Mysterious SAAF badge
 

Any ideas on this one? At first I thought it's a made up badge but the wreath and eagle appear to be struck as a single piece.

That's very interesting.

Does the badge look as though it dates from the 1950s, or is it more recent?

A very long shot, but if it dates from the 1950s, it might be a prototype for a WO I rank badge. I recently saw a SADF rank chart that was published in 1957 (when the crown was replaced by the castle). It showed the SAAF WO I's badge as an eagle on a wreath, and the WO II badge as an eagle above a smaller spray of leaves. AFAIK, the SAAF did not wear these badges, and continued to follow army practice.

I was about to say more recent because it has bolts on the back rather than lugs. When I had another look now tough I noticed some discolouration around the bolts which could of course mean they might have been added later. The eagle is exactly the same size as a SAAF cap badge.

I thought it might be a plaque badge or possibly a prototype senior officers cap badge when they changed to the new style badge.

Interesting to read about the eagle WO badge design. Do you have a copy of the picture/article?

I have a copy from an Old Kommando magazine somewhere in my files which also showed eagles being worn on the cuff of the proposed new SAAF blue uniform (a la Australia in WW2) sometime in the 1950s. They did of course introduce the blue-grey uniform but with standard army-style ranks.

Would the eagle and wreath design have been considered around the same time as the Lion in wreath WOII badge worn briefly by the Navy?

Could be. The current badge was introduced in 1959, although the fish eagle had been adopted around 1950 as the emblem of the SAAF and it appeared on the officers' embroidered cap badges from around 1952.

I don't have a copy. It was a newspaper clipping from Die Burger (18 May 1957).

I think I know which article you mean. The SAAF introduced the blue uniform around 1951, when it ceased to be a corps in the army and became a separate branch of service. They decided to wear RAF rank insignia, and there are a few photos in Kommando showing senior officers wearing them, but the idea was abandoned after a few months and they carried on with the army-style insignia instead.

The senior NCOs used to wear eagles above their chevrons. At first it was the RAF-style eagle, as in the cap badge, and in the 1950s it was changed to the fish eagle as in the new cap badge. They're shown in the chart published in 1957, but were dropped a few years later.

It wouldn't surprise me. It was the Erasmus era, when everything in sight was tinkered with. It would suggest that each of the three services was to have a different badge for its WOs.

Interesting! I wasn't aware that anyone actually ever wore RAF style braid in the SAAF itself. You don't happen to have any pictures? I'd love to see them.

Alas, no I don't have any pics. I have a note, made many many moons ago, of a photo in the March 1951 issue of Kommando showing a SAAF brigadier wearing one broad ring as a rank badge, and a light-coloured capband and gorget patches.

The new UDF uniforms, including the blue SAAF uniforms, had been published in a colour supplement to the December 1950 edition.