WW1 British Battle Insignia

This is a bit of a departure from the books that we normally expect to see from Military Mode. Rather than a photographic catalogue of rare and exciting artefacts, it is something of a Rosetta Stone, a key to deciphering the very complex system of coloured unit recognition insignia developed by the BEF during the Great War. The Imperial War Museum reached out to all units of the British Army after the Armistice, asking them to reply with details on their own specific unit identification colour patches and painted insignia. Not all replied, but many did. Kevin Beckhurst, a collector and researcher, sorted through this primary source material decades later to produce a massive (31cm x 22cm x 10cm), one-off, hand-illustrated tome entitled ‘WWI BRITISH INSIGNIA 1914-1919’. From Military Mode’s introduction: “The original book was found in London in the 1980s, languishing on a shelf within a militaria shop, thought to have been there since the 1960s. With the aid of historian and graphic designer Branislav Radovic, we have been able to transpose the information into this modern format and hopefully, the efforts will assist collectors, model makers and historians alike.”