Somaliland Scouts or Somalia Gendarmerie?

[Chacal]

I’ve just bought this black and white print (presumably an official photograph) marked on the back in pencil 3” Mortar Somaliland Scout and a ref. no., but the flash he wears does not tally with photos I’ve found online which show Somaliland Scouts wearing a ‘square’ flash of a single uniform colour, usually with the regimental badge mounted on it.

However his flash is consistent with the green/white/green flash worn by the Somalia Gendarmerie, so is it possible that whoever annotated the photo made a mistake? My knowledge of the Somaliland Scouts is limited, so can any of our more knowledgeable members confirm or debunk my thoughts that this actually shows a Somalia Gendarme? As a gendarmerie they certainly received infantry training to help defend the borders and rural areas from incursions by Axis forces, and raids by heavily armed groups of bandits and rustlers, so training in support weapons such as mortars is quite likely.

The other photographs attached show Somalia Gendarmes wearing the headdress flash, and a colour reconstruction based of descriptions found online.

As always I shall be very grateful for any input from members, and the usual caveat: should this prove to be a Gendarme I will be keeping it, if it is proven to be a Scout it may be available for swap/sale.

Thanks for looking

Graham

[sapper533]

Graham does this help? Not mine just an image in my archive.

[Chacal]

Thank you Sean that is a help, as it is completely different to the SG flash maybe I'm right.

Much appreciated mate, thanks again.

Graham

[sapper533]

As you said earlier, I have only ever seen the Scouts badge on Green but who knows, red and green is often associated with SDF,
I would go with yours being Gendarmerie until you discover otherwise.