The campaign hat, sort of, returns, or not

[Jim Bewley]

The modern one would be for for stylish looks.

Jim

That would be the only reason, I think. Never did make sense to me to take away a brim, and not allow sunglasses. But that's been done before - have a good shot of AEF cavalry in France, riding on a very sunny day wearing overseas caps - MAJOR 'squintage' going on .

I agree, give me a bill anytime. Wards off sun, rain and makes a good shade when taking a nap. I wear a ball cap all the time.

Jim

[Pat Holscher]

I am not all that knowledgeable at all about this type of hear gear. Most "hats" severed some type of function, so what was the reasoning behind the beret, if any?

Jim

I could only guess keeping the head warm, with the 'alpine' large floppy versions being more expansive to fend off rain/snow/wind depending on the direction the user needed it to go. Easy to roll up and stuff in pockets or jackets - can even function as an improvised water bucket when needed.

And who doesn't need a lovely tan line right across the middle of their forehead?

That's probably about exactly right.

I tired to look that up, and have before, and it seems that it's always impossible to even determine the origin of the beret with much precision, although the French seem to have developed the super sized beret, and the Basques get tagged with the small beanie beret.

From what I can deduce and guess (more guess really), I think the hat is basically just Felt Hat 1.0. That is, it's the hat that came about after people figured out how to make felt or boiled wool. It seems to have been worn in southern Europe forever, and it's original purpose was probably to keep the head warm and to shed a bit of snow and rain. It's deficient in comparison to anything that came after it, but habit and poverty allowed it to keep on keeping on. The British can probably take credit for the modern beret, whose main original virtue was that you could wear it in a tank. A secondary virtue probably was that it was pretty close to the tam, which some British units were wearing anyway. The British, of course (sorry Brits) are responsible for a lot of strange military headgear.

How it spread from tanks to general usage is a mystery to me. It's only real virtue is that it's easy to roll up and carry if you are going to wear something else like a helmet. A huge mystery is why the black tankers beret spread to the maroon airborne beret, and why anyone would actually wear that in combat, as British paratroopers seem to have sometime done in odd concert with camouflage, which makes no sense at all.

[Jim Bewley]

I am not all that knowledgeable at all about this type of hear gear. Most "hats" severed some type of function, so what was the reasoning behind the beret, if any?

Jim

I could only guess keeping the head warm, with the 'alpine' large floppy versions being more expansive to fend off rain/snow/wind depending on the direction the user needed it to go. Easy to roll up and stuff in pockets or jackets - can even function as an improvised water bucket when needed.

And who doesn't need a lovely tan line right across the middle of their forehead?

That's probably about exactly right.

I tired to look that up, and have before, and it seems that it's always impossible to even determine the origin of the beret with much precision, although the French seem to have developed the super sized beret, and the Basques get tagged with the small beanie beret.

From what I can deduce and guess (more guess really), I think the hat is basically just Felt Hat 1.0. That is, it's the hat that came about after people figured out how to make felt or boiled wool. It seems to have been worn in southern Europe forever, and it's original purpose was probably to keep the head warm and to shed a bit of snow and rain. It's deficient in comparison to anything that came after it, but habit and poverty allowed it to keep on keeping on. The British can probably take credit for the modern beret, whose main original virtue was that you could wear it in a tank. A secondary virtue probably was that it was pretty close to the tam, which some British units were wearing anyway. The British, of course (sorry Brits) are responsible for a lot of strange military headgear.

How it spread from tanks to general usage is a mystery to me. It's only real virtue is that it's easy to roll up and carry if you are going to wear something else like a helmet. A huge mystery is why the black tankers beret spread to the maroon airborne beret, and why anyone would actually wear that in combat, as British paratroopers seem to have sometime done in odd concert with camouflage, which makes no sense at all.

I could be completely wrong here, but I thought the SF got their green one first, to set them apart and then, not wanting to be left out, the maroon and black followed. As for wearing the beret in combat, in the early 70's most grunts in Nam were wearing the boonie hat and leaving their steel pot at camp. It was theirs and nobody else was allowed to have one. A pride thing I would have to guess. They also tended to wear then shaped a certain way, along the lines of the creases in cowboy hats. Don't know if this was the case in all units or just that time period.

Jim

[Pat Holscher]

I could be completely wrong here, but I thought the SF got their green one first, to set them apart and then, not wanting to be left out, the maroon and black followed. As for wearing the beret in combat, in the early 70's most grunts in Nam were wearing the boonie hat and leaving their steel pot at camp. It was theirs and nobody else was allowed to have one. A pride thing I would have to guess. They also tended to wear then shaped a certain way, along the lines of the creases in cowboy hats. Don't know if this was the case in all units or just that time period.

Jim

That's correct. Basically, the history of the modern styled military beret is that the British Army adopted it first, although the French were already using the large version depicted here. I don't know when French alpine troops first adopted it, but it was a ways back. During WWI you can also find examples of Czech troops in France wearing them, which they probably adopted from the French.

After World War One, the British army adopted the black beret for tankers only. Their cap was actually unique, at the time, and it really leans fairly heavily on the existing Scottish tams that were already in British use. Indeed, I'm not really sure why tams aren't regarded as berets, as the difference between the two is slight, and it seems to me that the tam is closer to the Basque beret than the French Alpine beret is. Anyhow, the British went to the black beret for tankers in recognition that they had a dirty greasy job. I think, at the time, that the British army otherwise was still wearing the peaked cap (although I could be in error, and would invite correction).

By World War Two the British had followed the French lead and adopted a flat cap for general wear. The flat cap is darned nearly equally worthless in comparison to the beret, but it certainly had a big run as a 20th Century military cap. The flat cap seems to have started off as a French design (again, I'd invite correction) that could easily be rolled up and carried, a virtue in the helmet wearing era, and the French started issuing them for field use in place of the French kepi during WWI, I think. The US Army adopted the French pattern at some point during World War One. The early flat caps basically served the same function as later berets, except that early ones were designed so that they had ear flaps, and at least could be used to keep ears warm. The British pattern that came into use after World War One was of that type. The Germans also adopted this type, replacing their earlier "look, I have a huge donut on my head" hat.

In the 30s, when the Germans started rebuilding their army, they also adopted the black beret for tankers. Indeed, at least early on German tankers had an all black uniform. The German beret wasn't like the British or the French versions, but sort of like what would happen if those two berets had a collision at an intersection, and then were repaired by a Basque hat surgeon. Their beret was quite large, like the French beret, but it wasn't the same shape. It had the Nazi party eagle on the front, and so it sort of vaguely has the shape, due to that, of the basque beret. As noted, the Germans followed the British lead (contrary to a lot of assumptions about armor of this period, the British were real leaders in armored thought early on) and the hat was black.

German tankers apparently didn't really like the looks of their beret, and even now when you see photos of a German tanker wearing their early uniform they look like they're auditioning for the glee club. So early in the war they started wearing the German flat cap and the beret disappeared in German use.

In the British Army when the war started only tankers, I think, were wearing berets (again, I'd invite correction). For whatever reason, however, the British decided to expand beret usage early on. Perhaps they wanted to look more distinct, or perhaps uniform designers wanted everyone to look like a tanker, or perhaps it occurred to somebody that the flat cap was darned near as worthless as the beret. Or it might have been that the beret could easily be made in other colors to aid in individual unit distinction, which the British have always been big on.

At any rate, in 39 or 40 the British adopted berets for general usage. At that time, an olive (khaki) color was adopted for general service usage. Tankers retained the black beret. At some point in here, the British adopted maroon for the airborne. Airborne was a bit of a glamor service at the time (and now) and for good reason. The use of a distinct color, in British service, made a lot of sense, save for the fact that he color adopted is one that makes the wearer a target, which is ironic in light of the fact that the British airborne also pioneered the use of the camouflage battle jacket. The British also adopted green for some of their special troops and a tan for others. I'm not really versed in this topic, but I'm sure others here are. I can't recall if the SAS wore green or the SBS, or both, and who wore tan. Green would be a good color, however, as it was the traditional color for jaeger and rifle units.

The US totally sat out the early beret trend. Our tankers wore a special helmet early on. We adopted, as noted, the flat cap during World War One, and by WWII we had modified it to be totally useless, as we eliminated the ear flap feature. Be that as it may, the flat cap was sort of the symbol of our airborne when the distinct huge parachute or glider insignia was sewn on it.

When the US formed the Special Forces after World War Two, one of the things that was unique about it is that there was a trend in it towards unique uniforms. One of the early SF officers had been an early airborne officer and there had been a real trend in that direction in the airborne as well, with a lot of the WWII airborne uniform being unique to them. The net result is that there was a push towards adopting a pattern of the early (pre 43 pattern) airborne uniform as the SF uniform and the unit adopted the green beret associated with British special forces as their own. The distinct fatigues did not last long, but the beret has to this day. That made some sense really, as it's purely symbolic of their function.

Black berets first showed up in the Rangers after WWII. Some Ranger units started wearing them unofficially, stateside, in the US during the Korean War before they were required to stop it. Why they chose black, I do not know, and it must not have occurred to any of them at the time that black was associated with armor. During the Vietnam War, when the SF was much in the news, they went back to unofficially wearing black berets.

In the 70s the black beret then showed up unofficially in US armor units. In that case, they were borrowing the British color lead. That created sort of a beret turf war in the Army, as two separate types of units were unofficially wearing black berets. In the end, the dispute was resolved in favor of the Ranger, who did have a longer US association with the black beret.

In the meantime, the US also adopted the British maroon beret for the airborne. I speculate that this was done as the US airborne had lost all of its distinct uniform items post World War Two. The original unique battle uniforms they were issued ceased being unique with the general adoption of the 1943 uniform in that year. At some point after the adoption of the Army Green Uniform you were no longer allowed to wear the flat cap with field dress, so the unique airborne insignia for that cap was no longer worn with the field uniform. Paratrooper boots were no longer really acquired by the Army in WWII after the adoption of the M1943 combat boot, and then when the Army went to black boots it adopted a boot as a combat boot that looked like a paratrooper boot, and which only folks like us could really tell was not the paratrooper boot. The paratrooper boot hung on forever in the Army, but the Army allowed anyone to wear one, as long as they bought them, which destroyed its value as a symbol. So the maroon beret came in.

Various senior Army commanders have tried to get rid of the beret in any unit since day one, but in the early 2000s the then Army chief of staff, exhibiting some dunderhead thinking, decided that it would be nifty if everyone in the Army got one. They've sort of denied it since, but there's at least some reason to think that the thought was to encourage a "look. . .we're all commandos!" type of thinking. Well, it didn't work and that really underestimated the intelligence of the enlisted ranks. By and large, most enlisted men at that time (and probably now) didn't like the beret and thought it was really absurd. The Rangers resented the poaching of the black beret as it stole their symbol. If we were going to adopt a general service beret it would have made a lot more sense to borrow from the British again and go with an OD one. They've tired to fix that since by giving the Rangers a khaki beret, but you do have to wonder why, if we need a general service beret, we don't adopt the entire British color scheme on that, which at least has a history and which has been adopted by various Commonwealth countries.

Well, while yapping it up I'd note that the beret seems to have spread to every army now, for no good reason, which shows how armies can be slavish to fashion. In US use, the Air Force also adopted it for APs, fwiw. Theirs is dark blue.

The beret also had a brief run as a symbol for Communist whackos, as Wacko de jure de guerre Che Guevera famously pioneered the Monica Lewisky look with the Basque beret. I suspect he was trying to look like a Spanish Republican there, but I don't know that for sure.

[Jim Bewley]

Thank you Pat. That was explained well and I found it interesting reading. Another thing about a beret, other than being usless, is if worn incorrectly it looks goofy.


Now, what can you tell us about the old billess Navy hat that looked like a mushroom?

Jim

[Pat Holscher]

Thank you Pat. That was explained well and I found it interesting reading. Another thing about a beret, other than being usless, is if worn incorrectly it looks goofy.


Now, what can you tell us about the old billess Navy hat that looked like a mushroom?

Jim

You know, while I hate to admit it (given that I'm obviously not a beret fan), and while I've been tongue in cheek, about them, berets actually were a good choice for the British Army at the time they replaced the flat cap with them.

It was really wool, rather than cotton, that was the universal fabric up through World War Two, and that was certainly the case for the British (and every other European) army. Probably the US Army used more cotton than any other army, in general issue, but even the US soldier was mostly clothed in wool in Europe during World War Two.

I'm not an expert on British uniforms, but off hand I think the average British solider in Europe was clothed all in wool. Wool combat trousers, wool shirt, wool battle jacket, and wool overcoat. Added to that, the British Army had to outfit the solider with a wool cap that was capable of being folded up and carried easily when the soldier was wearing a helmet.

We tend to think of caps in this context in the American Army context, which has generally tended to be practical field oriented. Hence our M1911 campaign hat, which essentially went away due to helmets. We did issue flat caps too, but starting in the late 30s we started experimenting with cotton caps. A near boonie type hat already existed by that time in the form of a blue, then OD, fatigue hat. The British had a cotton desert khaki hat, but I think it was only issued to troops in the desert. The US also had a cotton fatigue cap that was just an OD version of the billed cotton cap that was pretty common with workmen. I think even the "patrol" cap that became the current billed cap was in use by the end of the war. I'm not saying that every soldier wore everyone of these, but it does sort of prejudice towards wondering why any army would bother with a beret, which is less useful than darned near any of the other hats I've mentioned, and which seemingly does nothing, making it a lousy outdoor field cap.

But, really, it's no lousier than the flat cap, for the most part, and when properly worn looks a bit better than the flat cap. When the British adopted the OD beret they adopted for general field use, what they were really doing is adopting a wool hat that was likely generally warm enough for about 8 months out of the year, in Europe, never too hot for Europe, and which would at least be somewhat impervious to rain and snow. As they really had to work with wool, which is what they had (lots of sheep in the UK, and lots to import from Ireland, Australian, and New Zealand) they weren't going to end up with anything like the patrol cap or the boonie cap. So, looking at it that way, the beret was a good choice, after it's appearance and function had been proven by the tankers.

Having said all of that, that doesn't provide any good reason for the global spread of berets post war. By 1945 the US Army was already bringing in that cotton dominated uniform that everybody has pretty much gone to thereafter.

[george seal]

Well, we have been subject, yet again to another awfull anti-beret tirade. Soon you anti-beret types will say that former beret wearing soldiers like me have to go to diferent schools and all that. Hey, I did go to a diferent military school!
Now days I wear a kepi type of cap (but sadly in thinner material than the old early 90s model, and with no ear flaps) and a boonie hat. I have to agree that the boonie is really confortable and practical, and has saved me from many a sunburn. (I don't tan, I just get burns and blisters). HOWEVER, as a proud former beret wearing cadet I must protest and defend the proud, honorable, practical and, yes, fashionable, tradition of the military beret. (In my book, anything from the early XX Century is traditional). The beret keeps your head warm and safe from light rain and heavy wind. Specially wind. Wind blows caps away (have you ever chased your kepi in the wind?, you don't get congratulated for that!) The genuine high quality beret has a leather rim that sticks safely to your head and avoids your headwear from inadvertly becoming airborne. The beret folds easly to fit in a pocket and does not get creases.
I favor green berets, they match up perfectly with OD or woodland camo, so they are fine in the field.
I agree that an incorrectly worn beret is dorky, but nothing beats a correctly worn beret for sheer beauty, martial elegance and it's near universal capacity to impress the ladies. The operative word is universal, for example, in the 80s, Syrian soldiers used red caps in Lebanon to impress local girls posing as paras!
Somehow I think I used to neglect mentioning to civilians that in Chile green berets are not used by special forces (they use black), but green berets are used by mountain corps.

Pat, your examples of Lewinski and Gevara are evil and an irrefutable proof of your anti-beret bias. There are plenty of quite aceptable examples of beret wearers like Sir Peter de la Billiere. If you look at Sir Peter's pictures from Desert Storm, you'll see his SAS beret blends nicely with his desert camo. (That should expain the color choice, the SAS was born in the desert). This forum should be moderated in the best interest of the beret wearing minority represented by me.

Regarding the "Spanish Civil War Republican" look and Gevara's beret, the Republicans did use berets, both black ones (probably just civilian items) and kaiki ones, but they also used a lot of other headgear and Nationals also used berets. Nationals had some distintive berets. Tank troops and shock troops used a black beret with a white death's head. But of course the most distintive beret was the red one of the Carlista movement. The red beret was widely used in the Carlista wars of the XIX century (there were at least 3 Carlista wars) so the military beret really has a longer tradition. After Franco unified the Nationals in the FET y de las JONS single party (including the Falange and the Carlistas and others into a nationalistic but not really fascist party) the red beret became universal and was latter used by the Blue Division.

[george seal]

To see examples of the large red and white berets of the Carlista wars, check out the work of the wonderfull Spanish military painter Augusto Ferrer Dalmar. I love his work. He's a specialist in equestrian military paintings. His website has an English version:
http://www.arteclasic.com/

Ferrer Dalmau should get his own thread in this forum. He unites historical acuracy and artistic merit.

[Kelton Oliver]

Preach it, George! I'm with you on this!

[Pat Holscher]

http://www.flickr.com/photos/soldiersme ... /lightbox/

[Couvi]

Having served in armored vehicles I can state that the wearing of a radio headset and goggles is seriously complicated by certain types of headgear. The flat cap or beret would have been better than what we had. The older armored vehicle crewmen’s helmets were huge and cumbersome.

[Jim Bewley]

Having served in armored vehicles I can state that the wearing of a radio headset and goggles is seriously complicated by certain types of headgear. The flat cap or beret would have been better than what we had. The older armored vehicle crewmen’s helmets were huge and cumbersome.

Never been in a moving armored vehicle, so I am only guessing here, but wouldn't a helmet, of some sort, offer some protection from the jarring ride? I know I bounced my flight helmet off things often and was glad I had it. Just asking.

Jim

[Pat Holscher]

Having served in armored vehicles I can state that the wearing of a radio headset and goggles is seriously complicated by certain types of headgear. The flat cap or beret would have been better than what we had. The older armored vehicle crewmen’s helmets were huge and cumbersome.

Never been in a moving armored vehicle, so I am only guessing here, but wouldn't a helmet, of some sort, offer some protection from the jarring ride? I know I bounced my flight helmet off things often and was glad I had it. Just asking.

Jim

I've had that experience with the M1 steel helmet inside of 155 SPs and was left wondering what sort of head injury I'd have received if I'd been just wearing a hat.

[Couvi]

Having served in armored vehicles I can state that the wearing of a radio headset and goggles is seriously complicated by certain types of headgear. The flat cap or beret would have been better than what we had. The older armored vehicle crewmen’s helmets were huge and cumbersome.

Never been in a moving armored vehicle, so I am only guessing here, but wouldn't a helmet, of some sort, offer some protection from the jarring ride? I know I bounced my flight helmet off things often and was glad I had it. Just asking.

Jim

Tracked vehicles are really very smooth riding if the driver knows what he is doing. I never wore a helmet, always a headset and a goggles.

[Pat Holscher]

Having served in armored vehicles I can state that the wearing of a radio headset and goggles is seriously complicated by certain types of headgear. The flat cap or beret would have been better than what we had. The older armored vehicle crewmen’s helmets were huge and cumbersome.

Never been in a moving armored vehicle, so I am only guessing here, but wouldn't a helmet, of some sort, offer some protection from the jarring ride? I know I bounced my flight helmet off things often and was glad I had it. Just asking.

Jim

Tracked vehicles are really very smooth riding if the driver knows what he is doing. I never wore a helmet, always a headset and a goggles.

Berets do have an association with armored vehicles. British tankers were the first British troops to wear berets (black berets) and German tankers wore huge berets early in WWII, also black. I'll concede that in that environment, where you aren't keeping the sun out of your eyes, etc., berets make some sense. As noted elsewhere (or perhaps earlier in this thread) US tankers used them unofficially in the 70s, so the black beret, modeled on British use, appeared with US tankers just a little after Rangers also started using it.

It's funny how Stetson use has seemingly exploded in recent years.