UP 1912..AUSTRALIAN MANUFACTURE.

[Larry Emrick]

Pat: Re marking on blankets, I have seen one Great War era photo of a Canadian trooper with one of his two personal blankets being used as a saddle blanket, a practice which is mentioned in related in literature, although I am not sure that it was regulation. Soldier's blankets, one of which I have, are grey with red stripes and have a large stitched C enclosing a broadarrow, the standard Canadian military icon. Depending on how the personal blanket is folded the C broadarrow can be visible when fitted over the standard saddle blanket and under the saddle. Cheers, Larry

[John M]

Pat,
Though not clear, he has his regimental details marked on the blanket -

359 (above)
A.R. YEO (below)
Dan

Would we expect similiar markings on any British or Commonwealth saddle blanket of this period?

Dan,
The "AR YEO" is puzzling!. If..."AYR" ...The blanket would have been of the Ayrshire Yeomanry. AR could be Indian Artillery..apparently.
John.M

[Pat Holscher]

On the first mounted pic the rider has a snaffle in with two reins onto the one ring, I have seen thsi in a couple of WW1 pics, why? Can it just be to conform with regulations on riding with 2 reins? I can see no practical advantage to it.

Anyone got any ideas?

Big snaffle too.

My guess is that they were issued two reins, in contemplation of the regulation bit. So as they had two, they put both on, so as to not loose them.

Proof? None at all. Just a guess.

[Fromelles]

Dan,
The "AR YEO" is puzzling!. If..."AYR" ...The blanket would have been of the Ayrshire Yeomanry. AR could be Indian Artillery..apparently.
John.M

John,

Puzzling! ... Not really, it's quite obvious (now) what is written on the blanket. When I first got the photo I didn't have a clue what could have been on the blanket, as I've never seen another like it, then it clicked -

359 A.R. YEO - (Albert Roy Yeo)

as you can see there're a couple of rounded characters above the ' Y ' fitting the 5 and 9 of his Regimental number 359 (the ' 3 ' being behind the scabbard), as well as two ' . ' before the ' Y ' indicating two initials (one beneath the flap the other the beneath the scabbard), lastly the ' Y ' and what I take to be an ' E ' of his surname ' YEO '


Pat,

Your question about blanket markings - I've had a look through 'AIF Orders' and could find no mention of markings for blankets, but, the following could probably cover it

AIF Order - No. 2, para 8 (iv) of the 26 Aug 14

"The method of marking personal clothing and necessaries is left to the discretion of commanding officers."

so with CO's given a free hand to do as they saw fit I'd guess you'd probably see just about every type of configuration


Dan

[Fromelles]

After stating not having ever seen one of the 'frogless' shoe cases, I've gone and picked one up.

I suspect most (if not all) of the early, Australian, dated cases with sword frog started life minus frog only to have them added later. Swords were not in use when the cases were first issued so there was never a need to have them on the cases.

These pictures aren't mine but I think they're good enough to show the case.

CGHF - stamp is 'Commonwealth Government Harness Factory' with acceptance stamp

A.A.O.D. /\ V - is 'Australian Army Ordnance Department, Victoria' with the issue date of 2/14 'Feb, 1914' beneath

16
289 - is probably the 'set number' though this can't be confirmed as it doesn't match the standard practice for the marking of harness and saddlery.

Dan

Early Shoe Case.jpg (40.29 KiB) Viewed 1503 times

Early Shoe Case1.jpg (38.54 KiB) Viewed 1502 times

Early Shoe Case2.jpg (55.5 KiB) Viewed 1501 times

Early Shoe Case3.jpg (74.46 KiB) Viewed 1500 times

[John M]

Bumped for Pat to clarify the matter of UP "swivel trees".
John.M.

[Pat Holscher]

Bumped for Pat to clarify the matter of UP "swivel trees".
John.M.

Thanks John. That cleared up my question.

[Pat Holscher]

Bump.