Hey all,

I'm modelling some WW2 Canadian Infantry soldiers (European Theatre - Holland 1944) and since I only have B&W pictures available I thought I "Google arround" on the Internet to find the right colour for the berets.

Yeah, right...
I found maroon ones, but that were para's, no infantry...
I found descriptions of black ones and 'rifle green' ones...
But I still dont' know.

So does some experts here on the Big A know:

What colour does a beret of a WW2 Canadian Infantry man on the West European Theatre 1944 (Holland) have????

PLEASE HELP ME OUT!!!

THANKS!!!!

Paul

Paul,

To my knowledge only certain units were issued berets. Normal British and Commonwealth troops were issued with the beret-like "Cap, General Service" - dubbed "Cap, Ridiculous".... More than often the khaki beret of the Recce Corps and Motor Battalions was nicked in preference to the GS cap...

HTH

Rudi

The main difference between the beret and the Cap,GS is that the latter is made out of more than one piece of material.

Anyway, the material used for the Cap, GS was the same as for the battledress AFAIK.

Hi Rudi and David,

Thanks! On the term CAP,GS I could find some more info.
If I'm right, the black ones were worn by tankcrew and the the infantry had ones in the same colour as the battledress, as David stated.
The one below is a british version, but was this the kind used by canadian infantry?

Thanks sofar again.

Paul

Paul,

I'm sure David will correct me if I'm wrong, but I think the Canadians (and the South Africans) wore the GS cap... I think it was only the Highland Regiments, Aussies and Gurkhas that had "special" headdress...

Rudi

Some units did have Balmorals but they were probably the CDN highland outfits. Do you know off hand which unit your going to model? Might narrow things down eh?

Okay, so i check in my Refernce book and heres what i find:

They wore a khaki beret adopted in 1943 except units wearing the "tam of shanter" who is similar with the same color but has "pom pom" on top.

paratroops wore a red beret, armoured troops a black one and scotish regemints wore the "tam of shanter"

according to the book"from d-day to ve-day, the canadien soldier" by jean bouchery, the berets were only worn for the roll call order, drill order, or walking out dree, the rest of hte time they wore there helmets.

if your going to add a tank, and its crew, they wore a black tank suite and beret

From june 6th 1944 and on, canadien troops were issued the mk.111 helmet ccording to availability.

also, looking at a refernce picture with solders on a firefly, a lot kept their helmets on.

also i forgot, the cap badge on the beret depends on the unit you are showing. And the Canadien beret does differ from the one you have shown. it was greener and had a leather trim at the bottom.

Officers wore a browner and greener uniform than the soldiers.

pm me for pictures, il do my best to help you out on colors.

Francois

To expand on my last posting a bit:

A beret is made out of a single piece of cloth and has a leather binding around the lower edge. The beret was first adopted by the Tank Corps from their French counterparts at the end of WW1. During WW2 it was mostly used by specialist troops like paras, commandos, SAS and the RAC of course.

The Cap, GS is made out of several pieces of khaki cloth with no leather binding and was issued to most arms of service to replace the side cap worn at the start of the war.

The tam o'shanter worn by some Scottish regiments was similar to the Cap, GS apart from the addition of a tourie (not a pom-pom please!).

All headgear was badged as appropriate (except the 11th Hussars I think) and had various pieces of coloured cloth or tartan added as a backing to the badge in the usual tribal style of the British Army.

Commonwealth and other armies equiped by the British followed similar lines, with their own additions of course.

So your Canadians, if they're infantry, would more than likely be wearing the Cap, GS. Remember that the khaki serge used to make Canadian uniforms was distinctly greener than British khaki shown in Paul's picture.

Then there's the Indian Army to cover - and you thought the German's had complicated uniforms......

The BD trousers in this link should give an idea of how much greener Canadian khaki was compared to British khaki

http://www.visualcollector.com/Tommy/TommyStuff/CanadaTrousers.jpg

Not sure about black tank suits for Canadian tank crews, more likely is BD, or denim tanksuits, with pixie suits in winter. Black is more likely to be early-war British RTR and not Canadian.

The denim used to make the tank suit was the same as that used to make the working dress version of BD. If you've ever wondered why the soldiers in 'Dad's Army' wear greenish BD it's because the Home guards was issued with denims.

Hey all!

Thanks for the answers and hints. I'm on the right track now!

Actually, I don't know exactly what canadian division it was but I want to re-create / model the picture below (sorry for the bad quality) and the only thing I know is that it were canadians in Sluiskil, Zeeland the Netherlands, 1944.

This are canadian forces that have been in Zeeland, but I don't know which one have been in Sluiskil:

1st Canadian Army,
5th Canadian Infantry Brigade / 2nd Infantry
- Black Watch (RHR) of Canada
- The Calgary Highlanders
- Le Régiment de Maisonneuve

OK, I have found a picture from a (privat) musuem in the area I'm modelling. I guess the guy on the right have the right Cap,GS?

Man, I never thought it was so hard to find this info on the net...

Paul

The guy on the right is again wearing the balmoral, you just can't see the tourie (the pom-pom). The guy beside him (2nd from the right) is wearing a beret, but it looks like a maroon paratrooper's beret to me.
I'll dig around for old Canadian beret pictures as well.
Cheers!
Mike

Success!
I've found a gentleman in the Netherlands who keeps a collection of Canadian uniforms from WW2. His site is http://www.homepages.hetnet.nl/~pa3geg/Index2.html, and this photo of his shows (clockwise from top) a maroon Paratrooper, a Highland regt soldier, and two NCMs from different regiments, both with the berets that you're looking for:




Cheers!
Mike

Hi
Sorry I'm a little late on this one.
Here is a photo of a late war issue Canadian infantry beret. It belonged to my neighbour who fought in Holland, and was eventually wounded (sniper, somewhere I still have the round they took out of him). He never returned to active duty after that.
The beret was the one he wore for his discharge and trip home, so it is fairly clean and unfaded.
The colour of the material (wool)is the same as the Canadian battle dress (again a fairly new uniform) which I believe is slightly different (more green) than British battle dress(more khaki), although the pattern is the same.
The colour on the photo is closest to the actual colour
Canadian berets were as follows; Paratroopers- maroon
(same as British), Armour - black ( same as British) and infantry - battle dress green
I have included an image of the cap badge.
Hope this helps
Joker

Joker and Mike!

Thanks a lot! You guys are great!
This really cleared it all up for me and I have now some 'proof' of it!!!!
I also directly bookmarked the link.

Thanks again.

Paul