Br. 123 Insignia changes

[ONEALM]

I'm working on a painting of Stephen Thompson's victory on 5 Feb 1918 and am having some trouble nailing down the markings for his Breguet. I don't expect we'll ever identify "the airplane" since it was an impromtu mission for him, but I'd like to at least get close !

Escadrille 123 used 4 seperate unit insignia. The first two - penguins - I believe were used when they were equipped with Farman's and later Sopwith 1 1/2 strutters.

The third variation was the chimera/crescent moon and I think - though have no proof - the unit insignia was changed to this when the were re-equipped with the Breguet. Their final insignia was the hawk carrying a bomb and I expect that this was implemented when they were transferred from GB4 to GB9. All just guesses though.

Does anyone know what insignia they were using in Feb. 1918 ?

Lastly, I think the early insignia was on the fuselage side, but I see lots of late model Breguets from a vareity of units with their insignia on the vertical fin. The Windsock Datafile Special on the Breguet by Alan Toelle has a photo of a Br.123 machine with the last insignia - the hawk - on the fin. I have not seen any photos of Br. 123 machines with the chimera/crescent moon.

Since it appears camoflauged Breguets were not delivered until early 1918 - the first ones in January, I expect that this machine would have been CdL.

So what I have is a CdL Breguet with the red chimera/crescent moon on the fuselage side. Unless someone has seen photos to the contrary.....

Any help will be greatly appreciated and yes, I will post the image in the gallery when it is completed.

Thanks in advance,
Mike