The bottom badge was authorised by Military Order (MO) 395/1916 and was for personnel who had qualified for the Badge, Discharged Returned Soldier and had re-enlisted, or been appointed to a unit in Australia, or had returned to duty with the unit with which they had originally served.
I presume the latter provision was for those men who were serving in the Permanent Forces or the Citizen forces at the time they enlisted in the AIF. They were still held on the rolls of those units.
The Badge Discharged Returned Soldier was a metal badge struck for all personnel, male or female, who returned to Australia from active service and were discharged. It was authorised by MO 230/1916 and was issued on production of the person's discharge certificate. I presume that provision would then have applied to the issue of the cloth Badge, Arm, Returned Soldier.
Worn on the left arm one inch from the sleeve head of the jacket or greatcoat with 1/2 an inch of webbing to show either side.
It became obsolete at some stage and was shown as not of current manufacture in Price List of Clothing 1918-19 but MO 27/1919 approved it for demobilized AIF recruits. Presumably those who were in camps in Australia training as reinforcements when the Armistice was signed and they didn't get away.
In a previous post on this badge I think I put a photograph up from the South Australian Library collection showing it being worn but I can't locate it now.
Keith
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