WW2 British and Commonwealth helmet markings and Badges.

[virgilhilts]

This one is from the 1st Assault Brigade Royal Engineers which was part of the 79th Armoured Division on D-Day. Known as Armoured Vehicle Royal Engineers (AVRE) their various elements landed at Gold Juno and Sword on the morning of DDay in the first waves.

There were 3 regiments within the brigade (5th, 6th & 42nd), each of which had 4 squadrons. The 42nd didn’t land on DDay - they arrived later.
Within the 5th Regiment two of the squadrons were the 26th and 80th - they were attached to the 3rd Canadian Infrantry Divsion which landed at Juno. I think this helmet may have come from one of these two squadrons, but I am not 100% sure and would be interested to know if anyone has any further info on this.

I am not sure what the red ‘T’ in black circle on the front means and would be interested also to hear if anyone knows?

cheers
Gary

[Watchdog]

Hi Gary,

If memory serves me correctly the red 'T' in the context of Royal Engineers refers to "Tunnelling Companies". The concept of such a unit is a WWI role as the requirement for such did not pertain to WWII operations. However, Tunnelling Companies still existed (and did for some time after the war) performing such functions as; deep excavations, quarrying, bunker construction and general heavy engineering tasks.

Also, for the sake of clarity the abbreviation AVRE is not a unit descriptor but refers to a category of various different Armoured Vehicle (used by) Royal Engineers. The term itself was originally quite mysterious if not actually secret and has never been formally described in official publications until recent decades where common usage has taken effect. The term Assault Vehicle was at one time interchangeable with Armoured Vehicle until the latter became accepted as the only term. Today AVRE is only used to describe the Trojan Armoured Engineer Vehicle (AEV) which is based on the Challenger 2 chassis.

I hope this is of interest and helps with your appreciation of this great and unusually marked helmet and it would be interesting to see some good pics of the interior showing detail of the liner and shell.

Regards

Mark
PS As an aside when I served in Cyprus during the 80's we used to do early morning PT on the sports fields at Happy Valley, Episkopi then run through a tunnell to "Tunnel Beach" to finish off with sea swimming before running 3 miles up a mostly 1;3 gradient to our barracks. The tunnel access to the beach was built by a Tunnel Troop of a Royal Engineers Fortress Squadron in 1955

[virgilhilts]

Hello Mark,

Thanks very much indeed for that insightful information - incredible, and very much appreciated. That is absolutely fascinating.

Even though as you say 'tunnelling' per se wasn't required in WWII and on D-Day, why do you think this mark was still being applied to the helmets in this way? Was it just more a category of the kind of jobs that went along with tunnelling such as excavations and bunker building?

Thanks again for replying to my enquiry - you have cleared up a mystery there that would have never been solved otherwise I'm sure

I will post some more images of the inside soon.

Thanks
Best regards
Gary

[virgilhilts]

.... would these tunnelling engineers also be required to demolish structures as well as build them, as the US engineers did?

[Watchdog]

Hello Mark,

Thanks very much indeed for that insightful information - incredible, and very much appreciated. That is absolutely fascinating.

Even though as you say 'tunnelling' per se wasn't required in WWII and on D-Day, why do you think this mark was still being applied to the helmets in this way? Was it just more a category of the kind of jobs that went along with tunnelling such as excavations and bunker building?

Thanks again for replying to my enquiry - you have cleared up a mystery there that would have never been solved otherwise I'm sure

I will post some more images of the inside soon.

Thanks
Best regards
Gary

I can't give a definitive solution to the question but based on my own experience of the British Army I would say that whilst the tactics had changed the skills and capabilities were intrinsically the same and it was likely a matter of maintaining or more to the point not changing the nomenclature. As you see from my aside to post #172 as late as 1955 there still existed a "Tunnelling Troop" of a "Fortress Squadron" and the 'T' symbol on the helmet was pretty much like a modern Tactical Recognition Flash (TRF) in much the same way as Movement Staff in the Royal Logistic Corps (and I think other nations forces) wear an armlet with the image of a traditional waggon wheel, as another example of such symbology the Special Reconnaissance Regiment (SRR) was only formed in 2015 but it's cap badge uses a Corinthian helmet from ancient Greece.

As to whether there would have been responsibility for demolition, yes of course if it was an engineering task rather than just knocking down a shed or a wall but any combat engineer unit or regimental pioneer platoon would be similarly capable relative to the scale of the task.

Regards

Mark

[tinlid]

Very nice helmet, even the RE flash is unique. In the fact it is smaller with that extra colour on the end.
More pictures would be good, inside as well.

[virgilhilts]

Thanks.

That isn't actually an extra colour on the end - it's blank space. I have noticed this phenomena on other unit-painted helmets.

It seems when it came time to apply these insignias, along with camouflage paint (such as prelude for invasion like D-Day), an area for the flash was masked off with electrical tape, the camo paint applied then the mask removed, leaving a 'window' for the flash to be inserted aftwards.

It appears there was a standard measurement for the size of this window so it was big enough to encompass any and all insignias, and those that were shorter left this blank space at the end. That is just my theory What is very clear, is that 'window' is definintely a masked-off area where paint has been applied over it, then the tape peeled off. It also looks like the flash itself has been applied through a stencil as the coloured bars also have edges that suggest that.

[Watchdog]

Thanks.

That isn't actually an extra colour on the end - it's blank space. I have noticed this phenomena on other unit-painted helmets.

It seems when it came time to apply these insignias, along with camouflage paint (such as prelude for invasion like D-Day), an area for the flash was masked off with electrical tape, the camo paint applied then the mask removed, leaving a 'window' for the flash to be inserted aftwards.

It appears there was a standard measurement for the size of this window so it was big enough to encompass any and all insignias, and those that were shorter left this blank space at the end. That is just my theory What is very clear, is that 'window' is definintely a masked-off area where paint has been applied over it, then the tape peeled off. It also looks like the flash itself has been applied through a stencil as the coloured bars also have edges that suggest that.

It is somewhat curious as the RE flash which is still in use today should consist of two blue bars over a red field creating the three red and two blue stripes we see here. That is not to say your theory about the application is not correct just that there is nothing missing from the colour/pattern of this flash. The dimensions are not right as it should be square rather than oblong but these were often applied freehand in the field. It looks to me as if the person applying the flash made an error which would have resulted in 3 red and 3 blue stripes and simply corrected it. It should be noted that all the coats of paint would have been applied at different times under different circumstances/conditions. "Neat and tidy" was never a consideration in the field but correct depiction certainly was. The incorrect layout of something as simple as coloured stripes would have raised suspicion.

Regards

Mark

[tinlid]

I've seen hundreds of applied flashes, when they rubbed an area smooth of textured paint, then applied a smooth paint. It was for applying a water slide decal, which had to go onto a smooth surface. You didn't need to do it with a painted flash.
So I'm still wondering if it might be a unit recognition thing?