U.S. Army Fatigue Clothing 1904 to 1919

[world war I nerd]

Just so there's no confusion, the following garments (show above) are all from the collection of Gil Sanow:

 

1904 Canvas Fatigue Coat

1919 Blue Denim Fatigue Coat

1917 Brown Denim Fatigue Hat

1917/18 or Post-War Blue Denim Fatigue Hat

 

Gil also sent me photos of the following, which I did not post because they fall outside the scope of this topic:

 

A pair of Navy, blue denim "dungarees"/fatigue trousers (WW I or WW II ???)

And what I believe is a post WW I Army, blue denim fatigue coat.

 

The coat has a fully buttoned front, secured by five "U.S. Army" white metal buttons, split cuffs, each closed by one U.S. Army button and two lower patch-style waist pockets with a rounded flap, each fastened by a single U.S. Army button. Does anyone know exactly what period this type of U.S. Army Fatigue Coat is from ... 20s, 30s, 40s?

 

If any forum members are interested in any of these garments please send a PM to Gil, rather that posting questions on this thread .... Thanks.

 

 

[world war I nerd]

Sorry for such a lousy photo, but it looks like these two soldiers are wearing a five button 1904 style Brown Canvas fatigue Coat similar to the one that belongs to Gil.

[world war I nerd]

Here's another poor quality photo of early brown canvas (?) overalls circa 1904. Note that the man in the center of the first row is wearing either a five or six button Brown Canvas fatigue Coat.

[world war I nerd]

This photo shows the men of either an AEF labor battalion or an engineer regiment constructing a bridge across a French canal. A number of them are wearing the brown or blue denim 1917 Fatigue Coat with a fully buttoned front. Also three of the Doughboys are wearing blue or brown Fatigue Hats.

[world war I nerd]

Here's a larger view of the engineers wearing blue or brown denim fatigue hats, coats and trousers.

[world war I nerd]

This photo, posted by Cavdoc83 in another thread, shows a pair of Air Service ground crew helping the pilot start his biplane's engine. One is preparing to give the plane's prop a spin and the other will yank him out of the way of the spinning prop. The soldier with his hand on the prop may be wearing the 1917 Fatigue Coat, but something about the shiny buttons on the garment just doesn't look right to me. The man in the foreground is wearing the pre WW I 1908 pattern Fatigue Coat with pocket flaps or possibly a later variation of that coat in either blue or olive drab.

[Terry K.]

I hope you don't mind me adding a couple of photos.

 

A work party with different uniforms on.

[Terry K.]

Here is a work detail taking lunch. Many different uniforms

[US Victory Museum]

This falls slightly outside the date of this thread; however, this
item is what I'll describe as a "Chore Jacket".

With the exception of the collar, it is identical to a white canvas
stable frock coat. (See attached photo) Note the cut of the bottom
of the pockets on each, as well as the four buttons.

The chore jacket has a pair of faux epaulets on each shoulder for
adornment. These are not the detachable epaulets of the P1899-1901
uniforms; instead, they are strips of colored cloth that are sewn
along their complete circumference and displayed with non-functional
buttons. Two holes have been punched through the material to allow
the button shanks to be retained with split-rings on the inside.

The material is the same khaki cloth used to produce the field
uniforms during the SAW.

The garb is closed with four buttons along the front. Between the
bottom two buttons, a piece of material has been used to repair
a snag to the blouse (period done).

I consider the epaulets to be adornment added after production.

(also period done)

If this item has a designation, I look forward to hearing from
anyone about it, otherwise it's just a curiosity I acquired for
the collection.

Msn

 

[US Victory Museum]

Reverse.

[US Victory Museum]

Stable Frock Coat for comparrison

 

[world war I nerd]

Terry K, by all means ... please post as many photos as you can. I used to have loads of WW I photos of men wearing fatigue clothing. Unfortunately, because of a hard drive melt down, I lost them all along with a ton or research and notes. Anyway, thanks for posting and post more if you have them.

 

US Victory Museum, the "Chore Coat" is certainly interesting. Aside from the red shoulder straps, it definitely looks as if it was initially designed to be a fatigue coat. I wanted to include the Stable Frock in the post but I just didn't have any photos showing it, so thanks for posting the example from your collection.

 

Do you have any period photographs showing troops wearing it or anything that shows what the stable trousers looked like?

 

The domed brass buttons on both your chore coat and stable frock, look to be similar to the "shiny buttons" on the fatigue coat worn by the ground crewman shown above. Does anybody have an opinion on whether or not similar brass buttons might have been used on later pattern fatigue coats?

[world war I nerd]

Does anybody know if the white trousers worn by the man on the left side of the photo is wearing the trousers that formed part of the Stable Dress and worn with the Stable Frock posted by US Victory Museum or are they just a dirty pair of bleached canvas Summer Trousers?

[Cavdoc83]

I love that pic with the guy feeding the donkey colt! There's a whole group of guys that need a job to do. The NCO on the right must be off duty!

[Cavdoc83]

On buttons, there seems to be some variation. At some point, I thought that all of the fatigues from 1910 on used metal tack buttons, like the ones used on the shelter halves, or like you would find for modern overall suspenders. Do we have a definite specification? Looking back, all I see are the 1918 specs calling for the use of the zinc buttons as on the trousers. If they are the zinc buttons, that could certainly account for the light color in some of the photos.

[world war I nerd]

Before this thread I had a bunch of preconceived notions about fatigue clothing between 1901 to 1919.

 

It wasn't until you posted the descriptions on agate hunter's post and I dug out the spec. no.s that I had (minus any descriptions) to see if they coincided. As it happened, they matched up pretty well. But there was still no mention of what the buttons were made of. Like you, I always thought that after 1908 the fatigue clothing was made with the same U.S. Army zinc buttons as found on the front fly of the service breeches or the tack buttons on the shelter half. But BEAST's photo of the brown denim Fatigue Coat showed black or dark brown buttons similar to the ones used on the 1904 Canvas Fatigue Coat. That surprised me. I thought that by 1918 they would be the zinc or tack buttons.

 

So ... no, we have no specification on any of the buttons.

 

The buttons on the guy spinning the prop, look domed to me not flat. Do they look domed to anybody else? I'm not saying that they are not zinc or something else.

 

It's too bad that all the other period photos are of such poor quality. On a couple you can make out the shape and approx. size of the buttons, but they're little more that dark dots.

 

Essentially all we've accomplished so far, is to map out most of the different styles between 1904 and 1919, and speculate about the colors and the fabrics that each style was made from. But hey ... that's more than I knew a week ago.

 

 

[GIl Sanow]

While it may not be all that clear from the photo, the buttons on my '04 fatigue coat are metal, riveted in place. I cannot be sure of what the metal is, I can say it seems to have some sort of copper-colored plating. Unfortunately, my camera is giving me fits when I try to take closeups.

 

If they were doing things the way they did later, the buttons were made under their own Spec. No., and supplied to the coat contractors.

 

Thanx to WW1N for starting this thread. I have had my examples for years but never paid much attention, and I have not seen any offered at any show in decades. But I have learned more in the last few days than I ever knew before (and some people think I am a uniform expert)!.

 

G

[jgawne]

First thing is that cut on the square has to do with how the pattern is laid out on the fabric. Cutting on the square means cutting the main direction of the pattern along the direction of fibers- warp or weft, as opposed to cutting along the bias which means cutting 45' off so you are cutting diagonally- which gives you a greater stretchiness. So cutting on the square mens it will not stretch as much, and is a bit more economical in terms of wasted fabric. (slightly more complicated, but ask anyone that sews and they will say- yeah, the arrow on the pattern shows you which way the grain runs).

 

I do urge caution when trying to fit items in photographs into the picture. In 1917 the Army went out and bought anything and everything off the shelf they could, and so you might be seeing Sears Roebuck work clothing. Likewise it may have even been a trial item (of which there were many) that was photographed merely because it was an unusual one. It also could have been from the time period when they just needed material NOW! but possibly the buttons were not available right away, so they went with a suitable replacement just to get stuff to the troops. Congress was breathing down theoir necks as to why troops were not equipped and standards were lowered to just get equipment of some kind to the troops.

 

It has been a long time since I read the QMC files for this period, so it faded in memory. I can tell you at one point (and I forget when) it was specifically said the change to denim was because it was much cheaper, and the fabric was readily available. I also recall the decision to go with the CAC pattern for all, was because "they had the pattern already and it worked, and so why bother trying to do something different."

 

Keep in mind that pre-1917 (and post 1918) money was almost everything when it came to army procurement. It cannot be underestimated. I mean to a point which would seem ridiculous today. Often major decisions were made due to money. As an example, the Army wanted to go to wrap puttees early on (like other armies), but it would cost slightly more, and the canvas ones were already issued so they were just dropped.

 

I'll see if I can dig out my notes on this stuff.

[world war I nerd]

Thanks Jonathan,

 

I totally forgot to mention the civilian garments that the Army used throughout 1917 and early in 1918.

 

I also agree about your take on the Army using whatever buttons were available just to get the clothing finished and issued to the men who needed them.

 

If you have any additional please post it so we can clear up some of the confusion. Thanks again for your input..

 

[jgawne]

In the winter of 17/18 there was a massive uproar as people wrote their congressman and complained that their boys were freezing in camp with no uniforms. (heck, my grandfather did not get a pair of boots until a few months in).

 

The Army had tried to slow down the intake of draftees and volunteers until they could be properly housed and equipped, but the powers that be wanted them in the service, now! So if you read correspondence of the time you see them buying up everything they can that can reasonably be used. Then when you get into the congressional inquires they are pushing the QMC to get stuff to the troops ASAP even if not as good quality as they would like.

 

It's funny how in WW2 the USA was the great arsenal of democracy and overflowing with materiel, and yet in WW1 we were so short of so many things. Although, something the British and French often forget is that the reason we didn't ship as much to Europe as we would have liked to, is that by their agreement, everything really was being planned for a major assault in 1919 - so the US was busy building the infrastructure for that (previously agreed upon) plan. It was probably about the time the war ended that the USA finally started hitting its massive production stride. And then quickly shut it all down.

[GIl Sanow]

As far as clothing production in WW1 goes, there was a problem with khaki and drab shad dyes. Before the war, the US imported German chemical dyes for both wool and cotton. Once the world went to war, we could not get these, so we developed vegetable dyes as a substitute. I suspect this would have been an additional reason to go with blue denim -- I don't think there were any issues with that shade, assuming they used natural indigo plant dyes for the blue shade.

 

Some years ago I was able to borrow a copy of Quartermaster Support of the Army which explained much of the production problems during WW1. I wish I had the whole book now, nut I suspect it might be available in a large public library, especially if it is a US Government repository.

 

G

[jgawne]

I finally found some notes I had on the why's of fatigue clothing. This comes from official govt and QMC papers, however of course like a moron I did not note down where. However as I don't believe much unless I actually know for sure it comes from a good source I feel comfortable saying that someone in a position of authority at least thought this was true.

 

The use of canvas for fatigues came from the civil war when old tents were used to make work clothes. No one really liked it as canvas was very hot to wear and hard to clean. Finally (I guess they ran out of old tents or something) someone decided it was time to revisit this, and they made a change to denim not only because it was cooler, and easier to clean, but it was CHEAPER than canvas. In those pre-1916 days money ruled more decisions that we realize.

 

So cheaper, cool, easier to clean- but I did not find any reason why they made the changes when they did. I guess after 40 years someone finally got around to it. I suspect it may have been from the funding the army got in 1907 to revisit the uniform- which eventually led to the 1910 equipment board.

[aefcav]

 

 

 

Have any fellow collectors run across regulation flannel shirts in Grey material? Contract dated June 29, 1917 F.Jacobson. I found the contract, was for 375,000 "Flannel shirts" but I have never seen a shirt this early that was made grey.

Thanks,

Mitch Fenton

 

[gunbunnyB/3/75FA]

loving this thread, if it hasn't been pinned yet. i would like to suggest that it is.

[world war I nerd]

Hi Mitch,

 

Your gray flannel shirt is very interesting, and likely very rare. Any chance of posting a photo of the front and back of the entire shirt?

 

As to its gray fabric (which I have never seen before), immediately after America declared war there was a shortage in the Army of all things khaki and olive drab. This was partially due to the shortage of olive drab and khaki dyes, which had almost exclusively been imported from Germany prior to 1916 and because of the huge influx of new recruits into the U.S. Army, all of whom needed olive drab clothing. In short, the Army was struggling to clothe and equip its new soldiers. Until America's textile industry could catch up with the unexpected demand for olive drab military clothing of all types, a number of stopgap measures were introduced to help fill the gap. Your gray flannel shirt was likely a by product of this practice.

 

The gray flannel was probably substituted for olive drab flannel with a view of issuing the gray shirts only to recruits, thus freeing up the limited supply of olive drab shirts for the those troops who shipped out early for overseas duty. By the time that any recruit who had been issued a gray shirt was ready to ship out, he either would have already been issued an olive drab flannel shirt or it would have been replaced during one of the numerous clothing and equipment inspections that all officers and enlisted men were subjected to at the staging camps, like Camp Mills and Camp Merritt, located near one of the ports of embarkation.