British issue side cap - Polish rank insignia ID

[Antoni Zawadzki]

Hello all,

I’ve had this British issue 2nd Lieutenants sidecap for a couple of years, but have never been able to confirm what the red stripe ahead of the rank star signifies. There have been some guesses, but nothing conclusive. I recall the cap being described as originally belonging to a member of the 1st Polish Armoured Div.

Any thoughts?

Many thanks,
Tony

[Jack Dutton-Roberts]

LOL! Just slip in the TAG watch for a bit of attention!

[Gary Jucha]

Red

Tony,
Red normally denotes artillery ...
So I would loosely guess the PPOR might have been with an artillery unit of the 1st Corp ??

Any other takers ??

Gary J.

[Gary Jucha]

Canadian

Tony,
Looking at the forage cap again, .. the material looks to be finer that the normal British issue.
By any chance is it Canadian manufactured ?

Gary J.

[marc b]

Garry you could be right, but I was thinking,
if it was made to indicate artillery, signals, engineers or something else,
I guess they would have made it in the "collar" style.
"I guess" because with the Poles, you never know!
With the " collar " I mean..(see photo)



Anyway, a great cap Tony

Tony,
Red normally denotes artillery ...
So I would loosely guess the PPOR might have been with an artillery unit of the 1st Corp ??

Any other takers ??

Gary J.

[Antoni Zawadzki]

By any chance is it Canadian manufactured ?

Hi Gary,

Many thanks for your input thus far.

Unfortunately, I do not know the place of manufacture and had always assumed that it was British made. And as far as I recall there are no maker’s marks of any kind. The cap’s not with me at the moment so I’ll need to reconfirm when back at home this evening. I’ll take another picture (minus any watches or other distractions Jack!) and post it as well. For now I’ll just add that the inside lining is a silk type dark reddish brown material with a green felt-suede like sweat band. The quality of manufacture strikes me as quite good.

Regards,
Tony

[Antoni Zawadzki]

Garry you could be right, but I was thinking,
if it was made to indicate artillery, signals, engineers or something else,
I guess they would have made it in the "collar" style.
"I guess" because with the Poles, you never know!
With the " collar " I mean..(see photo)

Anyway, a great cap Tony

Hello Marc,

Thanks for your comments.

The point you make about the use of the collar pennons also occurred to me as this was the standard method of indicating the military branch. Somehow I think that the vertical red stripe signifies something else. I recall someone once theorizing that the stripe may indicate that the original owner was not yet a fully fledged officer, but an “aspirant”. Can anyone verify this?

Thanks also for your on the cap. But on that scale your sweet example is easily a

Cheers,
Tony

[Antoni Zawadzki]

The inside pics as promised. Unfortunately no sign of any maker's ID. As opposed to the earlier pic, these were taken under artificial light which seems to have the effect of masking noticeable wear marks in the green suede-like sweat band.