A HISTORY group dedicated to keeping alive the memory of the men and machines who flew from the New Forest's wartime airfields wants help in identifying a mystery insignia.

The hand-drawn badge was recently uncovered on the wall of one of the buildings at the former RAF Sopley camp near Bransgore.

Drawn in a naïve style, the badge was hidden behind cupboards in one of the domestic buildings located alongside Derritt Lane, said John Levesley of the Friends of the New Forest Airfields.

The friends now want to know more about the badge, which they believe was painted some time between 1954 and 1959 when the radar station was part of RAF Fighter Command.

Mr Levesley said the motif incorporates a portcullis, the badge of Fighter Command.

"Around the portcullis are red lightning bolts and across it a bull's head superimposed on a silver sword," he said.

"One suggestion is that the badge may be that of the County of Hampshire 3617 Fighter Control Unit, Royal Auxiliary Air Force, which provided fighter control services for a period at Sopley."

He said the design might have been a prototype or completely unofficial.

The friends have been in touch with RAF Marham, which keeps records of insignia, and the recently formed RAF Heraldic Trust in a bid to find out more.

Now they are hoping someone who visits the friends' third History with Wings exhibition at Merryfield Park, as RAF Sopley is now known, will be able to provide a solution to the puzzle.

The exhibition, on Sunday, April 1, will also feature displays by enthusiasts' groups, historians, authors, archaelologists, museums, societies, youth groups and modellers with an interest in aviation.

It is expected to attract about 800 visitors.

Mr Levesley hopes many of them will be former employees of RAF Sopley who retired to the Bournemouth area.