| Army
issue kit and uniform equipped the infantryman with the bare minimum for
fighting and living in the trenches, but if an Australian wanted something
extra he was able to barter and buy whatever he needed to supplement or
replace his kit.
Despite the standardisation of army equipment, the AIF
soldier always managed to stay unique. Most distinctive was the Digger’s
uniform. The workmanlike woollen khaki jacket,
cut loose-necked and baggy, and detailed with blackened metal buttons,
plus baggy woollen trousers topped sturdy, lace-up, ankle-length boots
made entirely of leather and hobnailed for extra grip.
Puttees were long
strips of woollen material bound round the lower leg from ankle to knee
and were intended to stop water and mud sloshing into boots and breeches. They
were cursed by soldiers as worse than useless; they cut off circulation
when too tight because they shrank in the wet, and unwound when too loose,
hampering movement.
The
AIF had two hats and a cap. The rabbit fur-felt slouch hat
with its Rising Sun badge became the readily
identifiable symbol of Australian soldiery, and when the AIF arrived in
France their slouch hats were reluctantly swapped for British
steel helmets. They left their peaked
caps at home.
In France the Australian soldier was also issued with a
wet-weather "gas" cape as worn by the British. Spare uniform,
standard kit and a few personal items were packed for travel in a kit bag,
a drawstring, light canvas duffle-bag with the soldier’s name and number
stencilled on the outside.
As well as carrying identity papers, the Australian
soldiers wore two engraved oval ID discs, called "dead meat
tickets", on necklets. One was to be placed in the mouth of the
corpse and the other returned to a higher authority to prove death. On
many many occasions that did not and could not happen.
It was the unenviable job of the Graves
Registration Unit to recover these discs from the bodies of the dead to
identify those killed in battle. |
