Old Git

I have thoroughly enjoyed watching this come together and in a way I'll be a bit sad when it's completed as there'll be no more wonderful pics. But, on the other hand, I can't wait to see the video of it moving under it's own power! A fantastic job!!!

Actually, I didn't say that Paget was wearing the Denim Tank Suit. But I'm pretty certain he's wearing the 1942 Overalls (the ones with the rescue harness and the pistol pocket). Eden is definitely wearing the a full denim BD, most probably over his suit and shirt! But Paget looks to be wearing the 1942 Overalls with a Denim BD blouse over the top. See pic below. 42ND ARMOURED DIVISION EXERCISE, NEAR MALTON IN YORKSHIRE, 29 SEPTEMBER 1942. © IWM (TR 159)IWM Non Commercial Licence And here's that picture of Eden and Paget together. The difference is obvious! 42ND ARMOURED DIVISION EXERCISE, NEAR MALTON IN YORKSHIRE, 29 SEPTEMBER 1942. © IWM (TR 168)IWM Non Commercial Licence

I found this in the National Archives yesterday, proof that both the denim suit and the oversuit were supplied to the RAC in 1943 and of course in David Gordon's book on WWII Uniforms he does show a Pixie suit with a 1943 label! So, I think we can safely say that the items were in production in 1943 and that they were indeed with RAC stores. The 1942 overalls (the one's with the internal rescue harness and the pistol pocket) were produced in June 1942 and by September we see (colour pics at the IWM) Paget wearing one when observing a Tank Corp training exercise with Anthony Eden. That being the case it's conceivable that the Pixie suit made its way to certain senior officers by the 1943/44 winter. If it made its way to senior officer then it's likely that it also started to make its way down to some leading elements within the Tank Corps, perhaps the favoured 7th Armoured did indeed have them (ala the Bill Bellamy quote earlier) by the Normandy time frame. Hardly definite proof that they were indeed used in Normandy but enough to give one pause for thought, at least! I have yet to track down the files covering the design of these suits (denim, pixie and jungle) but I am closing in on them. I have already identified the material used on the Oversuit and the company who made it. Incidentally, I also found an oblique reference to the withdrawal of the 1942 overalls (again, the one's with the internal rescue harness and the pistol pocket)as being dangerous to the wearers health, especially if worn when doing heavy work or in hot climates. Presumably this is a reference to the lack of air-permeability in the suit although (and it's the use of the word dangerous that makes me think this) it may also hint at something more sinister such as leeching chemicals from the suit (I've seen something similiar on chrome poisoning from leather items of wear). For the time being I'm inclined to lean to the fomer, i.e. air permeability, but I'll keep my eyes open.

Been going through some files from the National Archives and have found a couple of minutes, dated from the early part of 1942, which cover the testing of some cold weather clothing. The items under test are a snow suit (which tore too easily) and a Norwegian item of clothing called a Brynje vest. The tests were conducted at Corby (on Thursday, 19th February,1942 at 5:00am), utilising volunteers from 432 Heavy A.A. battery, R.A. Corby, under the supervision of a Major Rackham R.A.M.C of Cambridge. The two sets of minutes were written by Dr A.B.D. Cassie of the 'Wool Industries Research Association' and a Dr F.T. Peirce of the 'British Cotton Industry Research Association'. The Brynje vest is what we now refer to as the standard British Army 'string vest' and the tests that these minutes describe bear a very strong resemblance to the 'layering system' of cold weather clothing as described by Brian L. Davis in his book "British Army Uniforms and Insignia of WWII". In this book Davis appears to be quoting from the 'War Clothing Regulations' 1943, Appendix V, p. 138. However, nowhere does Davis mention the Brynje system of clothing and to be honest I'd never heard of it before I discovered these documents. I did do a search on Google to see what I could turn up and was surprised to find that the Brynje system is still made in Norway and that it doesn't look like it has changed all that much since the war. http://www.manufactum.co.uk/brynje-string-vest-p838614/ I think what I've found here is a reference to the very early testing phase of the British Army's cold weather 'layering system'. The file I'm studying is mostly concerned with the air permeability of some flame proof clothing so I can only assume that they were also considering the Brynje system as a means of wicking away sweat under a heavy garment like the 1942 Tank Overall! I'll see if I can't scan the minutes and upload them as it makes for a fascinating comparison with the description in the Davis book...and if you're an anorak like me you'll like that sort of thing!

Pete, thank you for taking the time to provide this info, it really is very much appreciated! And the added info on the Pontoon frame is also much appreciated. I have found the following drawing on the MLU forum but wasn't sure it was fitting too well with my own calc's on what the chassis should be. The Fact that there were two different lengths for the chassis means I'm no longer doubting my own sanity/mathematical abilities! Best Regards Pete

I think I may have tracked down the relevant files, in the National Archives, on the development of the post-1943 Tank Suits. However, these particular files do not appear to be open to the public as yet and as they are merely concerned with the design of clothing etc. it must be assumed that this is an oversight as opposed to any continued need for secrecy. At any rate I have filed a Freedom of Information request with the National Archives and the automated response assures me that I shall have a reply within 20 working days. Of-course that might just mean that in 20 working days I'll get an email from some Herbert telling me that they are now looking into it and that they'll get back to me in 'due course' (a favoured piece of diplomatic English much in use by our Govt depts). Still it's much better service than the snippy and imperious Imperial War Museum who infomed me that they were rather busy (presumably trying to fish the remains of their Rich Tea biscuits from the bottom of the their cuppas) and that I should re-submit my request in one years time!!! I've also been on to the Library at Bovington to see what info they hold on the development of the various tank suits during WWII and sadly the reply was absolutely nowt. Beyond a few surviving examples and the usual reference books that the rest of us have they do not have any info at all but one gets the sense that they'd be most grateful for any info that can be provided. I am also trying to get in touch with Dick Taylor (he of the Warpaint series) who has also written a book on WWII Tank Crew uniforms (The Men Inside the Metal) which has apparently been much delayed in publication due to the cost-wrangles over the copyright of various pictures. At this stage I'm unsure if Dick's book is a pulling together of information from various secondary sources or an in-depth trawl through primary sources in the Nat. Archives and Imperial War Museum. However, his publisher has offered to put me in direct contact with Dick so hopefully I should know more on that score by next week.

I've now managed to wend my way to the National Archive and look over some of those files that I had spotted when trawling their website. I had found three MRC files dated across 1941 - 43. These were primarily concerned with the development of the 1942 Tank Overall (the one that everyone says was only ever used in Training and never in action). Interestingly enough the MRC committee's brief was to 'report' on the flame-proofing of material for tank clothing. At some point they seem to have exceeded this brief and, rather tortureously, ended up making some 60,000 units of what we now know of as the 1942 Tank Overall. The files are full of letters, memoranda and minutes of meetings. And taken as a whole it becomes clear that they not only lost their way but that they were beginning to disappear up their own academic backsides. The impetus for the 1942 suit would apepar to be the number of burns victims amongst Tank Crews in action in the Western desert. It was later discovered that most burns were to the hands, face, chest and legs below the knees (troops in tanks in KD shirts and shorts with the KD shirt open to the waist) and that any kind of clothing, as long as it was done-up, went along way to preventing these kinds of burns. None of this was investigated by our boys on the MRC they spent their time poo-pooing the MacNeal flame-proofing process that the RAF was using on their flight suits (after a couple of months the clothes disintegrated, especially in hot climates). And coming up with their own PVC coated clothing which would be both flame retardent and pertrol retardent. After six months are so there appears a letter exclaiming that it's intolerable that this process is still ongoing when there are men dying in the Western desert. It's not until another six months later that the MRC have a suit ready and then it becomes very obvious that whilst it might well be flame and petrol proof it is not at all air permeable and therefore completely useless to the men in the Western Desert. In fact the MRC committee have given so little thought to Air Permeability that they have not even bothered to add the standard two air-eyelets under the arms. Eventually, the powers-to-be get exasperated and the WO forms it's own committee. The MRC are completely by-passed in this and only find out about it after the event when they get a letter from the head of the Shirley Institute (British Cotton Industry Research Association) telling them how he had been summoned to the WO (on 4th August 1942) for an urgent meeting only to be shown the new suit being worn by a very hot, sweaty and uncomfortable Major who was wearing it over his regular uniform. The next thing that appears is a letter telling about another meeting, some 8 days after the 4th August meeting, and explaining of the new committee with the starting brief to produced three new tank suits to cover, temperate, hot weather and cold weather, i.e. the Denim Tanksuit, the Tank Overalls (aka Pixie or Zoot suit) and the Jungle tank suit. If you're familiar with these three suits you will know that they all have identical pencil pockets on the left breast pocket indicating, to me at least, that all three were desgined by the same committee. The head of the MRC committee was summoned to the WO (August 12th 1942) to provide information to the new committee and it becomes clear then that this new committee will now be making the decisions on new uniforms for tank crews but, he also added, that the trouble was that they seemed determined to get it all done in about three weeks! So the design for the Denim Tanksuit, the Pixie Suit and the Jungle suit, all began with this committee meeting on August 12th 1942 and they came prepared with a list of what they wanted from the DAFV who were requesting three overalls, The trail somewhat goes cold here because I haven't yet found the records of this new committee (I'm still searching) but as they seemed in a heck of a hurry to get this done it would seem to imply that they would have had all three suits ready by at least 1943 (it took the MRC over a year to get the 1942 overalls into production and obviously they were considered to be positively glacial by the then powers-to-be). WRT the 1942 Tank suit; they discovered that if they heated the suit to 170 degrees that it would restore its air permeability without any degradation to the strength of the fabric (something that was of huge concern with the McNeal process). So several suits were earmarked to be tested for this and plans were put in place to see if they could get this done to the entire stock (and any new issues) and to also add the air eyelets under the arms. However, attempts to get the productions items back from the depot were met with a stone wall and the chap who had been called to the 4th August meeting reports (on August 26th) that they're being terribly nice about saying no to him when he tried to get the suits back and alarmingly they told him they were too busy packing the suits for emergency dispatch to the Middle East to be able to comply with his request to send them back to be modified for use in the Middle East. Can anyone say 'British Army efficiency'! All very interesting stuff, in a very gossipy way, but only really gives us hints to the eventual development of the three new Tank Suits from 1943 onwards. As I said earlier I continue to search through the National Archive and hopefully I shall eventually find the new committee's records and files and be able to report back on the development of the new suits. I shall of course keep a keen eye open for mention of the Camouflaged version! Interestingly enough I also reviewed some 1952/53 files on trials of possible replacements for the Pixie suit (which they referred to as "L.30 Tank Overall, Cotton Oxford Cloth, Angola lined"). The favoured suit was based on something called fiberthin and when compared to the Pixie suit for soaking tests (hosed down the poor sod wearing it) it was entirely soaked through in something like 3 minutes 12 seconds whilst the good old Pixie suit resisted total soaking for 7 minutes and 26 secs. Outside of this there was nothing of major difference between the two trial suits and the Pixie suit with the exception that the Fiberthin suit was about 2 llbs lighter than the Pixie suit. Obviously there was a heck of a lot more to the tests than just this but that's as much as I picked up as I sped through it seeking references to the design committee for the older suits.

Fantastic!! I shall be following this thread with great interest! Any chance you can let me have the basic dimensions of the chassis frame, width x length? I'm doing some research on the rear frame work used on Retrievers for carrying Pontoons and knowing the overall chassis dims would help in sizing the Pontoon frames. Rgds Pete

It looks slightly similiar to the 1942 'Tank Crew Overalls', but of course that was fastened up the front with buttons. This would appear to be yet another interesting development on the way to the Pixie suit. I must admit to never having seen this before but it has me intrigued! Is there any chance you might be able to provide more detailed pictures of the one you have? Rgds Pete

As per the subject line, can anyone provide the dimensions for a Leyland Retriever chassis, (L x W)? TiA Pete

Did this Murex ever get restored? I'd love to see strip down and rebuild pics for it!

Just stumbled upon this thread and I just had to comment, this trailer is a thing of beauty. Maybe it's the bloke in me but I do have a deep seated fondness for the old Engineering setups. And this one is just beautiful!! Cracking job mate...I am deeply envious!

Here's a photocopy of ACI 1278 from September 1944 approving the Tank Suit, Denim for production. The real question though is what is the difference between the 'Tank Suit, Denim' and 'Overalls, Denim' which it was intended to replace?

Other than the Major Currie one above (which may indeed be mis-attributed) none that I know off so far. However, there's a fairly large document at the National Archives on the development of the Oversuit and I'm hoping to get up there sometime soon to study it. I requested an estimate for copy from TNA but they quoted me (cough) £650 (cough). I'd rather pop un for the day and take my digital camera! More of a curiousity item for me for as you say who'd wear one in summer, that said though they could we unzipped and re-zipped together to make a sort of sleeping bag and I know one veteran of the Italian campaign who said once unzipped they made fantastic replacements for groundsheets.

Yes Robin, it tis I! I wouldn't get too scared mate the bridge you've bought is closer to 1/12th scale. Which is about half the size of this one. Still pretty big though! Those are false bows and they were used on the pontoons to make it easier to move them around on the water when getting them into place! If you do find it and you're happy to pass it on please do shoot me a PM and we'll work something out!

Re the use of the Pixie suit in Normandy. In British Army Uniforms and Insignia of WWII, Brian L Davis confidently asserts... Later, on pg 210, on the subject of the Denim Tank suit he further asserts... Of-course the problem with both these statements is that the denim tank suit is very visible in Normandy era photo record whilst the Pixie is never seen. This has led some to speculate that Davis somehow, and inadvertently, transposed the dates for these two garments. There's a few things that bug me about this though. The following picture shows Major Currie of the South Albertas and everytime I' ve seen this picture published it most always says it was taken in Normandy in 1944. I've not been able to find the copyright owner for this picture so have not been able to verify how took the picture and when. Secondly, Bill Bellamy’s WWII memoir, “Troop Leader: A Tank Commanders Story”. This book details Bellamy’s experiences with 8th Kings Royal Irish Hussars who, in 1944, were the Armoured Recce unit for 7th Armoured Division. Bellamy’s wartime account is based on the daily diary he kept, in spite of regulations to the contrary, and so can be trusted to be fairly accurate in terms of recall, having been written as, or immediately after, the events in question occured. On pg 98 – 101, Bellamy describes the death of his friend and fellow Troop Leader, Mike Young on August 18th, 1944. On pg 100-101 Bellamy has this to say... Is this the Pixie suit Bellamy's talking about? I think it might be as I can think of no other waterproof garment that would have been 'new' in 1944 or even that colour. As most of you will know the colours of various wartime era Pixie's can range from creamy to tan to khaki, (I've got a Pixie hood which is a dark green ala the Denim tank suit...I think it might be post-war though). However, in the ‘Faces of War’ collection in the Canadian National Archive I found several other pictures of Major Currie, one dated November 12th 1944 and the other dated November 25th 1944. In both pictures he is quite clearly wearing the Pixie suit and it may be that these, with the one above, are all part of the same series of pictures. But if Davis did transpose the dates for the two suits then the gap between the suit being approved for production and one making its way to a front line commander is a mere 50 days! Finally, in the Osprey book on 'Canadian Forces in WWII'. Plate E1 shows a Ron Volstad drawing of a Captain in Major Currie's old mob, the South Alberta's, wearing a Pixie suit. The notes to accompany this drawing are quite illuminating so I've quoted it in it's entirety here... If the Davis is correct and the Pixie suit was approved by ACI in 1943 is it possible that (like the MkIII Turtle shell) that some leading elements of the invasiion force got the Pixie long before anyone else had a need for it in winter? Anyone got any ideas, opinions, wild guesses?

Some years ago I determined to get myself one of the model Bailey Sets that the RE used for training purposes. These things were mostly made of wood, with some brass fittings. Little did I know just how difficult it would be to get a full set of these things, nor how much of an obsession it would become. The bridge led me to also seek out a suitable sized RC tank and I managed to pick up a 1/6th scale RC Stuart from the US(which is waiting a new upper-hull, a paint job and a re-badge to 8th KRIH). The tank took me to a 1/6th scale tankie figure, (i.e. Actionman size), and I'm now in the process of building a 1/6th scale Cromwell (hence the question in research about the FD housing and cover plate). BTW, if anyone comes across any of sets of 1/6th scale Bailey, or any components thereoff (even broken bits). Do let me know...cash waiting in my emergency Bailey fund (suitably salted away from prying wifely eyes).

That's fantastic Adrian, thankyou! I wasn't sure if they'd machined it down or cast it with a flat already in it. That picture answers quite a few questions for me but if anyone's got a picture of it in situ I'd still like to see it, just to get an view of the overall shape of the housing. Once again Adrian, thanks a lot mate!!

Fantastic news...I wonder if he needs an extra pair of hands? I make a pretty good cup of tea!

For a long time social historians relied on the records of 'worthy' middle-class institutions, such as the temperance society and others of that ilk, for their impressions of working-class life in Britain. This was especially true for the period of heavy industrialisation coming out of the 19th Century and into the early 20th Century. By and large the picture painted of the average working-class male was one of a brutish, alcoholic, tyrannical patriarch who abused both wife and children. Indeed, I'm willing to bet that if you ask the average bod in the street that this is the general impression that they will also have...so ingrained has it now become. However, with the coming of the 60's there was a a vigorous re-examination of British social history. One thing that played a vital part in this re-examination, and continues to do so, was the body of literature that became available as the WWI generation began to pass-away, i.e. the letters they had written home from the trenches. The general tone of all these letters show a British male population that was not only engaged with their families but showed genuine concern for their well being and future development of their children. You find husband's chiding their wives for telling him all the local gossip when all he wants to hear about is how well little Johnny is doing and if he's keeping up with his studies. So, you see these records are hugely important in clariying the 'real' picture of what our forebears were like and what their real concerns were. Had we not had WWI and the huge amount of letter writing that occured then we would not have this corrective to a distorted historical view of the working class British male and his familylife. Incidentally, analysis of the diaries of middle-class housewives from the same period show that in general it was the middle-class and upper-middle-class husbands who tend to alcoholic, abusive parenting with administering of the cane a much more frequent event in middle-class households than it ever was in the working class households. These things are important for more reasons that we sometimes aware!

Here's the drawing I'm working from. As you can see the sprocket is mounted on some form of 'cone' gubbins, which in turn is mounted on a housing, sandwiched between the 'vehicle outer side plate' and the 'vehicle inner side plate', for the gear wheel and pinion. It is this 'cone' and housing that I'm interested in. Obviously the rear of the housing has two overlapping, holes machined in it to take the gear wheel and pinion whilst permitting them to mesh. But it is the front that of the housing and 'cone' that has me somewhat stumped. From this drawing it would appear that they have machined down one side of the 'cone' to provide clearance for external access to the pinion. But I'd really like to get a clearer picture of what it actually looks like, in the flesh as it were, so if anyone has any really, good clear pictures of this 'cone' and housing with the 'outer side plates' removed then I'd be most grateful for a looksee?

Alas no, I don't believe it was me you were talking with!

...without the sprocket. From what I can tell from the drawings I've been studying it appears to be some form of elliptical cone which attaches to a casing that holds the gear wheel and pinion. Has anyone got any pics that shows this gubbins, front and rear? Thanks in Advance Pete

Hi all, been trawling around this site for what seems like ages now and thought it was high time I introduced myself. In mostly interested in WWII British Armour but I'm more of a voyeur than a collector. I'm rather short of space, money and an understanding wife to be the latter! The closest I'll most likely ever come is a couple of scale models! Anyways, at the moment I'm searching for info on the Cromwell and the Comet and in particular I'm looking for a single Cromwell track link for my desk so if anyone knows where I might lay my hands on one please do say!