Khaki drill

Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
bush jacket
The Black Watch in the Battle of Magersfontein, 1899, showing an early version of the khaki drill jacket, combined with kilts
Soldiers in khaki drill receive a briefing at Eighth Army Headquarters in Italy, September 1943.

Khaki drill (KD) is the British military term for a type of fabric and the military uniforms made from them.[1]

History

Corps of Guides.[1]
As well as the Corps of Guides, other regiments in India soon adopted the uniform and eventually it was used throughout the British military.

Khaki drill was worn as a combat uniform from 1900 to 1949 and was most often used in desert and tropical service. A variant, still referred to as khaki drill or KD, is worn by the

Second World War, Canadians serving in Jamaica and Hong Kong wore Canadian-pattern KD; the I Canadian Corps troops in Italy
wore KD supplied in theatre by the British, generally of British, Indian, or US (War Aid) manufacture.

North Africa and the Mediterranean

British Commonwealth infantry manning a sandbagged defensive position near El Alamein, 17 July 1942
Caribbean Regiment soldiers in Egypt

In the early part of the

bush jacket
.

Far East

truce
to negotiate the capitulation of Allied forces in Singapore, on 15 February 1942. All wear standard KD with shorts.

In the

bush jacket (as an alternative to the blouse) and battledress trousers in JG cotton drill. In the hot and humid conditions of Southeast Asia, JG darkened with sweat almost immediately.[2][page needed
]

Post Second World War

Kure
soon after their arrival in Japan in May 1946 as part of the Allied forces of occupation

The khaki battledress was used until the late 1960s, and various uniform items in KD, JG and olive green (OG) remained on issue to soldiers serving in the Mediterranean, Middle East or tropics after the war. By the end of the 1940s, however, stocks were becoming depleted, and a new 1950-pattern tropical uniform was made available in both KD and JG. It was poorly designed, with an ill-fitting bush jacket in the much-maligned Aertex, and suspender buckles that dug into the hips when marching in full kit. Eventually the much more practical Gurkha regiments' JG shirt was copied, replacing the 1950-pattern bush jacket. All the same, troops still sought out the older, wartime, issues of the better KD, JG and OG kit.

Notes

  1. ^ a b Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Khaki" . Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 15 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. p. 770.
  2. .

References

External links