A Collector’s Stitch in Time

In 1914, military vehicles and signposts bore discreet symbols that identified their units—secret markers meant for those in the know. But it wasn’t long before someone asked the obvious: shouldn’t the troops have recognition symbols too?

Enter the formation badge. A humble piece of cloth, it solved a pressing wartime puzzle—how to identify units without giving the game away to the enemy.

As the war evolved, so did the patches. What began as functional markers grew into something richer: a visual language, a kind of heraldry of war. These weren’t just bits of fabric—they were emblems of honour. Who hasn’t heard of the famed Desert Rats?

Pictured here are a range of machine-woven and printed examples—the latter introduced as a wartime economy measure. There’s also a rare surviving sheet of 12th Army patches. Notice how the lion faces inward in alternating columns? That’s no accident. When worn, figures on formation patches were ideally positioned to face forward, especially when placed on shoulder straps or upper sleeves.

A small detail, but in the military, facing forward always meant something.

“The humble formation badge played no small part in building morale, pride and identity.”
—Lieut. Colonel Howard Cole OBE, TD