titles on FSSF battle dress

[wimbeta]

hi,

I received this jacket many years ago.
There is no date in the jacket and I wonder if the patches are original to the jacket. There are two different kind of FSSF badges on the jacket and I do not know if the wing is original.

There is a lot of experience on this forum so I thought lets give it a try.

Thanks in advance,

Wim

[Bill A]

Tough questions. Have you compared the patches with the ones shown in Ken Joyce's Crimson Spearhead?
With two different patterns on the sleeves, one's suspicions are peaked, but it does not mean that they are bad. The one on the right sleeve looks good, but the one on the left raises my concerns. Bullion wire wings were not issue, and should not have been on a battledress tunic. Again, a fellow on his way home may not have cared much what anyone including dress regs said.

[DavidS]

Just out of curiosity, have you hit it with a UV black light?

[wimbeta]

hi,

None of the badges or stitching glow up under UV light.

Wim

[wimbeta]

Hi,

The maker use for the two FSSF badges different stichings.
The left arm stitching is the same as all other badges brown.
For the right arm they use red stitching material.
The American way of using badges on the uniform.

I do not have the book you mention. I have the book super commando's.


Wim

[Bill A]

Hi Wim, Check out Service Publications. It is on Clive's web site.

[Tanker Mike]

Are his ribbons not in the correct order?

[Bill A]

Good catch Mike. I think the first bar is on upside down.

[Phillip Herring]

Originally Posted by Tanker Mike

Are his ribbons not in the correct order?

The medal ribbons look fine to me.

Phil

[Darrell]

Hi Mike

I agree with Phil; the ribbon bar is fine. Oriented correctly and in the right order.

With regard to the tunic's other badges and the type of medals represented by the ribbons, wasn't FSSF disbanded long before all of those medals/ribbons were issued? For example, the War Medal was instituted 16 August 1945.

regards
Darrell

[Bill A]

Checking Joyce's Crimson Spearhead reveals a couple of interesting points. As Darrell said, the Canadian component of the FSSF was disbanded in December 1944. The Canadians were split into two groups, those parachute qualified and those who were not parachute qualified. The non-para group were put in the reinforcement pool in Italy, and the para qualified were sent to the UK to become reinforcements for 1 Cdn Para Bn. When the unit was disbanded, the Canadian commanding officer authorized ex-Force personnel to wear the shoulder sleeve insignia on the right sleeve. When the ex-Force man was taken on strength of another unit, the FSSF patch was supposed to be taken down. In a few cases the ex-Forceman convinced his new CO to allow him to continue to wear the FSSF.
On the tunic in question, there are a couple of anomalies. First the patch should only be on the right sleeve. It appears one has been added. It was not authorized to be worn on both sleeves, and if it was on the left arm, it was added at the individuals discretion. Second, as Darrell indicates, the ribbon bar represents medals that were not available at the time the tunic is supposed to represent. The sergeants stripes are the late war or post war pattern as well. (One solid piece rather than the three separate stripes on a common backing.) The tunic as shown, would have to represent a fellow that was not re-allocated to another unit, and added his medal ribbon when the campaign stars were issued.

[wimbeta]

In the book Supercommandos Ross wrote "this batch of Canadians arrived in Victoria Barracks, Aldershot England in January 1945. There a number of men were assigned to duty as instructor, while others entered officers candidate training".

What kind of badges did the instructor's and candidate officers wear on their dress? (where they aloud to use the FSSF badges?).

The battle dress has some tailor made creases in the back of the jacket.

My aunt bought the jacket on a garage sale in Canada and handed it over to me a year later when she came to Holland.
When I ask her where she bought the battle dress, to contact the old owner she could not rememeber where she bought it. (its her hobby to go to garage sales).

Did anybody ever see such a para wing?
I collect WWII Canadian badges and uniforms for almost 20 year but I have never seen such a para wing.

I have a couple of battle dresses that has all the ribbons on it. The owner added it after the war on the battle dress.

Till now thanks for all the answers.

[edstorey]

Can you provide an image of the interior of the tunic? What is the year of manufacture? Can you get in close on the two SSF patches?

Thank you.

[Michael Reintjes]

look back at the date of the repat photo I posted here some time ago with soldiers clearly wearing at least 1SSF cap arrows...

[MPC51]

Is it possible this tunic was made up by a vet to wear at one of the re-unions for this unit after the war!
Mike