36th Aust Heavy Artillery Brigade 1918
 

The photo (I think) was taken just before the 16th Reinforcements departed from Australia - so maybe in Melbourne early Feb 1918.

If anyone thinks otherwise, I'd love to hear from you.

Cheers

Is this of the same 36th AHAB - or of the 11th AGA?

Many thanks.

The second photo looks as if the man standing on the extreme right is a returned soldier with Gallipoli service, the sergeant at front appears to have a discharged returned soldiers' patch on his left arm.

However these blokes are dressed as AIF, the Universal Trainees of 11 AGA would have been wearing Shirts, Military, Woollen, and slouch hats with scarlet hat bands. They may be reinforcements for an AIF artillery unit.

In regard to the first photo I have my doubts that reinforcements would have been issued colour patches in Australia, in fact the colour patch for 36 HAG had only just been approved in UK at that time.

In any case the man in the front row already has four overseas service chevrons up. Interesting to see that they were still wearing RAA shoulder titles in addition to their AUSTRALIA and colour patches.

Nice photos though...

Merry Christmas

Keith

Thank you Keith.

I shall investigate these photos more thoroughly.

From my understanding, the 36th wearing the RAA badges for the duration of the war was one of a few differences they had over the other Australian troops. Apparently, they spent most of their service in Flanders supporting British Infantry, while British Heavy Artillery boys were supporting the Ozzies in France.

Below are the lapel and shoulder titles of my great uncle.

Awesome, thanks for the photos of the badges with provenance. I have a couple of diecast hat badges and collars like yours with exactly the same lugs, and although everything looked contemporary I've spent a lot of time looking at those lugs with their long flattened feet and wondering if they were kosher.

The metal RAA shoulder titles were officially abolished in 1916 but given the absence of colour patches until late in the war I'm not surprised they continued to be worn.