To the best of my knowledge, the wearing of arm badges by some Squadron Non-Commissioned Officers (NCOs) of the King’s Colonials in the same pattern as the Squadron headdress badges has not been previously documented. A photograph of Squadron Sergeant Major C. H. Crooke of 'A' Squadron (British Asian) shows the side profile of his 'elephant' arm badge being worn above his rank chevrons on his right arm (Figure 277). He is wearing his Sergeant Major's crown above his arm badge.
Figure 277: Squadron Sergeant Major C. H. Cooke of ‘A’ Squadron (British Asian) wearing an 'A' Squadron (British Asian) headdress pattern badge above his rank chevrons circa 1905-09.
SSM Cooke is wearing the Egypt medal (1882-1889) with a single clasp (13 possible) and the Khedive's Star (1882-1891).A close-up image of the Squadron Quarter Master Sergeant and the Squadron Sergeant Major from the group photograph of ‘B’ Squadron (British American) Officers and Senior NCOs circa 1905-06 (Figure 215) show arm badges being worn above the rank chevrons of their right sleeves (Figure 278). The Squadron Sergeant Major wears his Sergeant Major's crown above his arm badge. The front of these arm badges appears identical to the Squadron headdress badges.
Figure 278: Close up image of ‘B’ Squadron (British American) Sergeant wearing 'B' Squadron (British American) headdress pattern badge above his rank chevrons as a Senior NCO arm badges taken from the group photograph in Figure 209 circa 1905-06 (Peter Nemaric collection).Arm badges were also worn by some NCOs in 'C' Squadron (Australasian) as can be seen in the photograph of Sergeant MacIntosh in Figure 56. A close-up image (Figure 279) of this Squadron from a photograph at annual camp (Figure 90) shows that they were worn by the rank of Corporal and above. Figure 282 in the next section shows the later Australian Squadron headdress badge being worn as an NCOs arm badge.
Figure 279: Close up image of a ‘C’ Squadron (Australasian) Corporal at annual camp in 1903 (from Figure 50) wearing a 'C' Squadron (Australasian) Headdress pattern badge as an NCO’s arm badge above his rank chevrons.
