Ref: #6826
ricardian,
Fascinating ! Took me right back (it wasn't all that different in '41).
Notes for the youngsters:,
No battledress yet, just your SD (so you had to polish your buttons every day !)
Everybody wearing Caps Field Service, aka "Fore 'n Afts" or (whisper it) C##t Caps). Caps SD (Flat 'Ats) kept for parade only). Cap FS much easier to scrunch up and stuff anywhere; our Spitfire/Hurricane armourers used to use them to pull back the Browning cocking knobs after loading the wing guns - this did the Caps FS no good at all, you could always pick out an armourer by the "overhang".
Officers wear little brass "A"s or "VR"s on their lapels; the airmen on a tag under the shoulder "Sh##eHawks" (to distinguish them from the Regulars). Later in the war, when everybody was enlisted or commissioned in the VR, we had to take them down, but the "A"s (Auxiliaries) kept theirs. Caused a bit of ill feeling at the time.
Look at the officers' jackets: cut off the bottom front button, shrug the buckle down a bit, you've got the current pattern at no expense.
All the airmen's jackets had a little inner pocket right at the bottom of the RH (LH?) front corner: this held your First Field Dressing pack (officers, presumably, were assumed not to bleed). This was the cause of the immemorial query (when at a dance): "Do you really love me, or is it just your First Field Dressing?".
Better stop now. Danny.