One for RCN

[boots and saddles]

Bryan, How could you tell If an officer was a Pharmacist (for example) Did they still wear the colour betwen the rings of rank in the 50's-60's? Ray

[boots and saddles]

No answers eh? wellis there anyone else out there that know anything about the above question? Ray

[RCN]

Hi Ray,

The RCN (& during the war, RCNVR & RCNR) officers wore coloured distinguishing cloth for the branch to which they belong. The coloured cloth was worn between the gold lace bands on their uniform sleeves & shoulder boards.

The coloured cloth went out approx '54 but took a while to disappear, I saw distinguishing cloth still being worn when I came in in '59. It survived longer in the Reserve Divisions than in the RCN.

Colours were as follows:

Black (or no cloth ) - Executive branch.

White - Supply & Secretariat branch. (Supply & Admin officers)

Red - Medical branch - Surgeons, (Medical Doctors).

Maroon - Medical Administration - Wardmasters, & Nurses. Pharmacist officers would be included in this branch as well.

Purple - Engineering branch.

Dark Blue - Ordnance branch.

Light Blue - Instructor branch (Teachers)

Gray - Construction branch & Commisioned Shipwrights.

Dk Green - Electrical branch

Lt Green - "Special" branch. Included anything not covered above.

The distinuishing branch colour was also part of the rank pins that were worn on the collars of the officer's Khaki shirts (summer dress)

I will try to illustrate a few in due course,

Some of these rank pins are quite hard to come by as some branches were considerably smaller than others. & the most common of course are the Executive & Medical branches.

Bryan

[RCN]

As an addition to my post above, some guys are going to ask - why no Dental branch??

In the RN there was provision for the Dental branch & their allocated colour was Orange. However in the RCN, I guess was too small to justify a formal Dental branch, & the dental work for officers & men of the RCN was carried out by dentists of the RCAMC. To the best of my knowledge there were no RCN Dental officers.

Actually I was just gabbing to my denstist about this last wk, he is ex RCAF, & asked me about dentists in the Navy, as he really wanted to go into the RCN after he qualified as a DDS, but was unable & went RCAF instead. This would have been in the mid '50's tho.

Bry

[RCN]

As promised here are some examples of the Branch Officer's distinguishing colours - this set being the Supply/Secretariat branch:

These collar pins were worn on the collars of the summer dress khaki uniform shirts. They come in pairs of course but I have just illustrated one of each.

The khaki summer tunic also was worn with rank insignia being shown on the shoulder boards, & these too would have had the coloured cloth between the gold lace.

Bryan

[RCN]

These collar insgnia represent the Ordnance branch: {Ordnance branch maintained the weapons systems}

For those unfamiliar with Naval Officer ranks they are
L to R:: Sub Lieut, Lieut, Lieut Commander, Commander, Captain.

Illustrated we have the Ordance branch, so each rank would be prefixed by Ordnance:
ie: Ordnance Sub Lieut, Ordnance Lieut etc.

Bryan

[RCN]

These collar insignia represent the very rare Instructor branch:

as you can see I am missing Instructor Lieut Commander & Commander.
The smaller branches collar insignia are very difficult to obtain.

Bryan

[RCN]

These collar insignia represent the Electrical branch, & altho the Electrical branch was larger than the Instructor branch their collars are very seldom seen, again I am missing two of these:

[Gino]

I'm brand new to this forum and I'm starting to work my way through the RCN threads so please bear with me if I dredge up old stuff.

If I'm not mistaken, weren't distinctive branch colours between officers' lace abolished in 1960? I'll try and dig up something definitive.

[Gino]

Further to my last, I found in the March 59 edition of the Crowsnest that distinctive colours would cease to be worn by all except medical officers effective 1 January 1960. I believe the RN actually abandoned their use a few years earlier, although I'm not sure what the rationale was.

Interestingly, when the navy returned to blue uniforms in the 85-87 period, medical officers almost immediately began to wear the scarlet distinctive colour and health care administrators began wearing the maroon of wardmasters. I don't think this was originally officially sanctioned, but eventually it became official.

[RCN]

Welcome to the Badge Forum Gino - you will meet a lot of very knowlegable collectors on this forum that are always willing to assist you.

The RCN Branch colours were to officially cease as of 1 Jan 1960. The change was announced in the RCN magazine "The Crowsnest" in the Sep 1958 issue.

As I mentioned in the initial post in this topic this did not happen overnite - it took a while for the Branch officers distinguishing coloured cloth to disappear. I recall still seeing some in 1959. A Banch officer might have his colour removed when he was promoted, say from Lieut(O) to Lieut Commander, or Lieut Cr to Commander. If he was within a few yrs of retirement he may elect to retain his coloured cloth until he went to pension.
In the RCN(R) Divisions they tended to last somewhat longer than in the Regular force. I would estimate by mid 60's it was pretty much all gone except the Medical Branch (Doctors/Surgeons), they retained their scarlet distinguishing cloth up to Integration period.

I will try to add more of the Branch officer colours to this topic in future......

Bryan

[Gino]

Many thanks for your greetings. I am a former naval officer, and although I don't collect badges I have a deep interest in RCN history, traditions, and ceremonial. I looked up the Sep 58 edition of the Crowsnest and found the notice you mentioned. Unfortunately, there was no mention of the rationale; perhaps they just thought that there were too many colours out there. Those online Crowsnests are a great resource, aren't they?

[RCN]

Hi Gino,

I too am former RCN & CAF(N), I joined the "old" RCN when Cornwallis was in its heyday in the early 60's - it was a different time then - everything was done at the "double", the CPO's still wore the cuff buttons & a Chief was "God" or d***d close to Him, & we still had Sentries at the gates, (& cells!) even in Stad & Naden Fleet Schools, Integration had not yet appeared but we knew it was coming!

Yes the Crowsnest magazines are a SUPER resource, too bad they stopped when they did. It was not the same with the Sentinel.

I think the RCN in the 1960's was trying to move the Officers into more of 'general list officer' able to do a bit of everything that the Specialist officers used to do - ie: Weapons, Communications, Navigation, Pilotage, Seamanship, Watchkeeping, Engineering-- the whole lot. I have one of the 1960 "Education & Careers in the Navy" booklets (quite well done actually) that was geared to giving High School students an idea of what a naval career was like, & this seemed to be the idea of the naval officer training in that 'pre integration' time frame.

The Branch colours were becoming a thing of the past & perhaps retiring them was in line with this policy. Just like the old formal 'gold loaded' dress uniforms of the pre war period that you mentioned in your Adm Nelles Rear Adm uniform post. (I have a few of these, they are absolutely beautiful!). These represented the past & I think the modern Anti Submarine focussed RCN wanted to move away from that...

Just my thoughts tho!

Bryan

[Gino]

Bryan, sometimes questions of how it was done "back in the day" come up among me and my wingers. I hope you won't mind if I ask to pick your brain from time to time. I joined in the days of the green uniform and lived through the transition back to blue. Thankfully, I was able to see the return of the executive curl, the RCN name, and a new naval ensign before I finally swallowed the anchor. Hopefully, some new things will happen in the future to further distance ourselves from the disgraceful legacy of Hellyer.

[RCN]

Yes Gino I can imagine it must! Old vets always seem to talk about "the old days", at Military shows I meet & speak to a lot of RCN vets of my vintage looking for their old rate & rank badges. Everybody seems to have a "Cornwallis story" too!

The collector who started this topic- Ray Collins - he loved the old navy (he was not even RCN, he just liked the insignia) & was an avid collector, many older members on here will remember Ray. Ray was asking me questions on the old RCN frequently - so don't be shy - if you got a problem ask, I may be able to help, if not me, another of one of our knowlegable collectors on here.

I have been collecting & reading about the RCN since I was in Sea Cadets "way back when", & have a huge RCN collection. Not much I have not seen but one comes along every so often that's new to me & I ask on here - what is this, anybody seen one of these? A few I have put on I am unable to get an answer for (read a few of my recent posts, you will see I have axed about a few unknown to me), perhaps in time someone will come along that can ID a strange "nobody ever seen this before" type of insignia.

As an old (& I mean old to an at the time 18yr old) 3 badge Killick said to me when I was at Cornwallis - "ask son, & ye shall learn"!

RCN Bryan