noncommissionedofficer

Retired at last: Thanks for catching the date on this photo. We will add it to the image description.

Description from Catalogue of Photographs and Stereopticon Slides , March 1 to June 1, 1918, p.11: " 4174 FOOT INSPECTION . Marines preparing for foot inspection." Catalogue of Photographs and Stereopticon Slides United States Committee on Public Information. Division of pictures U.S. Government Printing Office, 1918 books.google.com/books?id=DYxDAQAAMAAJ&pg=PA25&lp... A French government archive has this as well: "Le soin porté aux pieds par les soldats est très important : lavage après un entraînement et avant une inspection" ["The care taken of feet by the soldiers is very important: wash after training and before an inspection"] the archive dates this as taken on 3-27-18 www.culture.gouv.fr/public/mistral/memsmn_fr?ACTION=RETRO...

I never did like Sergeants, nasty beggars always shouting and roaring and giving people a hard time! I think that the collective for that horrible rank should be a "Bellow" of Sergeants? Those daft looking Pillbox hats make them look different but I suspect that he is the man on the left front on the right side of the officer with the sword.

From this informative site , I found "a subtlety of sergeants at law", but I think that refers to some sort of a fancy lawyer, and there's nothing too subtle about these sergeants.

At a guess (and after a few mins of Google-fu), these chaps are from the Royal Horse Artillery.

Some have the Royal Artillery badge above their stripes. All are wearing snake belt buckles with blanco on the belt. Here are some earlier uniforms of the RA. www.britishempire.co.uk/forces/armyuniforms/britishartill... "The Sam Browne belt was ordered to be gradually introduced from 1898 to replace the white pouchbelt and binoculars case."

Is it me or do they all look very, very like one another around the facial area as in the image of one another? Look at their eyes!