528th Artillery Group Unit Crest (Monstrans Viam)

The 528th Artillery Group Distinctive Unit Insignia, or unit crest, was originally approved for the 528th Field Artillery Battalion on 1 November 1955 and was subsequently redesignated for the 529th U.S. Army Artillery Group on 20 June 1967.

MONSTRANS VIAM (“Point The Way”) in scarlet script on and yellow (gold) background incorporate the branch colors of Artillery which are also used to divide the shield in half. A pruning knife on a black circle symbolize the Battalion’s Central Europe and Rhineland campaigns in World War II, with the black circle—called a “gunstone” in heraldry—simulating a shell burst with the five points of the star simulating the explosion. The star is suggested by the state flag of Texas and is an allusion to Camp Hood, the base where the unit was originally activated.

The 528th Artillery Group was originally constituted as the 528th Field Artillery Battalion in the Army of the United States on 4 January 1944 and activated at Fort Hood, Texas on 21 February 1944. Deployed to Europe where it fought in two campaigns, the unit was inactivated on 1 November 1946 at Camp Hood, Texas. On 16 June 1947 it was redesignated as the 934th Field Artillery Battalion and allotted to the Organized Reserves, where it was activated on 7 July 1947 in Chicago.

It was inactivated just over three years later on 15 November 1950; it would not be activated until 18 March 1955, by which time it had withdrawn from the Army Reserve (13 December 1952) and allotted to the Regular Army and subsequently redesignated as the 528th Field Artillery Battalion. Its Headquarters and Headquarters Battery was redesignated as Headquarters and Headquarters Detachment, 528th U.S. Army Artillery Group on 9 March 1959, with the remainder of the Battalion beginning separate lineages at that time. It would activate for the final time on 1 April 1959 at Fort Sill, Oklahoma and serve more than three decades before it was inactivated on 15 July 1992 in Germany.