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  #16  
Old 08-04-20, 12:57 PM
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Toby Purcell Toby Purcell is offline
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For the sake of completeness there's one other scenario that I would wish to mention that was common during both world wars, but especially the first one. When a battalion was completely disbanded as a result of no longer being viable (or even on some rare occasions inefficient) the officers were generally sent to another battalion of the same regiment, or at least within the same brigade, but there were also cases where an officer was sent to an entirely different regiment, where he took up the insignia of the unit he joined. The infantry in WW1 was enormous and far bigger than in WW2, which is why so much more use was made (i.e. on a greater scale) of native infantry from India, Africa and the West Indies in the latter. movement between regiments was relatively fluid. The system was not hidebound and there were occasionally exceptions, but the principles I've outlined were always followed wherever possible.
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Old 08-04-20, 01:43 PM
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Probably one of the best known example of the phenomenon is "Billie" Neville of the 8th Battalion, East Surrey Regiment. Best known for the footballs in No Man's Land on 1st July 1916. In every known photograph of him he is wearing the badges of the East Surrey Regiment,

His headstone has the badge of the East Yorkshire Regiment that he was commissioned into but never served with.
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  #18  
Old 08-04-20, 08:54 PM
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Probably one of the best known example of the phenomenon is "Billie" Neville of the 8th Battalion, East Surrey Regiment. Best known for the footballs in No Man's Land on 1st July 1916. In every known photograph of him he is wearing the badges of the East Surrey Regiment,

His headstone has the badge of the East Yorkshire Regiment that he was commissioned into but never served with.
Another example, but with a different dynamic was Lieutenant Robert Graves, who had a Special Reserve Commission with the RWF, but with 5-fellow RWF officers was sent in a draft of six subalterns to 2nd Battalion the Welsh Regiment where he served for over 6-months front line service, wearing that regiments uniform and insignia. When he was eventually posted back to his regiment it was the 2nd Battalion RWF that he joined, only to find himself publicly upbraided for wearing a Welsh Regiment pattern shoulder-rank (“wind up”) jacket, much to his chagrin, and he was immediately required to return to the regulation cuff-rank jacket required by his parent regiment.

Last edited by Toby Purcell; 08-04-20 at 09:02 PM.
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  #19  
Old 08-04-20, 10:31 PM
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Originally Posted by Toby Purcell View Post
Another example, but with a different dynamic was Lieutenant Robert Graves, who had a Special Reserve Commission with the RWF, but with 5-fellow RWF officers was sent in a draft of six subalterns to 2nd Battalion the Welsh Regiment where he served for over 6-months front line service, wearing that regiments uniform and insignia. When he was eventually posted back to his regiment it was the 2nd Battalion RWF that he joined, only to find himself publicly upbraided for wearing a Welsh Regiment pattern shoulder-rank (“wind up”) jacket, much to his chagrin, and he was immediately required to return to the regulation cuff-rank jacket required by his parent regiment.
You beat me to this well known instance of this subject! I dont recall that he indicated whether or not they wore Welsh Regt. insignia however. He also mentions quite a few other officers from other regiments were assigned to the RWF during his service. However, no mention is made as to what insignia was worn by them either

CB
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  #20  
Old 08-04-20, 10:59 PM
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You beat me to this well known instance of this subject! I dont recall that he indicated whether or not they wore Welsh Regt. insignia however. He also mentions quite a few other officers from other regiments were assigned to the RWF during his service. However, no mention is made as to what insignia was worn by them either

CB
As it was the regiment that I served in for 12-years, and I had access to its records (the battalion had existed with unbroken service since 1689 and I lived among a treasure trove of history, including photo albums with tattered covers, and inked annotations in various copperplate hands) I can tell you that the officers posted on attachment wore the insignia of the regiment. There are even quite a few images of regimental groups online and you will not find a single officer who is not wearing RWF insignia apart from the RMO and the Padre.
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  #21  
Old 08-04-20, 11:50 PM
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You have answered a LONG standing question of mine! These officers had to purchase their insignia and other items according to regimental custom, so I can only guess what their parents or whomever provided for them must have thought; commissioned into one regiment, but serving with another.
Cheers,

CB
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  #22  
Old 09-04-20, 06:21 AM
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You have answered a LONG standing question of mine! These officers had to purchase their insignia and other items according to regimental custom, so I can only guess what their parents or whomever provided for them must have thought; commissioned into one regiment, but serving with another.
Cheers,

CB
At the beginning of WW1, It really wasn’t that strange to the officers concerned, as they largely came from wealthy families for whom the cost of just the OSD insignia and a tailor’s bill for a particular jacket meant little. By 1916-17 however, things became significantly different, as men from the lower middle classes began to receive commissions, as well as smaller numbers of experienced rankers from the working class, and the government began to offer kitting out grants from public funds for the first time. For the old class of professional soldiers and their families, though, it was a practice that had existed for many centuries. When examining the biographies of regimental colonels of the turn of the century, it is a real eye opener, as one finds that in almost every case they had served in two or more regiments during the course of a career, with many switching between line and Foot Guards, or visa versa, and some even ordinary line regiments to Scots Highlanders, purchasing their promotions (in actuality the ‘difference’) between one rank and another along the way. Unlike WW1, that involved the purchase of several orders of dress, insignia and often swords too. Prior to 1902, levee order, with its copious amounts of gold lace was also required, and many officers, or their families went into debt for some years to support the expense. It was in effect the cost of an officer corps whose family fortunes, were invested in the state and the maintenance of the establishment status quo. This was a deliberate ploy on a national, state level, to ensure that any mutiny against the crown would utterly ruin families that participated, a deeply embedded system that had evolved following the restoration of the Monarchy and establishment of a Standing Army in 1660. It entirely underpinned the Army.

Last edited by Toby Purcell; 09-04-20 at 11:44 AM.
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