Unidentified uniform.

[StephenLawson]

Greetings all.
This fellow seems to have served in two armies. His papers verify that he had been in the RAF (late war) but here he seems to be wearing a French uniform as an ambulance driver in 1917. Any comments on the insignia, ambulance type and etc would be welcome.

[Rick]

Stephen,

You might get more responses if you pose this question on "The Great War Forum", under their "in the air" subtopic. I consider this web site to be more of a C&C Int. Strong British leanings. FWIW. R.

[Regulus]

Might even be Belgian. I'll put a link on the Dutch Forum, we have quite some specialists on the matter. And will keep you posted of course.

[jerseygary]

Your guy is a driver for the Norton-Harjes Motor Ambulace Corps. This was a smaller group of American volunteers that functioned like the much larger American Field Service. The AFS was more autonomous while the Norton-Harjes units worked under the guise of the American Red Cross. After the US declared war most of the Norton drivers refused to join the US Army as ambulance drivers (they would be relegated to mere privates while in the volunteer service they held a rank similar to a Warrent Officer) so most joined the French British or US Army as officer canidated with a heavy leaning towards the air services. Many Lafayette Flying Corps guys started out as volunteers with the AFS or Norton-Harjes units. Your pictures are pretty outstanding, like I said the N-H drivers were a select group and not many pictures survive.

[jerseygary]

Those guys wore British - inspired uniforms often of officer quality. The Norton units had theirs supplied for them by the best tailors in Paris and London. The insignia is French Army, the red flaming "A" on a horizon blue field on the collar is for the motor services. The round device on the cap would be a red cross on white with a blue border with the wording "American Red Cross Motor Volunteer Ambulance" or something similar depending on the date issued. They usually wore French field equipment including helmets because they were most always serving the French troops. A special American badge for the US volunteers was made for the Adrian helmet but mostly the men just used a helmet with what ever insignia the unit they were attached to used.

[Thomas Trauner]

Just another little detail:
The button on the jacket shows the Red-Cross-Insignia, too. Most probably the breast pocket ones also. This would fit to the nowadays Red Cross regulations for the official “Uniform”.

I wonder a little that the Red-Cross sign was not used in a more significant way. (An Armband, perhaps).
A member of a “neutral” country in this uniform may get problems when claiming the international Red Cross convention.

Thomas

[jerseygary]

The French Army issued all those volunteers with arm bands with the red cross just like they issued to thier own medical services in the French Army. The Norton-Harjes units had a thin band of horizon blue on the top and bottom edges of theirs. However, although you sometimes see pictures of the men wearing them, it looks like more often than not they just left them off. These drivers rarely went so close to the front where they could risk capture, but close enough to be shelled and killed by artillery.

[StephenLawson]

Greetings all and jerseygary esp. My sincere thanks for your input. We may have just made the story a little clearer for the man's daughter and grand daughter.