Para's in Northern Ireland

[paul connor]

Always in denisons, but alas, when it was warm, which I know is rare there!

 

Did they just wear GS shirts as well as Flak jackets?

 

Also would the GS shirt have insignia on? IE, DZ as well as wings?

 

Can some one help?

[hardyferret]

Paul shirt sleeve order very very rare, smock gives surprising amount of protection, so worn pretty much 100% on duty

shirt sleeve order stripes worn

 

Ta Hardyferret

[paul connor]

So , if i represented the Para, in shirts would be wrong? so really denisons is the only attire, i have a few NI pics and regiments did wear shirts and flaks

[hardyferret]

Paul, the Denison and flak together are one of the most the recognisable images of the troubles,

Some units did wear shirt sleeve order, but very rare.

 

Regards Hardyferret your visor etc is safe and awaiting poss tunnel meet??? :schocked:

 

[morris c8 fat]

shirt sleave order was taken out after a year or two burns and wounds from glass brick bits so it was shirts rolled down and lightweights went out for the same reason they melted on you soon it was combats all day every day . :roll:

[AlienFTM]

I agree that shirt sleeve order was rare in NI. If somebody says it was stopped, I'll go along with that that. Note that when it was hot, we tended to wear Combat Jacket with nothing underneath: surprisingly cool. The 1984 pattern Combat Jacket (off topic I know) didn't even have a lining except over the shoulders: it was cool.

 

If you are doing Para, it absolutely has to be a Denison.

 

However, we NEVER ever wore combat trousers in my time except when on Guard. Including in NI to 1976. Lightweights only. That said, we weren't in West Belfast so the threat of petrol bombs etc was much less. Then again, I was attached to 42 Commando in West Belfast in Feb - March 76 and I don't remember wearing combats there either.

 

You may be able to get hold of Trousers OG. Not significally different from Lightweights, but they had a wierd crossover built-in belt that buckled at the sides and IIRC had map pockets on BOTH thighs. Slightly fuller cut too IIRC. The material was slightly thicker than on Lightweights. It was always my understanding that they were designed for Paras. We were issued them in Cyprus with UNFICYP in 76-77 to give us more "lightweights" so we could have some on, some clean and some in the Dhobi.

 

Also the GS shirt didn't come into service until very late (they were ready in the mid-80s but legend had it that the QMG refused to issue them until all KF shirts had been issued and returned. Because of issues with the KF shirt, as far as possible they were issued new for Basic Training and handed in hardly used at Transfer to the Reserve). I had never seen a GS Shirt when I left in 89. We were issued with something similar, possibly a Shirt OG to go with the Trousers OG in Cyprus. We didn't have to return the shirts at EOT and they were worn to destruction back in BAOR in preference to KF.

[Snapper]

too many recollections of KF for my delicate soul.

[garv23]

There is also some variation in the way in which Para battalions wore there flack jackets. Both 1 Para and 3 Para had a tendency to wear there's underneath the dennison Smock while 2 Para seem to wear them over the smock. Although saying that i ave seen even 2 Para wear them underneath it as well.

[AlienFTM]

There is also some variation in the way in which Para battalions wore there flack jackets. Both 1 Para and 3 Para had a tendency to wear there's underneath the dennison Smock while 2 Para seem to wear them over the smock. Although saying that i ave seen even 2 Para wear them underneath it as well.

 

I bothered to read the instructions on my flak jacket which said to wear it under the combat jacket, and I did, working on the principle that it made the weedy young me look big and tough. Then I considered (especially since everybody else in the regiment wore it outside) that this made me a target because I looked like big roughy-toughy me wasn't wearing a flak jacket, so by wearing it on the outside, I looked like everybody else.

 

I had an interesting conversation with my wife last night on a subject very much related. As I have said before, 15/19H always, but always wore green jeans (lightweights) and combat jackats rather than full combats. Pictures I have seen suggest that this practice was the norm thoughout the RAC.

 

Combat trousers were a frightening price to replace whereas gren jeans were cheap as chips, so we only EVER wore combat trousers on guard duty. My experience (seeing the media and also after I transferred out of the cavalry) suggests that this was very definitely not the norm and that most other arms wore full combats whenever they were appropriate. Except that the Paras were also party to this exclusivity.

 

We have lived the last 20 years midway between where the Paras and the Marines lived (though the Paras have now left Aldershot and the Marines, I think have actually moved closer). One evening some 15 years ago, on joining the M3 to return home, I clocked a man trying to hitch a lift. I wasn't so far from Broadmoor (every Monday at 10.00 we'd hear the sirens being tested ...) and there was always the risk that a nutter had done a runner so I never ever picked up hitchhikers.

 

As I drove past, I had this sudden feeling, changed my mind and pulled onto the hard shoulder. As I looked in my mirror I saw him go down on his knees and offer up a prayer of thanks to God, before I invited him to dump his kit on the back seat and pile in. "Thank you, sir. Thank you so very much, sir."

 

"Don't promote me, you can't afford to pay me," came the stock reply. "I am a Reserve Sergeant, you can call me that if it makes you feel better, but I really don't care: I am a civvy now."

 

Over the next 50 miles we chatted (he was a very well-spoken young man for a recruit Para). It seems that when the Paras sent their recruits out on an escape and evasion exercise, they were tasked with escaping to the Marine's base in Dorset, with the Marines providing the enemy. When the Marines sent their recruits out on escape and evasion exercise, the Paras returned the favour and they escaped in the reverse direction. I dropped him at Rowhams Services on the M27 where I was about to leave the motorway, happy as a sandboy and thoroughly warmed up. I even considered inviting him home for a hot meal but decided he might find it awkward. Understand this, I didn't give him my address and although I lve quite close to Rowhams Services, to get from one to other is quite a drive to get on / off the motorway

 

Our house near the junction of M27 and M3 turns out to be a convenient mid-way-ish point in either direction. After this, my wife became increasing aware that squaddies on E&E exercises seemed to have a homing instinct that brought them to her door and, "Can I fill up my water bottle, please?" They'd managed to pick out our house on an estate of several hundred. They have allways been very polite. My wife, having been a part of all this military stuff, would happily fill up their water bottle and slip them a chocolate bar or whatever.

 

Now here's the point we discussed last night. Even though in 1995 there was a complete overhaul of military clothing which, as far as I can make out reduced the military wardrobe to full combats and a set of cheap and nasty khaki best Number 2 Dress, these squaddies at her door have ALWAYS but ALWAYS turned up at her door in green jeans and combat jacket. They never wear berets (which is understandable and the one colour beret will make them an automatic target to the enemy wearing the other colour). But these escaping and evading squaddies always wear green jeans, even though the Army only gets issued full combats.

 

So it seems quite clear to me that Paras and Marines STILL to this day, ONLY EVER WEAR GREEN JEANS, whatever the current pattern may be.

 

I'd like to think the cavalry also behave like this this as this was also our sartorial tradition, but somehow I doubt it. Apparently these days, because everyone ends up in one or other of the sandpits eventually, they don't even issue temperate combats unless they have to, and desert combats have become universal. Which of course trumps everything I have said so far, because it's all the media ever show. But as far as Paras in NI are concerned, GREEN JEANS!!!