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USAAF CADET'S SERVICE & GARRISON CAPS


BEAST
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This is from a grouping I have. The individual washed out and served with the 9th Air Force.

 

Note the blue band and insignia indicating Aviation Cadet.

 

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Beautiful Cadet visor cap! I've been on the search for one of these for quite awhile. I have a great uniform and overseas cap, but no visor cap. Would like to see the uniform that goes with this.

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I am glad someone started this tread, I was about to do it myself. Is this an Air Cadet hat? It is officer quality and colour but dose not have the braid around the body. Is this the hat worn with the official Air Cadet uniform basically the officer's uniform but with out the cuff braid and belt? Should this hat have the blue braid or would it be worn like it is? While we are on Air Cadets can someone explain the uniforms to me. I know the old blue uniforms were pretty much gone by the build up just before WWII but you see pictures on men wearing what is basically an EM uniform with the blue braid on the hat and the Air Cadet insignia and then there is the officer style uniform. I had assumed that at some point in their training they would switch to the officer style but while looking through a friend's collection of class books I noticed formations with a mixture of uniforms and not just at the head of the formation for cadet officers but scattered through out. Also the Air Cadet patch was worn on the cuff and on the shoulder in the same class. Has any one found a good reference source on Air Cadets?

 

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My experience is that Air Cadet uniforms were extremely "catch as catch can". They used whatever they could get their hands on. Pre-war, the Army Air Corps had their own special style of officers blouse which was beltless. Many of these uniforms ended up being used for Air Cadets.

 

I guess it was like everything else, especially early-war. They made do with whatever happened to be available at the moment.

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You will also see Cadets wearing service caps with blue bands, white bands and no bands at all. I think it was supposed to have been standardized, but really never was till maybe late in the war.

I too would like to see a well researched book on wartime aviation cadets and flying cadets uniforms and insignia.

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craig_pickrall

LIFE Magazine

May 11, 1942

 

Notice that the caption says regulation blue shirt and cap. Has anyone ever seen these items?

 

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Here is the blue Air Cadet overseas hat. It is shallower that a regular overseas hat and is made of a fairly light weight wool material and is fully lined. the winged prop is not a collar insignia but is larger at one inch across. The blue colour is more gray than the later (post-1947) AF blue. These blue uniforms were mostly used in the 1930s and were dropped, I think for logistic reasons, when the pre-war build up started in 1940 but the old stocks were used up so you do see them later.

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