This extract from my book Badges on Battle Dress explains the sign and its origins. A rare badge.
Jon
The 25th Tank Brigade with 51st RTR, 142nd Regiment, RAC and the North Irish Horse arrived in Italy from North Africa on 18th April 1944 bringing its black diabolo sign. After it supported 1st Canadian Division’s attack on the Hitler Line near the town of Pontecorvo on 23rd May, the divisional commander, General Volkes, impressed by the brigade’s actions, ‘intimated that he would be pleased if all ranks of 25 Tank Brigade would wear a maple leaf emblem in token of the part played by the Brigade in assisting 1st Canadian Infantry Division to break through the Hitler Line’. Accepting the offer with thanks Brigadier JN Tetley permitted a small metal maple leaf similar to that worn on the ribbon of the Canadian Volunteer Service Medal to be added to the black diabolo. The brigade subsequently took part in the advance to Florence before supporting the assaults on the Gothic and Rimini Lines in September 1944. When converted to an Armoured Assault Brigade in January 1945 51st RTR was the only regiment which remained with the Brigade.
In October 1944 the 8th Army’s Chief Engineer proposed expanding the existing 1st Assault Regiment into an assault brigade to be ready for service by 1st February 1945. On 5th January HQ 25th Tank Brigade became HQ ‘B’ Assault Brigade, RAC/RE, a new formation modelled on 79th Armoured Division, its 51st Royal Tanks equipped with Crab flail tanks and Crocodile flamethrowers, its ‘A’ and ‘B’ Assault Regiments, RE manning ARKs, AVREs and Sherman dozers, supported by ‘C’ Armoured Park Squadron, RE. The sign recorded for the Brigade was described as two black equilateral triangles on a red and blue shield, versions backed with the colours of the Royal Armoured Corps possibly worn for a short period by the RAC element of the newly-formed brigade. When redesignated 25th Armoured Engineer Brigade, Royal Engineers on 1st April 1945 its regiments were 51st Royal Tanks and 1st and 2nd Armoured Engineer Regiments, the 1st formerly 1st Assault Regiment, RAC/RE, the 2nd formed from the divisional engineers of the disbanded 1st Armoured Division. A new Brigade sign placed the black diabolo and maple leaf on a strip of Royal Engineer colours. Its specialist armour redundant the Brigade was disbanded in the autumn of 1945.
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