Got this photo on eBay recently. It was entitled "8th Army Italy". I suspect it is Northern Italy or Austria following the end of the conflict in Italy. Any ideas as to the cap badge on one of them?
Looks like a 'Stringed Bugle' surmounted by a King's Crown, typical of a Light Infantry Regiment. Don't know which one though.
I dont know but they look very relieved. I'm sure after all the fighting they had to do that they would be!!
I wondered if it might be a Yeomanry badge? The officer in the middle has an RA badge, and some former Yeomanry units were converted to Field Regiments or Anti-Tank regiments.
What I thought was a bugle is a scroll. Quite right, it is a Yeomanry regt. transferred to the Royal Artillery. Most officers chose to wear their original cap badge after the transfer. This one is the Queens Own Oxfordshire Hussars. They became the 63rd Anti-Tank Regiment in 8th Corps.1922-They became Royal Artillery forming 399 and 400 Batteries of 100 (Worcestershire and Oxfordshire Yeomanry) Brigade. At the outbreak of World War 2 reformed to 63rd (Oxfordshire Yeomanry) Anti-Tank Regiment, Royal Artillery seeing service in the United Kingdom, Europe and the Far East. They were amongst the first British Territorial Army units into the War and amongst the first British troops into Belsen. Many of the Oxfordshire Yeomanry were Prisoners of War who worked on the famous Burma Railway. Following the War they reformed into the Territorial Army and Volunteer Reserve as 387 Field Regiment Royal Artillery in 1947 as Q Battery, 299 Medium Regiment Royal Artillery (Royal Buckinghamshire Yeomanry and Queen's Own Oxfordshire Hussars). Following the 1967 Government Defence Review the troops were absorbed into A Company, Oxfordshire Territorials.
I've made this offer before: My Dad took around 250 pics during his time with the Essex Yeomanry, RA and 8th Army from Egypt to Syria. Many pics are of his day to day life but others of his friends and comrades. Most have a date and a cryptic note on the back. It'd be nice to maybe get copies to the families of some of his comrades as I'm guessing nearly all have now died. Not sure how to go about listing the names of people or loading the pics to make them available to see.I have nearly all of them in digital form now that I've scanned them. An example here:
