Australian Home Front
 

Australia had a plethora of interesting Home Front badges, and I thought it would be interesting to start a thread and see what people have.

One of the sets I like are the "returned from active service" badges, issued to discharged soldiers and sailors. As the War dragged on, many wounded and honourably discharged servicemen were back in Australia, some well before the wars end, and would have needed to be 'badged' to avoid being accused of shirking their duty.

These two are for the AIF and RAN. Both are marked Stokes & Sons. Love to see other examples and/or other Aussie home front items...

Cheers, Tim

Here are a good variety of badges .

Blimey! Ok, that is quite the selection!

As I understand, the first badge is the precursor to the second, for Female workers at AIF London headquarters?

Wonderful selection, and with the Balloted badge to boot. Don't see them around much.

Thanks for posting these - just superb

Cheers, Tim

My only badge that might fit here, TB soldiers society fund badge

https://collections.museumvictoria.com.au/items/1960659

Thanks Jerry, not seen that one before, so glad you posted.

Cheers, Tim

Thanks Tim.

I think there is also a plastic coated paper badge as well and that both are not common, though the latter is seen more often of the two, if I remember correctly when I tried a search previously.

Thanks for the extra info, Jerry.

I've one more to add, the Mothers and Widows Badge, issued from 1919, for servicemen who died on active service or later, as a result of wounds or service. Each star represents a serviceman (i.e. 1 star, 1 death, 2 stars, two deaths etc.)

cheers, Tim

Here are couple of those examples from Rob's (dad) collection , notice the blue badge notes how many sons went to war, the badge equals 1 and the bars the others all are numbered .
Notice all so that the ribbon with 2 stars there was a third son that was unfit and the badge to show he was is there as he never finished training. With the 3 stared ribbon the 4th son was in merchant marine and we only have a ribbon for the BWM one thing that we noticed is that the 14/15 stars are gold plated ?

Jack

Question, the For Services Rendered badge, the one with the GRI cypher. In Canada that badge was awarded to soldiers who had served, been wounded and returned home. What was it for in Australia?

Bill, it was the same for all British and Commonwealth Forces. The Silver War Badge, issued to all servicemen discharged as medically unfit for further service due to wounds or other illness.

So, it is not a home front badge.

Correct, technically speaking that and the widows ribbon were not .

Very nice collection, some very rare ones there. Great it can all be kept together

Cheers, Tim

Australian "home front" badges
 

Hi

Here are two of my A.I.F. badges. The 1918 badge has already featured but how many of the "Enlisted in A.I.F. 1916" badge?

Looks silver and with the number "8" we can't be talking about heaps that had been issued or are still around.

I purchased this based solely on the low number on the back but THEN saw that it was NOT 1918 but 1916!

Hi Tim

Got one of those WW1 "widows" badges way back along with his pair of medals. The seller didn't check CWGC and didn't "link" the two lots.

Have subsequently turned up a pic of the soldier (42nd Btn from memory) who fell in 1917.

They sometimes turn up with the ribbon absolutely in tatters. The top and bottom bars seem to end up on eBay as "mystery badge".....

I've actually seen just a bar with TWO stars that I should have snapped up.