714th

Ah, graffiti, always posing questions, and mostly unanswerable ones too. 714th, what's that all about then? Graffiti by it's nature is linked to a personal moment and often with no context for us to set it against, and so hard to tie down or understand. Though sometimes it may be possible to create a picture, whether that picture really represents is another matter. So, 714th, my first thought is that it could represent a military unit, they commonly use such designators and there were many active units in or passing through the forest during previous conflicts. Well, it appears the 12th Armored Division passed through from Wiltshire to Southampton for embarkation in 1944 and that a 714th Tank Battalion was part of the 12th. Could it have been one of them?  Over the years I've identified maybe, 7 or 8 other pieces of graffiti from this area of woodland all from 1944 and several of them include US or USA. Could they be other members of the 714th? Are these pieces connected? Could be. I'll see what else I can find out.