13 November 2008

Emblem

While working on a photo of my Uncle awhile ago I was trying to find out what the emblem is on his cap but try as I might I never did come across it on the Net. He also had a pin on his collar that said "A.T.S." I always thought he had been in the NZ Merchant Navy during the second world war but his emblem is quite different to the one on his brother's cap which I'm fairly sure is the Merchant Navy emblem.

gordon's hat ray's hat

Unknown Emblem - - - - - NZ Merchant Navy Emblem

If anyone is able to identify it please leave me a comment thanks.

3 comments:

Brett Payne said...

Hi Dawn,

You're correct about the one on the right. The Digger History web site includes a nice image of a WW2 Merchant Marine Officers hat badge, here:
http://diggerhistory.info/pages-navy/merchant_marine.htm

I'm afraid I haven't been able to find out what the other badge is from, but since there is no crown, just oak wreath and crescent, maybe it is something quite different.

Regards, Brett

ian said...

The photo on the left is a cook's or steward's hat badge from the U.S. Army Transport Service. The ATS employed a lot of Kiwis and Australians in the Pacific Theatre of the Second World War as civilian employees.

Here's a link detailing the service:
http://patriot.net/~eastlnd2/army-ats.htm

courtneycotton01@gmail.com said...

Oh wow I don't know why I wasn't notified of these two comments before and I've only just found them! Thank you both and especially for identifying the one on the left, it makes perfect sense because he was a cook in the NZ merchant navy in later years and his father was an American who was with the NZ forces in WWI.