Anzac badge “A”

In November 1917, AIF orders authorised the wearing of a small badge in the form of the letter “A” on unit colour patches to denote that the wearer had taken part in the 1915 Gallipoli campaign. It was later prescribed that the badge would be a brass letter three quarters of an inch high. A further order, in January 1918 extended the eligibility to service “on the islands of Lemnos, Imbros, and Tenedos, on the transports or hospital ships at or off Gallipoli or these islands or in the AIF line of communications units from Egypt”. This final addition embraced the work of the Australian Army Nursing Service so that both men and women were acknowledged as “the Anzacs”.