peter monahan

I have to agree with Mike. It is virtually identical to the Italian cavalry badges in my sole WWII badge book, down to the backing colour for the tropical uniform, which would make sense if it was picked up in Africa. The only difference is that my source - Rossignoli - shows the regimnet number in the central circle, but this may be an arm of service patch worn in some dress orders, or an officer's version.

Brett It doesn't look as if there were any recreated Hanoverian units at the battle this time. Here is the British order of battle, as listed in the Napoleonic Association's June 2015 newsletter: http://www.napoleonicassociation.org/downloads/adjutant/Summer2015.pdf The only German units I can see are Brandenburgers and Brunswickers but it's possible there was a battery tucked away in the artillery brigade. I'm surprised, frankly, that no one in the UK is portraying the King's German Legion, but if they are they do not seem to have made the trip to Belgium. OTOH, here is a link to a new monument to the Hanoverians, dedicated by 'The Officers of theKGL", whatever that means and officially unveiled quite recently: http://napoleon-monuments.eu/Napoleon1er/20150424BrunswHan.htm#Han . Peter .

Indeed! Do we know if Igor is still an active member? I see he has posted as recently as 2013 - I looked threough perhaps 50 of his 800+ posts to date. You might get his attention through a PM or by posting on the Russian Awards section, if you wish to contact him.

I think you're right, Egypt.

Lovely! Thank you for sharing.

Brett I'll see if I can find the British order of battle again - when last I checked it it was only to find out who we were brigaded with. That should tell us who else was there.

I would suggest that it is a lapel pin for a Scottish yacht club or sailing organization, based on the thistle, the blue pennant and the enamel work, whichn is not military, in my opinion. Certainly not a RN or RNVR sweetheart pin. The other possibility is a connection to one of the Scottish shipping lines.

Absolutley correct, Paul. Damn science anyway!

The first photo needs no explanation. The secind is of a plaque at Beaumont Hamel commemorating all the Newfoundlanders who fell in the Great War and have no known graves. Edward W. Kendall, killed Oct 9, 1917, was 15 at the time of his death. Sergeant Tommy Ricketts, also of the Royal Newfoundland Regiment, was 15 years old when he joined up in 1916 and 17 and a half when he won the Victoria Cross in 1918, the youngest member of the Empire to win it in battle. I saw 15+ battlefields and cemeteries in 6 days, and am still sorting out my reactions in my head, though how small the battlefields were is one indelible memory. I will likely have more to say soon.

Brett - not sure about the hanoverians, but I suspect yes. There were all sorts of Allied units including a Swedish regiment - mostly composed of Finns in fact - in one of the Allied Brigades. The North American Battalion, of which I had the honour to be an staff officer, was attached to the british 4th Brigade, which also had an attached BBC camerman, so an inordinate number of the shots aired on the BBC in fact showed Canadians, as well as the 2/95th Rifles, the 33rd Foot and the Coldstream Guards, who were brigaded with us. As we also had the only Corps of Drums in the Allied force, they got their share of publcity as well and were employed virtually non-stop, both on and off the field. Sadly, while I was present for the Friday night battle, I went down with food poisioning immediately afterwards and spent 24 hours sleeping, including through the Saturday battle. A few phots attached below. One of our officers and his son, the staff officers inside Hougomont Farm, where we were trapped for an hour by a broken ramp onto the filed, hand to hand combat, His grace the Duke and our Brigade commander, Rob Yuill, with his sone and his father [76] who here portrays their ancestor, a soldier of the Royal Scots. He fell in with the RS in our battalion for the raining sesions.

At the risk of bringing politics into this august forum, the current government of Canada - which refers to itself publcily as 'the Harper government' is very eager to advance Canada's claims to Arctic sovreignty. In fact, a frined on mine has been working on television ads known as 'Heritage Minutes', which encapsulate, allegedly, key moments in Canadian history. One being filmed in May this year - just AFTER all our snow melted - focused on Franklin and other prominent 'Canadians' who explored or lived in the Arctic. The first draft of the script opened with Franklin sitting in his cabin aboard HMS Erebus poring over charts with severakl interested Inuit. My fried, hired to vet the history, wrote on the script 'If he's done this he would not have died!' and sent it back. That scene did not appear in subsequent versions of the script. [face palm]

Pierce If you google 'Royal Artillery uniform' and 'Victorian' you should find a wealth of images. Good luck! Peter

A 64 meter crate would be pretty d*** impressive! When I worked my way through college in a mine - at 18 years old I got paid to blow stuff up! - we routinely blew 500-1000 pounds once a week, but that was safely undergound and I could feel the blast at my house, some 5-6 miles from the mine site. [ Never blew it on my shift. ]

​Matty A lot of these commemoratives are issued either by veterans groups or, in some cases, by a municiplaity or county/canton where the actions being remembered took place. As a resuklt, they do not appear in the official lists issued by the various national cahncery offies [or their equivalents] as they are not official awards. It makes identifying them a bit of a challenge and in future will undoubtedly confuse any number of collectors!

That sounds right. So, he's have worn dark blue with, I think, gold [yellow] GC stripes. Emphasis on 'think', as I haven't checked. By 1874 the Gunners would have been in khaki like everyone else and the stripes would be khaki or white, as I recall.

I live just down the road from Canadian Forces Base Borden, our largest training establishment, with something like 35 different schools. One of the bigger ones seems to be to train militia types to drive our trucks /lorries, so I not inferquently run across route markers stapled to telephone poles on the roads round town. Ours seem to consist solely of black clubs, spades, hearts and diamonds on white paper, not a patch on those lovely things!

It is in the style of WWI and date stamped 1952 by the look of it. An interesting item.

From the buckle I'm going to guess a trooper in the Household Cavalry. Not fancy enough for an officer but that is their buckle. A very nice little item, though.

I was that dumb at 20, though skulls were never my thing. Hell, I carruied a swagger stick around college for a while! OTOH, the French troops in Mali were dong some 'hearts and mind' stuff as well as potentially engaging armed opponents, so I can see why his superiors would not have been amused.

I'd be very pleasantly surprised, given the current atmosphere in Ottawa, if the Forces were permitted to do anything so generous.

A member of the Worchestershire Reg't. Note GC stripes on right sleeve.

Pierce The so called 'good conduct badge' was a chevron, worn point up on the lower sleeve and earned for a certain number of years' service without any charges against one's conduct [drunkennes, AWOl, etc]. In Victorian times each extar badge brought a penny a day increase in pay - to a base pay of something like 18 pence, i think, so not an inconsiderable incentive. Here are the periods required to earn them in various decades, as quoted on the Victorian wars Forum: he 1836 and 1854 rules awarded badges at 5, 10, 15, 20 and 25 years of service. The 1860 rules awarded badges at 3, 8, 13, 18, 23, 28, 33, and 38 years of service.The 1870 rules awarded badges at 2, 6, 12, 18, 23, and 28 years of service. The 1876 rules awarded badges at 2, 5, 12, 16, 18, 21, and 26 years of service. The 1885 rules awarded badges at 2, 6, 12, 18, 23, and 28 years of service. Hope that helps. Peter

You might want to give him a ring then and suggest a) a safety deposit box and b) more insurance. If he were burgled they'd just as likely bin the stuff after a fence turned it down and that would be several kinds of tragedy. Peter

Pylon That was very accomodating of the authorities! Somebody up there must love you. Frank I remember the 125th medal - "piece of rubbish" as our British cousins would say! Maybe the nice ones I saw were replacements like Python's, or the S-G and his buddies were lcuky in their timing. Who knows.

Pierce Sadly, no. I know that HM government issues replacements to serving members of the Forces and to the surviving family of those killed or died on service. I think they may also issue replacements to survivng vets in extraordinary circumstances, but certainly not in the case of service that long ago. Your only recourse is to assemble a set of specimens representing the medals your ancestor earned, which can be either exciting or frustrating, depending on your personality and whether you'll accept copies, name erased samples, named medals to others and so on. Good luck, whatever you decide to do! Peter