The SAAF Forum

Is this a SAAF badge of the WW2 era?

From a jacket found at a charity sale in Victoria West, the seller thought the jacket originally belonged to Petrus Hugo - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Petrus_Hugo

This badge appears to be pre-WW2 in style but post-war in manufacturing practice - it is most likely to have been made after WW2 using a pre-war example as a sample.
These were made before the war for serving SAAF members and those who trained under the "1000 pilot"scheme and were very popular after the war with veterans of the war to wear on blazers to get-togethers and other memorial services. They were in fact still being made by local companies well into the 1980s.

They were not made during the war - most such badges were at the time made in England so manufacture and supply would have been irregular, never mind scarcity of the metal wire (this being used largely for official military insignia).

I find it unlikely to have belonged to Hugo - he served in the RAF, not the SAAF and would have worn the RAF equivalent.

Still a nice collectable item - I have over a dozen different examples (pre and post war, both in bullion and in cotton embroidery)

Thanks! This one is made with what looks like four or five different types of wire/metallic thread from a reddish copper to bright golden yellow (brass?)

Interesting thing about Hugo, the British called him "Dutch" but locally he was known as "Khaki Hugo" - because he joined the Khakis (British).

flyingspringbok - you're a wealth of historical knowledge, thanks!

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