30/07/2026
A LITTLE LIVING HISTORY ITEM
Sometimes living history fans see a small historical item that they would like to replicate in their own kit. Identifying, researching and recreating these things can take time, but is great fun and satisfying to do.
Group member CM Bittles is an occasional visitor to UTAH 237’s camps in the guise of the US war correspondent, Ernie Pyle. In late 2023 whilst researching into Ernie’s activities CM saw the round, yellow and black “US War Correspondent” badge shown in the pictures below in an excellent WW2 home movie collection on YouTube, “D-Day to Germany”, shot by correspondent Jack Lieb.
The film itself is fascinating, but he nearly jumped out of his chair when he saw that it featured Devon and, in particular, Dartbridge (between 5-7 minutes in). Dartbridge is just off the A38 at Buckfastleigh, only 7 miles away from where CM lives in South Devon. The footage features Lieb and his colleagues at a security checkpoint on the site of what is now the Strawberry Fields cafe. It shows views that will be familiar to some of you who are local to, or familiar with, the area. Coincidentally, the location is directly opposite the field where this year’s Devon MVT Rally was held earlier this month!
Square and crescent-shaped war correspondent badges are reproduced and not hard to find. The round ones shown in the film always seem to have been less common, but CM has seen some of them in pictures of Ernie’s uniform items. However, modern copies of round badges are nowhere to be found. So, CM had a firm in Bristol design and make me up a batch. Then, there was a long hunt to find an infantry officer’s garrison cap of the right pattern and quality to attach a badge to. That search bore fruit during a visit by a number of Group members to Normandy this June.
Here’s the finished item and a picture from the original 82 year old footage to compare CM’s cap and badge with.
Also, we’ve attached a link below to the film on YouTube, which is a fascinating watch.
What do you think?
https://youtu.be/fJVaa0RAUGg?is=gZgxwkb_o1AISHq3
