Patch Badge Collection
The Desert Rats
Perhaps one of the most iconic badges is that of the 7th Armoured Brigade, the “Desert Rats”. The design for the badge is said to have originated in a sketch of a Jerboa made by the wife of the divisional commander.
Jerboa is a jumping desert rodent with long tufted tail, native to North Africa and Asia.
Formation Insignia: The British Army introduced formation insignia on its vehicles and signage in World War One as a way of easy identification without revealing the full military designation of each constituent unit of the formation. These emblems began to spread to uniforms during the war, but were largely dropped when war ended, only to be reintroduced in World War Two.
The War in North Africa
Throughout the first half of the twentieth century, Britain had maintained forces in Egypt chiefly to ensure British access to the Suez Canal. Some of these forces were reconstituted in 1938 as the “Matruh Mobile Force”, following an increase of tension in the area brought about by concern over German and Italian expansionist policies. In 1939, Italy, under Benito Mussolini, joined Germany in the so-called “Pact of Steel”.
In February 1940, part of the Mobile Force became the 7th Armoured Brigade, famed as the “Desert Rats”.
In June 1940, Italy declared war on Britain and France, and in September, invaded Egypt from the adjacent Italian colony of Libya. By February 1941, the Italian invasion had largely been defeated, but the Germans sent their own troops in as what was to become the Afrika Korps under Erwin Rommel, and fought back. They retook the port of Tobruk in June 1942 with the mass capture of British and Commonwealth troops, but it was again in Allied hands by November.
Fighting continued in North Africa up until May 1943.
British Military Patch Badges
Patch badges, sometimes just called patches, are usually fabric badges intended to be attached to uniforms by stitching or, more recently, by velcro. The advantage of a patch badge is that it is semi-permanent and can be relatively easily removed or replaced, which makes them especially useful for the identifiable insignia of military formations, such as tactical formations, which may be temporary or which may involve different units from time to time. The badge designs, which are usually fairly simple, are embroidered or printed onto a cloth background, or woven.
Below are a number of other British military patch badges from the Carillon Museum’s catalogue. The object number in the catalogue is shown in brackets.
