Hello hello all, this is my first time making a reddit post so please bear with me.
Ive come to you all here because Ive heard many a great thing about this community from some of my favourite history channels and figured you may be able to help.
My great grandfather served in WW2 fighting with the Maori battlion. He faught all over europe with them. However recently, my family has sort of "rediscovered" a box of possesions from him, in which was a belt covered in cap badges from WW2. At least I believe they are, as they were found with a whole load of photos Id never seen before from italy, dated 15-3-44. Captured German 88s, shot down aircraft, damaged buildings, an abbey of some kind etc etc.
Below I have included an imgur link (didnt know how else to share em, not sure what the norm here is lol) that shows the belt and cap badges in question.
We believe theyre mostly british from some quick reverse image searching, however Im not sure where theyre all from. Some may be british, south afrian, german etc etc.
Would anyone have a better idea of the history of each of these than me and the power of 5 minutes on the internet? Im not interested in what theyre worth, more interested in putting together his story for my mother who was recently diagnosed with breast cancer, as she didnt know much about her own grandad herself. So sheading some light on this would really be a cool thing Id like to do for her.
Imgur link below,
Many thanks
ELE
Edit: No idea how I tagged this with "dance" my bad team lmao
I can't identify all of them off the cuff, but some are quite distinctive. Most are British infantry and cavalry/armoured regiments. The shape of the crown on top of most of them is a Tudor Crown, often referred to as a "King's Crown", which marks them out as WW2-era.
In the first image: the eagle/globe/anchor is the badge of the US Marine Corps; the lion with "King's Own" is the King's Own Royal Regiment (Lancaster); next to that is a WW2-era Royal Army Service Corps capbadge.
Second image: the circle with a horse and rider is a German Equestrian Badge (a sporting award of the Nazi and Weimar era); unsure of the next (can't read it all); the last is the flaming grenade of the Royal Engineers (a collar or epaulette badge).
Third image: Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers (WW2 version of capbadge); next is Royal Australian Air Force (airman's capbadge).
Fourth image: Royal Welch Fusiliers (note spelling); Royal Armoured Corps (first type, early war issue probably).
Fifth image: Cape Corps (an umbrella unit for Black South African troops); RWF again.
Sixth image: Royal East Kent Regiment (aka "The Buffs", so called because they wore brown facings on their red coats).
Seventh image: 4th Queen's Own Hussars (Winston Churchill's own regiment); Royal Armoured Corps (later design); Royal Engineers shoulder/epaulette pin.
Eighth image: I've never seen the looped rope badge; the second is the Royal South African Artillery; third is a collar badge of the South African Women's Auxiliary Army Service.
Ninth image: flipped version of WAAS badge (for the other side, I think, with the English/Afrikaans in reversed order); Rising Sun badge (possibly Australian Imperial Force but the history of the early Australian military is complicated); flaming grenade - could be a lot of things but the flame is the French style; Reconnaissance Corps (WW2, by 1944 really a tank unit).
Tenth image: Red Cross (possibly British branch); Royal Canadian Army Medical Corps; Royal Army Ordnance Corps (both WW2).
The red/gold cross I can't identify. The Latin translates as "thy kingdom come" and the insignia in the middle is a sacred heart. They're both pretty common Catholic symbols.
Hey there! Don't worry about the flair, it's automated and I've fixed it; and imgur is totally fine (it was built to share pictures on Reddit).
Also, as your question is related to looking for identification/information regarding military personnel, our Guide on Military Identification may be of use to you. It provides a number of different resources, including how to request service records from a number of national agencies around the world, as well as graphical aids to assist in deciphering rank, unit, and other forms of badges or insignia. While the users here may still be able to lend you more assistance, hopefully this will provide a good place to start!