No need to apologise Mike - I agree it looks pretty awful - and Bess yes I think it's suspect. I can't believe GAUNT would want to put it's name to a badge made so crudely? So it is a bit of a curio. What I know for certainty is that there were two squadrons ( 28 and 31 ) of the Gurkha Transport Regiment who were re designated as the Queens Own Gurkha Transport Regiment on 30 August 1992 ( Royal Warrant dated 30 Sept 1992 ) - 28 Squadron was redeployed to Colchester in Nov 1993 - 31 Squadron I believe remained in Hong Kong throughout.
Whether theres a difference to the two squadrons badges because of location - I can't say. It must have taken a while from the change in title to the issue of new badges and maybe there were some "false starts or rejects along the way?
I've attached slightly better pictures for Chris - the fixings on the "GAUNT" badge are different with 4 pronounced rivets to the FIRMIN badge ( which I'm entirely happy with ) Tim
|