Unusual AIF cavalry unit
 

A friend of mine has a Xmas 1917 regimental card of the 1st Divisional Cavalry Squadron, depicting the sign/patch of an inverted blue triangle. I've never heard of the unit or the patch, and would be interested to find out more. Can anyone help?

Are you sure its Australian? It's not a unit/sub unit I have heard of before.

Maybe USA? The Americans also had a 1st Division in France during WW1.

Edit: Though I did just read this on wiki.

"The 13th Light Horse Regiment and one squadron of the 4th Light Horse Regiment served on the Western Front, first as divisional cavalry squadrons for the 2nd, 4th and 5th Divisions, and then as the I ANZAC Corps Mounted Regiment. A squadron of the 4th provided the divisional cavalry squadron for the 1st Division and one of the 14th Light Horse Regiment for the 3rd Division. In combination with New Zealand mounted troops, the squadron of the 4th became part of the II ANZAC Corps Mounted Regiment. After the Australian Corps was formed in November 1917, the I Anzac Corps Mounted Regiment became known as the 13th Light Horse Regiment again."

From the AWM:

https://www.awm.gov.au/collection/U51038

So possibly a squadron of the 4th Light Horse Regiment?

Mick

Thanks for this, Mick. The card is definitely Australian, and I suspect your suggestion that it was a sqn of 4 ALH is the answer. Nevertheless, I'm very surprised that it had a patch of its own, and of a form that doesn't obviously resemble either those of 1st Div or of the ALH generally.

Do you have a picture of it that you could share here?

Mick

Not 1st Cavalry Division Signal Squadron is it, inverted purple triangle. This unit was in Mesopotamia, off the top of my head, when it was broken up it was used to bring 1st Wireless Signal Squadron up to strength.

There's a whole file on the patch in AWM, after the colour patch chart appeared in Volume 3 of the Official History a bloke from the squadron wrote to the AWM a bit upset that their patch wasn't in the chart.

Keith

That makes sense as Lettman mentioned an inverted blue triangle in the original post.

Mick

Yes, that does make sense. I've only seen a small photo of the card's cover, so the triangle could actually be purple and not blue. I'll get my mate to send me a close up and a shot of the inside and post them in due course. Thanks for the help with this one -- it had me stumped.

coincidance??
https://www.ebay.com.au/itm/WW1-VICT...rdt=true&rt=nc

Very serendipitous (if that's a word)! I don't deal with ebay so I had no idea about this. I was spurred on solely by my collector friend's Xmas card.