Let's see your Combat worn Battledress blouses

[pete]

I would to see some Combat worn Blouses!...but only with rock solid provenance! I.e not "walking out or coming home" ones, like permeate the market.


Regards,

Pete

[zipper]

what constitutes rock solid provenance ?

[pete]

.

Well, I suppose something to indicate it is a front worn BD. Most of whats on the market as I understand it are walking out/coming home BD's. I can recall somebody on here having a D-Day worn Tunic.


Pete

[LuftMike]

Will you accept combat worn Airforce BD's?

[Grizzly]

Combat worn BD by far and large was withdrawn and destroyed. These tunics were filthy, often damaged, and sometimes contaminated. In other words, unhealthy. Lessons learned from the FWW had the "front line" service tunics replaced on a regular basis. Less disease.
However, a few may have survived. A couple of years ago, I had the entire locker of a 17 RCA fellow. Three BD (he was only supposed to have two), of which one was "walking out", being tailored and dressed up with clean badges and insignia. The other two were "working" tunics, one which was probably worn on active service. Only minimal patching, some damage which had been repaired, and showing lots of wear. But, he was an artillery fellow, not infantry.

[brooksbz]

Two

I've had two. One Duke of Wellington and one Royal Welsh Fusiliers. Both were pretty beat up. I have a named 1943 dtd 3 PARA for a guy LOB at ARNHEM.

[ritchie4]

Here is a link to my Manitoba Dragoons BD, it is definately not a coming home BD. I also have a nice Royal Hamilton Light Infantry WW2 BD that you can see the wear on the BD where the webbing would have rubbed against BD, so to me that is sign of a nice field used BD.

t=486188http://dev.wehrmacht-awards.com/foru...d.php?t=486188

[grandads-kitbag]

Well heres where I upset a few guys and really dont want to but ........

Having collected BD`s for many years I feel I can say the chances of us owning a combat worn BD are very slim indeed, to be quite honest these gorgeous items we pay huge sums for probably saw no more action than a bar room fight ......

They do exist , I had one to a para a few years back but they are very few an far between , you will have no doubt if you are lucky to find an example because it will be old worn through and dirty ,

A very valid point ` Grizzly ` has made and is worth repeating is they were replaced very quickly when the units came out of the line due to the possibility of infection and diseases a hard learned lesson from the Great war ,

always willing to be corrected

[Grizzly]

Re the 12 Manitoba Dragoons tunic. What evidence makes it a field tunic? Wearing webbing is not conclusive that the tunic was field service. As an armoured unit, why would he be wearing full web? Most armoured fellows only wore the waist belt when in the vehicles. The other packs and straps were dangerous in the vehicle. Additionally, I have seen images of the fellows on parade wearing kit, which could explain the wear.

[ritchie4]

Re the 12 Manitoba Dragoons tunic. What evidence makes it a field tunic? Wearing webbing is not conclusive that the tunic was field service. As an armoured unit, why would he be wearing full web? Most armoured fellows only wore the waist belt when in the vehicles. The other packs and straps were dangerous in the vehicle. Additionally, I have seen images of the fellows on parade wearing kit, which could explain the wear.

Hi,

Please read more carefully, my RHLI tunic has the webbing wear. I said that webbing wear is evidence of field use, not necessarily battle worn, but also not a number 1 walking out uniform.

Ritchie.

[ritchie4]

Hi,

Also, both my Manitoba Dragoons and RHLI BD's lack the typical pleating on the back of the BD that is typical of a walking out BD. This to me is an indication of possible field use as opposed to a walking out BD. Please see my post of my Calgary Highlanders BD as a good example of a typical coming home BD.

http://dev.wehrmacht-awards.com/foru...d.php?t=635187

Ritchie.

[ritchie4]

Hi,

Sorry and to answer your question, the Manitoba Dragoons BD has evidence of "field repairs" on it, where the soldier has stitched rips in the BD. To me that also indicates possible field use as he may have been in a position where he could not get his BD replaced and had to make do with the one he had.

Saying that, alot of photo evidence I have seen of soldiers wearing BD's in the field shows that the soldiers did not always have the time to patch up their uniforms and many soldiers had unpatched BD's that they wore into battle.

Ritchie.

[Bond]

Hi,

Also, both my Manitoba Dragoons and RHLI BD's lack the typical pleating on the back of the BD that is typical of a walking out BD. This to me is an indication of possible field use as opposed to a walking out BD. Please see my post of my Calgary Highlanders BD as a good example of a typical coming home BD.

http://dev.wehrmacht-awards.com/foru...d.php?t=635187

Ritchie.

The pleating depends on the nationality of the maker I think. Which nation made yours, Canadian or which other?

Jerry

[ritchie4]

No, the pleating does not depend on what nation made the BD. For he most part Canadians wore Canadian made BD's which were slightly more greenish in colour than the British made ones. Pleats were put in at the back of the BD's for officers and for walking out BD's. I have seen many examples of Canadian BD's with both pleats and without and for the most part, the ones with pleats were their coming home BD's. I will try and post some pictures later of an example of each.

Ritchie.

[Bond]

Thanks for the info.

It is just that I have a Canadian made BD with its original badges to the RAMC (London district) and that has the pleated back and I assumed, obviously incorrectly then that all Canadian made BDs had pleated backs.

I did know about the colour differences between different nations BDs as I have examples made in the UK, S. Africa, NZ, Australia and India as well as the Canadian example. I have a few others of UK manufacture not shown.

Be good to see the unpleated examples just for ref purposes.