Simple little add here. This is a metal, bakelite and cloth roundel or cockade in the national colours used on enlisted men’s soft caps in all three services. In this case the KM Donald Duck cap below was missing one when I got it, although it had the slots where one would have fitted. An easy cheap fix, unlike most of the rabbit holes I go down.
I have field caps for the Luftwaffe and Heer and have been looking for a KM one for a while. This one came relatively cheap from a trip to Belleville although it is missing its cockade on the front. I will look for one of these in the meantime but I am happy with the look of this. Note, the post-war hats are almost identical except that the inside liner is white in colour.
Being a Kiwi I have an attachment to the Gallipoli campaign of 1915. When I visited Turkey in 2012 I made sure that I got to Anzac Cove and Chunik Bair. I scooped a little bit of soil from there into a container and dragged that home. Elsewhere here I have an Ottoman award and have been looking for an Ottoman era belt buckle for a while. This one has the toghra (personal cypher) of Mehmet V, the penultimate Sultan of the Ottoman Empire, under the national emblem. Notice how similar this buckle is in design to the Jerry ones. The Germans had both feet in the Turkish Army prior to the Great War, providing technical advice and equipment designs.
Turkish soldiers at Sedd el Barr in 1915, prior to the invasion
I have had my Prussian Infantry Pickelhaube for about 10 years and in all that time have only see two of the cloth field covers for them. This one was just last week and I snapped it up now that I know how rare they are. In the photos you can see it still has its fastenings intact. You can also see that I had it on backwards. Ha.
Here’s a single shoulder title for New Zealand Infantry, dating from ww2. I received it in a big bunch of stuff for a guy who was in Hiroshima in 1945.
This is the second pattern cap badge for the New Zealand Army Service Corps. We never used to care about these guys unless they were late delivering our breakfast.
This is the cap badge for the New Zealand Cadet Corps. The cadet Corps is an affiliated organization, run by the NZDF with a focus on army training for youth. There are sibling groups for the air force and navy. I use lower case here deliberately because I found them to be annoying little shits.
