Wessex Wyvern

[Postwarden]

An example of the green-backed Wyvern also with rounded corners appeared in The Formation Sign in early 2015. As a result the following was submitted by long-standing member Les Cable whose eye for detail is excellent. Interestingly the sign shown in the issue faced the other way. So perhaps worth hanging on to until the mystery is solved.

Jon

The green-backed 43rd Wessex Division sign shown in the last Formation Sign stirred a memory from 1955/56 for Les Cable. Standing in the corridor of a train from London to Exeter a WOII (CSM) wearing a Wyvern in the same colours as his shoulder title - from memory that of the Duke of Cornwall’s Light Infantry - appeared at Les’s side near Exeter ready to alight. When Les commented that his sign was not dark blue he said he had just come back from Bermuda where the unit had them made up, Robin Mc Gregor’s sign the first example Les has seen since then. Although 1st Battalion, DCLI served in Bermuda and British Honduras between March 1954 and early 1957, it is unlikely that a soldier from what was then a TA division served with them at that time. Could the WOII, about to be posted to the Division as a PSI, have decided to distinguish himself from the Territorials with whom he was to serve or could a number of soldiers knowing that on returning home they would at the end of their National Service be transferring to the 43rd have had signs made up?