The Badges of Kitchener's Army - David Bilton

The Badges of Kitchener's Army

David Bilton

Pen & Sword Books Ltd

£30 / $60 US

Just when you thought that after four and a half years of relentless publishing, there couldn't possibly be anything new to be said about the First World War, along comes David Bilton with The Badges of Kitchener's Army. I suspect that this book will quickly become a classic.

I remember correspondence with the author back in the mid-eighties. I had already interviewed a lot of Great War veterans and David was also trying to meet men in order to ask them about the cloth badges they had worn. We exchanged details and I corresponded with men David had met, and he corresponded with men I had met. I remember thinking at the time that he had set himself a difficult task; time was running out and  many of the veterans I had met had already died. Nevertheless, looking at the roll-call of veterans referenced in the book, he obviously spectacularly succeeded.

This is a book that has been many years in the researching and it will be an extremely important reference resource for anyone with an interest in the Great War and in particular those pedantic individuals like me who want to analyse every last pixel of a military photo.

Chapter by chapter the author dissects the Kitchener units, detailing known instances of insignia specific to the unit in question. The book is comprehensively illustrated and the author has referred to multiple reference sources on what has, up until now, been a little-understood topic. In fact he has written THE reference source on this subject and I hope that there will be revised editions in future once additional information has come to light.

This is a book that earns its place next to titles about regiments, uniforms, cap badges and collar badges and mine is already handily within arm's reach. Well done, Dave Bilton, on producing a real cracker - and thanks for the acknowledgement on page 345.