Chaplain's blues
 

I recently stumbled across a 1973-dated set of dress blues for a chaplain (officer) -- much the same as the infantry except the trousers have a broad purple stripe. If I want to add a cap, I assume I have to find one with a purple band as well?

Lettman,

That's right. To the best of my recollection they and Medical were the only Corps not to wear a red band on the blues cap. They also wore a purple band on the khaki cap for Colonel's and above.

Cheers
Chris

Let see some pictures :-)

Mick

Thanks, Chris -- might be a tricky thing to find!
Will put up some photos soon, Mick.

Here are some photos -- for some reason I couldn't capture the rich ecclesiastical purple of the trouser stripe, which kept coming out an insipid shade of royal blue. I also got the date of manufacture wrong -- the outfit was privately made in August 1977.

Very nice indeed - certainly a uniform I have never seen before.

Mick

I believe that the purple band on the cap with the blues may only be for Colonel rank, I have 3 caps which I have aquired with Blues uniforms and 2 of them have a black band similar to that worn on RAF caps, with the chaplains badge on, the 3rd one belongs to a beautiful CF1 [Colonel rank] chaplain uniform and has the purple band and also gold leaves on the peak, and purple gorget patches on the jacket.
There is a picture I have somewhere from WW2 with a chaplain in Italy wearing KD with an SD cap and you can tell he has a purple band on his cap, rank CF1.
Regards

Many thanks, Matt -- that's a very interesting piece of information. I'll delve further into just exactly which colour band Australian chaplains wore.

Hiya
I don't know for sure his details but a friend at work sent me this link to a pic he had spotted of a chaplain and which as you can see has the Sydney Opera House in the background. Its the 17th one as you scroll down.

The photo was from the Austrailan Defence.gov website I believe but when I tried to click on it again for it, it seems to have dissapeared.

http://www.militaryphotos.net/forums...d.php?t=138302

The chaplain is wearing a purple band on his cap, and the rank badge for a colonel.

If you need some of this purple cloth I can supply you a piece. At great expense I got some from the supplier to the MoD, but they will only sell it by the metre off a huge roll!
I cannot find anyone else who will supply it in the correct colour, and it was the Chaplains Musuem who put me on to them, so I know it is right!
Regards

Hi Matt,
A good photo and a nice offer! I'll PM you my postal address to take you up on that.
Cheers!