spelling derives from old English. Three buffalo nickels joined in a triangle or pyramid is the identifying symbol.