[Madziro]

I agree with the other contributors to this thread and believe that this tunic is made up by somebody for whatever reason. There is no point in wearing the embroidered titles when he has metal titles that indicate that he is a South African in any case. It is highly unlikely that a man in this unit would have qualified for such proficiency badges either.

The attached is an original BD blouse from the 6th SA Armd Div. I have the man's records and as an aside, attache them for interest. He was a signaller and was wounded at some point.

My late father was in the SA Corps of Signals in Italy during the war. As has been previously said there were SA signallers and engineers in Italy who were not part of the 6th SA Armd Div. They were all attached to the British 8th Army. It was these soldiers who were issued with South Africa shoulder titles and while the shoulder titles on your BD blouse are original WW2 era the majority of SA soldiers in 8th Army had red embroidered titles. I attach images of my late fathers titles and 8th Army badges as an example as well as a photo of him in Italy wearing the 8th Army patches.

Completely separate to this I have a war time VG badge in the collection and post it for interest.