The standard issue identity tags used by the British and Commonwealth forces in World War II included a letter code to cover the different religions a soldier might have. The most common are Church of England, but the full range of codes are:

• CE- Church of England
• CI- Church of Ireland
• Pres- Church of Scotland and Presbyterian
• RC- Roman Catholic
• Meth- Methodist
• Bapt- Baptist
• Cong- Congregationalist
• J- Jewish
• SA- Salvation Army
• CSci- Christian Scientist
• U- Unitarian
• PB- Plymouth Brethren
• Q- Quaker

Today we are looking at a very nice pair of identity tags with a privately added metal chain to replace the thin piece of string issued by the army:

The identity tags come as a pair of a round red tag and an octagonal green tag:

The tag is stamped with the name, number and the religion of ‘Pres’:

The number is from a block used by the King’s Own Scottish Borderers, so the religion of Presbyterian is far from unusual in a Scottish regiment. These tags came with the plaid piper’s brooch and piper’s badge that we covered earlier this month and presumably all the items belonged to the same man.