WWII Badge ID
 

Can someone please identify this badge for me. It is on the right sleeve of a WWII dress tunic. Wearer was RAE if that helps.

RAA, artillery surveyor sleeve badge, unfortunately broken at the top. There are companion badges with G (gunner),R (rangefinder) and L (layer) in Gothic letters.

Hi Kingsley, the badge has no evidence of being broken at the top. Why would a sapper wear a RAA badge?

Digger History has the exact same badge, unidentified possibly a "D"

http://www.diggerhistory.info/pages-badges/trade2.htm

Steve

Interesting. The badge I have has even sized wreaths on each side unlike the badge on diggerhistory. Otherwise it is identical. It was my father's badge. He was in RAE, initially as Group III Tinsmith but upgraded (presumably on proof of trade certificate) to Group I Plumber. So I assume it is a trade badge.

"S" for Surveyors trade badge, with top broken off as mentioned before....sorry pic upside down

The badge is a broken S in wreath as previous posters have noted.

The metal S in wreath was a skill-at-arms badge for qualified surveyors, flash-spotters and sound-rangers of artillery survey units RAA(M), and battery surveyors RAA or RAA(M), and was introduced in brass in 1931, becoming available for issue in 1932. It was worn on the left forearm only by those so qualified.

The blackened badge suggests post December 1939, skill-at-arms competitions ceased to be held in 1941.

Trade badges were worn on the right arm above chevrons, or on the right forearm below the badge of rank by warrant officers. These ceased to appear in War Scales of Clothing and Necessaries in 1942, and were not listed in various General Routine Orders of 1943, 1945 and 1947 listing badges of rank and appointment that were to be worn by other ranks.

It would be wholly implausible for a tinsmith or plumber to wear the S in wreath - the trade badge for a tinsmith and whitesmith, or a plumber and gasfitter, who qualified annually prior to the Second World War as an Artificer - Field Engineer RAE or RAE(M), was a grenade, "...similar to that mentioned in SOs for Dress 1935, para 290(c)...".

Keith

Perhaps the individual wearing it broke it deliberately so the result looked like the flame from his gas torch?