Family Military Photo help needed!!!

ArtyMan

ArtyMan

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Hey guys,

I have recently come across a few old family pictures and was wondering if anyone had any idea as to when they may have been taken by looking at the rifles/uniforms/anything. Any help is appreciated, all we know is that they are British! Any help with identifying units/date etc... would be great!

02-01-2010123514PM.jpg


29-12-2009100022PM.jpg


29-12-200995749PM.jpg


Thanks a lot!
 
The pictures don't show much detail, but I think I see: Enfield rifles with, nose cap, no volley site, rear site on barrel not bridge. So I'm GUESSING they would be an Enfield #1 variant and taken around WWI? One of the Enfield gurus will likely know more.

Can anyone read the caps in the 1st photo? Other than that, I don't see any unit marking at all.
 
The middle one shows the Army chaps in battle dress, so post WWI. No.1 rifles not yet replaced by No.4, webbing looks not much used yet. They don't have the spit and polish of regulars of the interwar years, and they don't look used to uniforms and equipment, especially the soldiers. I'm guessing they haven't been in long and it's the late 1930s, very early WWII.
 
I am no expert but the battle dress trousers on the second picture looks like the P 37 or
P 40 pattern with the front pocket. The webbings looks like Pattern P 08. On the 1st and 2nd pictures with can clearly see the chaps are wearing the navy collar with the typical three stripes and the navy hats too. Maybe you can use a magnifying glass to read what's written on the hats. That could reveal the ship or unit they belonged to.
Maybe Royal Marines or perhaps some kind of boarding party? I hope the experts can enlighten us on these pictures since I'm really curious now. I'll be keeping an eye on this thread for sure.

Good luck
 
If you know their names you can try a search by name, this would probably reveal the unit or some kind of service records hopefully.

http: //www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/documentsonline/browse-refine.asp?catid=10&searchtype=browserefine&pagenumber=1

http: //www.1914-1918.net/grandad/grandad.htm
 
The first picture must be pre-WW2, because there appears to be a ship name on the hats. In war time the hats only had "H.M.S." on them. The battledress is the early pattern with concealed buttons, which was not made for too long in Britain. Probably 1938-39. I just noticed that the dudes in battledress, pic. #2, appear to have empty ammo pouches, and no bolts in their rifles!
 
They are all wearing the 1908 pattern web which was used through WW1 up until the 1937 pattern became the WW2 standard.

Delays in fielding the required quantities of 1937 pattern web for WW2 required that the troops still wear WW1 equippment in the early stages of WW2. Ditto with the No1 MkIII Enfield and the No4 rifle.

It's tough to date the naval rig in pics 1 and 2-anywhere up to 1940 or so I'd say. The center pic shows the troops wearing early battledress with the 1908 web,but they are still wearing puttees instead of the WW2 standard web gaiters. I'd put this one around 1938-39.

I wonder how many folk remember that we wore P37 web belts with battledress until 1970 or so. And puttees were still in until 1968- a legacy of Guy Simonds who was a great anglophile and decided to ape the Brits by introducing puttees and the Regiment of Canadian Guards. I remember some of our old Queens Own diehards who still wore their black puttees with ankle boots UNDER the CF green trousers in 1PPCLI back in 1973.
 
I joined the British Army in 1983 and we still wore puttees with an ankle high boot (Boots, DMS) for a year or two after that until the new high leg combat boots were issued as a result of lots of casualties to "immersion foot" in the Falklands War ('82.) We were still using 1954 pattern webbing when I left in 1990.
 
bellero said:
Maybe Royal Marines or perhaps some kind of boarding party? I hope the experts can enlighten us on these pictures since I'm really curious now. I'll be keeping an eye on this thread for sure.
Click to expand...

They are at least boarding/landing party from the Royal Navy. My grandfather was a ships gunneries officer and a member of the boarding/landing party and I've seen 2 pictures of him wearing a similer out fit but he was armed with a Bren and Luger. He took the Luger off a U-boat captain. As far as I know he wasn't a Marine.

I should clarify the 2 pictures as I don't have them to post, they are in England with my grandmother. One is a picture like the first one without the webbing but with the rifles and some shipmates. The second is taken on a beach in the Pacific somewhere North of Australia near the end of the war, kind of a poser shot but he never let on that it was staged. It looked so badass more like a recruitment poster for the SAS. There was at least 6 of them: combat boots with their socks pulled high, all in shorts, I think 2 or 3 of them had button up shirts either T or sleeves rolled up the rest shirtless, simmiler webbing to picture 1, I dont recall all of them wearing the tommy helmet, 2 had Enfield's, my grandfather had the Bren with the Luger with belt and holster, the other guys had what looked like Grease guns but I have no idea what they were.
 
purple said:
They are all wearing the 1908 pattern web which was used through WW1 up until the 1937 pattern became the WW2 standard.

Delays in fielding the required quantities of 1937 pattern web for WW2 required that the troops still wear WW1 equippment in the early stages of WW2. Ditto with the No1 MkIII Enfield and the No4 rifle.

It's tough to date the naval rig in pics 1 and 2-anywhere up to 1940 or so I'd say. The center pic shows the troops wearing early battledress with the 1908 web,but they are still wearing puttees instead of the WW2 standard web gaiters. I'd put this one around 1938-39.

I wonder how many folk remember that we wore P37 web belts with battledress until 1970 or so. And puttees were still in until 1968- a legacy of Guy Simonds who was a great anglophile and decided to ape the Brits by introducing puttees and the Regiment of Canadian Guards. I remember some of our old Queens Own diehards who still wore their black puttees with ankle boots UNDER the CF green trousers in 1PPCLI back in 1973.
Click to expand...

I do. In the 48th Highlanders I wore battledress with dice hose and blue puttees until 1974. I was forced to draw CF Greens for my Jnr. NCO crse. Still cutaway for kilt, of course. P37 belt capo'd green with regimental brass buckle was retained for wear with kilt summer drill order. Later replaced by a "stable" belt in regimental colours using the same buckle. On my summer crse in '73 I recall a Sgt. showing up for con at Pet wearing bush jacket, bush trousers, P51 webbing, blue puttees (with weights) and drill boots. Last time I saw that combo.
 
purple said:
I remember some of our old Queens Own diehards who still wore their black puttees with ankle boots UNDER the CF green trousers in 1PPCLI back in 1973.
Click to expand...

I was posted to 3PPCLI in '73, I thought that all the Queens Own were 3rd, as thats where the Regiment was when it rebadged in 1970?
 
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