RWF in W Germany 1946

[JerryBB]

Part of a split group all listed individually on ebay, over priced but I picked up three of them, not sure if I missed more, there was another that I did see that was badly out of focus but still overpriced so I passed on it.

The rear states;

Military
Royal Welsh fusiliers
Regimental Dinner Tenglemans factory
W Germany
Jan 1946

They all have 53rd Welsh div flashes and brigade/bn flashes and back flashes can be seen as can two officers with collars and GS caps with RWF badges.

They appear to be wearing leeks so St Davids Day rather than Jan 18946 I think.

[Toby Purcell]

Nice pictures Jerry and definitely St David's day and an eating the leek ceremony for new joiners. Notice the drummer in full dress in the centre of one photo. He would have beaten in the leek bearers in that dress. The 2nd Battalion had recently been merged with the 1st (only to be resurrected a few years later). The 1st Battalion were in Berlin. The regimental goat, Billy, was actually flown in as part of the Berlin airlift, which kept the battalion busy assisting with unloading and guarding key points.

[Mike Jackson]

Interesting to see the vertical red felt strip below the formation sign and horizontal AoS strip that was worn by 4 RWF (158 Inf Bde). Mike
4 RWF Jan 46 St Davids Day.01.jpg

[JerryBB]

Thanks Toby and Mike.

The RW forum suggested it was either 4/RWF or 6/RWF.

[Toby Purcell]

Originally Posted by JBBOND

Thanks Toby and Mike.

The RW forum suggested it was either 4/RWF or 6/RWF.

I think I misread the date as 1949, Jerry. In 1946, 4 or 6 RWF would indeed fit, except that I would not have expected to see a drummer in full dress quite so soon after the war.

[JerryBB]

I thought I would add this flag here, it is for C company 6/7 RWF BN (TA) and came from the estate of the last commander, but it had been converted from being for just 6th Bn RWF and the makers mark matches that from the mid 1930's.

[Toby Purcell]

Very interesting as it appears to be a 'hybrid' with griffins beaked head, but dragons looped tail.

[JerryBB]

Originally Posted by Toby Purcell

Very interesting as it appears to be a 'hybrid' with griffins beaked head, but dragons looped tail.

An interesting observation Toby and perhaps this relates as you suggest to the same thing seen in officers collar badges, some with the Griffin type beast and others with the Dragon, though in the case of the collars only the latter has the looped tail.

Perhaps a crossover item and maybe mid 1930's is when the change from one type to the other took place. Certainly as far as I have been able to see and as others seem to imply, the Griffin beast is earlier than the Dragon though finding period images that are sharp enough to see this clearly is not something I see very often.

I wonder if an examination of any uniforms in the museum might help in this.

Interesting how the flag compares with that of the 1/RWF in WWII.

[Toby Purcell]

Originally Posted by JBBOND

An interesting observation Toby and perhaps this relates as you suggest to the same thing seen in officers collar badges, some with the Griffin type beast and others with the Dragon, though in the case of the collars only the latter has the looped tail.

Perhaps a crossover item and maybe mid 1930's is when the change from one type to the other took place. Certainly as far as I have been able to see and as others seem to imply, the Griffin beast is earlier than the Dragon though finding period images that are sharp enough to see this clearly is not something I see very often.

I wonder if an examination of any uniforms in the museum might help in this.

Interesting how the flag compares with that of the 1/RWF in WWII.

There is a quote in the RWF entry within the 1895 book on regiments by Chichester and Burgess-Short that the regiment was ordered to use a griffin form of dragon, but with no further explanation. Other than on the colours the regiment had never, prior to 1881, used dragon insignia, preferring instead the PoW feathers. The dragon insignia was finally adopted in 1881 and was ostensibly adopted from one of the North Wales based militia regiments. As you know on the grenade badges for officers cap and collar the griffin seems to have been changed to a dragon circa 1022 when the spelling of the title changed from Welsh to Welch.