RAEC/RAOC cloth formation sign puzzle

[Julius21]

Hi there

I wonder if forum members might be able to help me with a puzzle. I am trying to identify some British Army 1950s cloth formation badges in two pictures.

Both pictures were taken in early 1951 at Hilsea Barracks, Portsmouth, then home to 3 (Basic) Training Battalion, Royal Army Ordnance Corps.

My father, Sgt ARL Bowler, was then a sergeant instructor with the Royal Army Educational Corps attached to 3 Training Batt, RAOC , for the last part of his National Service. I am trying to work out what shoulder badges he and his colleagues are wearing.

1. A picture of my father (with glasses) and a colleague, Sgt Crawshaw, also at Hilsea, early 1951. The badge here could be a Southern Command RAEC badge – five white stars on a light blue shield. However, the badge doesn’t look like a shield in shape in the original photo.

2. A group picture of some of the sergeants at Hilsea. My father is the one wearing glasses back row 3rd from right.
Some of the badges the other Sgts are wearing seem to be the War Office badge of a crowned Lion on the Kings Crown. This would make sense as training establishments were War Office-controlled. However, I am not sure if this is what my father is wearing - you can't really tell in the picture given the angle of his arm.

3 and 4. I have added close-ups, I have tinkered with the images, but it is still sadly pretty grainy.

My other thoughts were – could the badge my father is wearing in the first picture be a District badge? I don’t know in which District of Southern Command Hilsea was, but if it was Aldershot District it would be the flaming torch badge, if the Salisbury District – it would the Stonehenge great trilithon badge. It doesn’t look like these either, so may be it was some sort of Portsmouth Garrison badge? Or could it be an RAOC badge?

My father, whom I have asked – says he can’t remember wearing any of these badges.

So if it isn’t any of these – does anybody have any idea what an RAEC Sgt at 3 Training Batt, RAOC could be wearing as a formation sign at Hilsea in 1951?

If anybody has any ideas I would be very grateful. I have (hopefully correctly) attached the photos. Any expert advice would be most welcome.

Best wishes

Tim

[54Bty]

Image 1 and 4 look like Southern Command.

Image 2 could be War Office Controlled Units, the Royal Crest (Lion on a Crown) in yellow on a red over blue square.

[NorthStafford]

I trained in Southern Command in 1958 / 59 and the satndard formation badge for all training battalions was the shield with the stars but the background was in the colours of the corps whose battalion it was. I for example wore the shield with vertical equal bands of red yellow blue and the stars as on the one illustrated. This was worn at both 1 training battalion , Blandford and 8(basic trade) training battalion , Taunton.

[Julius21]

Hi

Thank you for your thoughts on the photos, I appreciate them.
You have both confirmed what I had thought - that in Southern Command - the relevant Southern Command badge was worn depending on arm of service - and that some staff at training establishments wore the WO badge.
So an RAEC Sgt would have worn the Southern Command RAEC badge.

On an allied note, I have a much lighter blue shield with 5 white stars on it.
While some websites list this as the RAEC badge - others -as in 54Bty's photo show it as 5 white stars on a dark blue background.

I am not sure if there is a definitive ruling on whether both these two badges were RAEC. I did consult The Torch , the RAEC journal at the British Library, but didn't find any useful details.

thanks once again

Tim

[NorthStafford]

Light (powder) blue is normally associated with then Army Air Corps so that's a possibilty of course es[pecially as the AAC were trained in Southern Command at Middle Wallop.