Badge Belt : Private N M Brooke, AIF and North Russia Relief Force

1908 Pattern Australian Army web belt decorated with 55 metal and plastic buttons, badges and shoulder titles. The buttons include examples from Australia, the United Kingdom, New Zealand, America, Russia and Germany, while the badges are those of several British regiments as well as the Royal Flying Corps and the Canadian and Australian Armies. Qualification badges including Signaller, Marksman and Lewis Gunner are also present. Shoulder titles include a number of English, Scottish and Irish regiments, those of Canada and Australia, and titles for Artillery, Engineers, and a number of other unidentified units. The hand cut title 'SBL' represents the 'Slavo British Legion', an irregular Russian unit.

Norman Montague Brooke was an 18 year old plumber from Melbourne when he enlisted in the AIF in October 1916. He sailed in June 1917 aboard HMAT A29 'Suevic', as number 4376 with the 12th Reinforcements to 1 Pioneer Battalion. On the Western Front he transferred to 2 Trench Mortar Battery, with whom he served for the remainder of the war. In 1919, he volunteered for further service with the North Russian Relief Force, and transferred again to the British Army. As number 133029 with 45 Battalion, Royal Fusiliers, Brooke was awarded the Distinguished Conduct Medal for gallant conduct in an attack at Kochamika and Sludka on 10 August 1919. He returned to Australia in 1920. The hand cut title 'SBL' on the badge belt is representative of the 'Slavo British Legion', a locally raised irregular Russian unit also known as 'Dyer's Battalion', which mutinied and killed its British officers (including Captain Allan Brown, an Australian) on 20 June 1919. This title and the large brass 'X' on the belt were apparently taken from one of the mutineers.