Quote:
Originally Posted by Postwarden
The battle dress shown from the Cheshire Regiment Museum is interesting as it sheds light on a small mystery I noted in my book Badges on Battle Dress.
In November 1955 the War Office Dress Committee authorised QMSIs (WOII), SSIs and Sergeant Instructors of the Small Arms School Corps to wear metal rank badges on battle dress - a crown in wreath for the QMSI, a small crown above the chevrons for the SSI - both worn with crossed brass rifles. As was often the case this was probably official authorisation for an existing practice.
The same meeting authorised the Corps to continue wearing the obsolete ‘Badges, Arm, Machine Gun, Crossed, Gunmetal’ until stocks were exhausted. No official record of this metal badge, presumably worn by the SASC’s MG instructors, has been found and is not recorded in Edwards and Langley. The BD shown has a crown above the crossed MGs but a photo I was alerted to which was reproduced in the July 2012 edition of Man at Arms; The Journal of the SASC shows WO2 (QMSI) Peter Clift, SASC serving with the MMG Division, School of Infantry Support Weapons Wing in 1958, wearing crossed brass machine guns under his brass rank badge.
Jon
|
That is very interesting, Jon, and the knowledge of it is probably lost at what passes for the SASC Museum at Warminster. All that you have reported makes sense, as there was for many years a sense of independence among the instructors based at Netheravon’s medium machine gun Division at the Support Weapons Wing (there were also ‘medium mortar’ and ‘infantry anti-tank’ divisions).
The reason was partly geographical because the Small Arms Wing was at that time still far away at Hythe, in Kent, but mainly historical, in that before 1926 the last vestiges of the MGC, the independent Machine Gun School (formerly at Seaford), still existed at Netheravon (and still wore MG insignia) some 4-years after the MGC itself had been disbanded. It was in that year that the two schools merged to form the Small Arms School Corps, but not until 3-years later, in 1929 that a new cap badge was accepted that merged the emblems of the two schools, crossed rifles and tripod mounted MMG. At the same time the schools colours, red and blue for Netheravon and green and yellow for Hythe, were also merged to become the colours of the SASC.
The geographical separation remained however, and it was not until Hythe closed and the Small Arms Wing moved to Warminster that concerted efforts were made to bring the staff of the two wings more closely together in a sense of cross-fertilisation, a process that most felt was never 100% successful.
Whilst the MMG Division was at Netheravon, the instructors of the Small Arms School Corps who specialised in machine gun and mortar instruction, as opposed to the rifle and light machine gun that was taught at Hythe, were permitted to wear crossed machine guns as part of their rank insignia. This was instead of the crossed rifles worn by Hythe instructors.