RAF wrench

[john k]

Just realized amidst a box of tool I got recently, there is something a bit unusual, considering where I live.   It looks like a stamped, doe wrench, in bare-War finish.  Is stamped 5/16 X 3/8, has RAF on one side, and on the opposite is, WVD, on the bottom of the jaw openings it looks to be a small royal crown.   WWII British RAF wrench?

[RWalters]

After looking around a little bit, I think you're correct. The A and M on either side of the crown are apparently for Air Ministry. What the WAD, or WVD stamping means, I've got no idea.

[rusty]

If it says WAD, perhaps the airport designator for RAF Waddington airport...
(In the vain hope it will come home if it flies off in someone's plane..)

[Bill Houghton]

And in Imperial (fractional) sizes!  Does this mean British airplanes weren't using Whitworth fasteners?

[rusty]

Rarely, but occasionally. The Merlin's built in the US  had carefully made Whitworth bolts and nuts so they could be repaired in the field , but the carburators were made with US bolts...

It is also possible the wrench is in fact Whitworth, they don't always have a W on them...

[john k]

Was looking some more, tried to post some of the other pics but no go.  The WAD stamping is actually W, inverted "V", and D.  Beyond that is a number starting with 19, then there is some severe hammering on the wrench as if someone wanted to obliterate the rest.   To use a hammer on a wrench to break something loose, you wouldn't beat on the flat side, but on the edge. 

[turnnut]

RAF _ ROYAL AIR FORCE

[rusty]

>you wouldn't beat on the flat side

You might if you were trying to drive something in and needed something to keep from marring the surface, and the only thing handy was an old obsolete wrench...

Not nice to the wrench tho....

[strik9]

  WWI Brit military items up to the trucks all had a WD number, I'm sure that carried on into WWII.     The crown signifies it was property of the crown, aka the king.

     With the lend-lease thing going on since 1938 up to the reconstruction of Europe after the war there were a lot of US made vehicles and machines there of all types.    They used a lot more SAE tooling at the end of the war than whitworth.     Most of the aircraft and over half of the combat vehicles were imported by the end of the war.