Service dress hat - Women's Royal Australian Army Corps (WRAAC) - circa 1980s

[slick_mick]

Service dress hat - Women's Royal Australian Army Corps (WRAAC) - circa 1980s.

Worn by Lance Corporal Linda Hyland who enlisted with the Women's Royal Australian Army Corps (WRAAC) in February 1981. She attended the WRAAC School in Mosman, Sydney and served with the Royal Australian Army Ordnance Corps until her discharge in September 1984. Hyland was among the first group of Australian female recruits to receive weapons training, on both the L1A1 7.62mm SLR rifle and the F1 9mm sub machine gun.

Interesting how the RAAOC badge is worn instead of the WRAAC badge.

[RACT]

In regards to the RAAOC badge, i would say that the good l/cpl was serving at the time when the WRAAC were disbanded and they wore the badge of the Corps they were attached to.The uniform was dubbed the "Prue Acton" uniform as i believe she had a hand in it's design, and from memory the girls hated it, for all sorts of reasons, one in particular was that when they had to wear it as a ceremonial uniform , with slouch hat,black belt and bayonet , GP boots and carrying an SLR , they looked stupid , they were relieved when it was phased out in favour of the Khaki uniforms that the males wore. On a slide line , i recently obtained a WRAAC dark green battledress blouse, the type worn by WRAAC driver's, it cam e with a dark green tie , i just need to obtain the following to complete a driver's tunic,Fawn shirt , dark green lanyard, WRAAC Battle dress flashes (pr),and a WRAAC beret , the troursrs/slacks for the uniform will be just about impossible to find, but you never know hey?

[Eddie Parks]

That hat is the ugliest piece of uniform I have ever seen - bar none!
Eddie

[L1A1]

Can remember seeing these hats being worn with the Band Corps badges on them.

Certainly one of the ugliest uniforms I can remember being worn. I worked with a few female members of the 5MD Band. I can't remember what order of dress it was but they wore a long sleeved blouse, which was striped in the dark and light green of the hat pictured, a dark green knee length skirt, stockings and black shoes. They wore a dark green cardigan with it and this hat with it, all very 1970's.

There were other options as well, including a one piece sleeveless dress for summer in the light green and also trousers. (How do I know so much, worked in a Q store once when they were dumping boxes of the stuff for disposal)

It didn't have much longer to go and the females soon switched over to the khaki "polys" uniforms like the males.