Wearing Rank (stripes) in Battle

[PDGRIFFITHS]

I am wondering if it was common for NCOs to not show, wear their stripes in a battle situation?

Did they deliberately remove them, or cover them up with an overcoat intentionally or unintentionally?

The reason why I ask, is I have found a picture with my great uncle in it. At the time he was a lance corporal, but there are no stripes shown on his upper arms.

At the time he was serving in the New Zealand Machine Gun Corps 2nd Company Canterbury Section at the Battle of Flers - Corcelette.

[Pat Atkins]

Lance corporal was an appointment, and as such was temporary; his rank will have been Private. A man would receive his single stripe for a specific purpose, and relinquish it when that purpose was achieved (or indeed voluntarily). This could be for a short or long period of time - presumably the photo was taken outside that period. Or for some reason he'd been unable to actually put his stripe up yet. There are other threads in more detail about this appointment v substantive rank business, but my phone isn't ideal for searching!

 

Cheers, Pat

[Coldstreamer]

do you have he exact date the photo was taken ? 

it was quite common for ranks and appointments to go up and down

[PDGRIFFITHS]

Hello,

Thank you both for trying to come up for a reason why my Great Uncle was 

not showing his Lance-Corporal stripes in the photo I found of him.

His service record shows he was made a Lance Corporal on 14/8/16 and made a temporary Corporal 16/10/16 and Corporal on 16/12/16. In June 1917 after training made a 2nd Lieutenant and ended the war as a Lieutenant just before being repatriated to NZ in October 1918.

The photo was taken on 15 September 1916, so the possible reasons you have given do not stand.

I believe the simple explanation is he is wearing an overcoat, which does not have his stripes on. It looks like others in the photo are also are wearing similar jackets.

The photo is considered quite a famous one and can be viewed on the Imperial War Museum website here.

https://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/205193935
It Has a reference Q194 with the IWM holding copyright and is usually attributed to 2/Auckland, but at the time my great uncle was in the New Zealand Machine Gun Corps, 2nd Company, Canterbury Section.

My great uncle is 5th from the right, about centre, holding a rifle.

His personal documents, including letters and photos can be found on the Alexander Turnbull website here.

 

https://natlib.govt.nz/records/23099545

 

Amongst the photos is this one of him, which shows the soldier is clearly him

 

 

In fact, research into his documents, especially the photo of the NZMGC 2nd Company, Canterbury Section, shows that the other soldiers in the photo are from his unit and not 2/Auckland.

 

Cheers Peter Griffiths

[PDGRIFFITHS]

Does anyone know what a cardigan jacket looks like?

I have found a reference that the attacking soldiers, did not have their greatcoat, but did have their cardigan jackets with them.

Could this be what they are wearing, which is obscuring their stripes?

 

 http://nzetc.victoria.ac.nz/tm/scholarly/tei-WH1-Fran-t1-body1-d3.html

 

The hour of attack had been fixed for 6.20 a.m. on the 15th. Before midnight the troops were all in position. Each man was in light fighting order. Two gas helmets were slung over his shoulders. Over 200 rounds of ammunition were contained in his pouches and bandoliers. In his pocket he carried 2 bombs, and behind on his belt were tied the precious sandbags for consolidation. His greatcoat was left with his pack in the regimental dump, but he retained his waterproof sheet with cardigan jacket rolled inside His waterbottle was filled, and in his haversack was a day's rations and "iron" ration. Fastened down the centre of every other man's back was a shovel or pick. Each platoon carried so many smoke bombs for rendering enemy dugouts untenable and so many flares for signalling to our contact aeroplanes that, marked by white streamers and at black band under the left plane, would hover over them at prearranged hours on the following day and after dawn on the 16th.

[smclaren]

Hi Peter

 

Ive often wondered the same.

 

I have always felt (and it's just a guess) that the men had seperate dress and fighting kit. The fighting kit didn't have any insignia on them to help the enemy identify unit formations, or be able to pick off the leaders (which I know for a fact was true in more modern wars).

 

Part of my reasoning is that my grandfathers first diary entry whilst on Gallipoli he refers to him losing his "tunic" and other stuff after being wounded.

 

"25/10/1915 Sunday    "Detail Camp, Alexandria. Starting new diary. Lost old one with tunic, badges & etc when I got wounded on August 9th. Landed at Anzac on Gallipoli on Sunday the 8th at about 12.30am. Left Gallipoli for Pont de Koubbeh Hospital owing to the slight wound I received on Aug 9th getting septic".

 

I only have more formal photo's of him in his tunic ... so you can see his stripes, company badges etc. 

 

Id be keen to know what you found out.

 

Steve

[FROGSMILE]

Cardigans were generally worn under service dress jackets and were specifically designed to be worn in that way as part of a carefully thought through layering system.  I have seen cardigans worn over the simple, plain ‘greyback’ shirt when off-duty, but never over the top of a SD jacket.  It would need to be at least 2-sizes too big.

I’ve not read or heard before of any evidence of rank stripes not being worn, nor being hidden with camouflage in mind, during WW1.  The stripes were predominantly made up from ‘drab’ (a brownish khaki) worsted herringbone tape (although there were occasional alternatives), which was already a subdued design anyway. 

Edited 14 April , 2020 by FROGSMILE

[TEW]

Can I suggest the IWM photo may also have an incorrect date? Wouldn't be the first IWM photo with incorrect caption and date.

 

If it is 15/9/16 IE the day of attack which commenced at 6.30am they look rather relaxed, cake being eaten, not many of them, photographer in dangerous location, where are their machine guns?

TEW

[PDGRIFFITHS]

I came across this passage in a book, Diary of a Dink, which published the experiences of Charles Croft Marsack 24/657. He was an officer in the 3rd Battalion New Zealand Rifle Brigade, which took part in the same battle. He noted the following, when preparing for the attack.

 

Diary of a Dink, pages 125, 126.

The officers were made to look as much like the men as possible and wore Tommy tunics. (The idea of this was that officers were supposed to be singled out for special attention by enemy snipers and by members of the defending garrison generally. This was quite contrary to what we had been told by one of our officers in camp, a South African war veteran. He informed us that in the heat of battle it was not considered sporting to shoot down officers.)

A controversial statement, but understandable under the circumstances.

 

Even though the comment refers to officers, you would expect consideration would be given to N.C.Os as well.

It looks like the N.C.Os wore coats, to cover their stripes, so they could not be distinguished amongst the men. Other photos concur with this. There is one, taken in the same battle, of a Corporal resting in a crater, with jacket off, showing stripes.

 

 

[FROGSMILE]

It seems to me that a good way to get proof of what soldiers wore in battle is to look at the many hundreds of photos of walking wounded on the move, and stretcher bearers and groups of wounded at regimental aid posts, dressing stations and casualty clearing stations.  This is because although frequently relieved of their ammunition, equipment and rifles, the photos have a degree of instancy in that they’re usually taken relatively close to the time of wounding and often comparatively forward in the battle zone.   These photos tend to span the battles of 1916, 1917 and 1918 especially, when a proper system of war photography was better developed and embedded.  There are also good photos of men in the advance during the last 100-days offensive of 1918.  In general most other photos seem to be taken in more formal circumstances in rear areas where portraits could be taken more safely and sent home, but the appearance of soldiers within the casualty evacuation chain have provenance and seem to me to give an idea of what was worn in battle reasonably incontrovertibly.  As stated previously I have never seen any evidence that the stripes of NCOs were commonly or routinely covered up in action.

 

 

 

 

 

 

[PDGRIFFITHS]

I am not suggesting that this was the view held by the British Army at the time. It is more likely the exception rather than the rule. In fact I would expect that the view held by the senior offices was that expressed by the S.A. Veteran. I would expect that the NZ officers, being the first Western Front Battle, would try anything that would give then or their men a chance to stay alive. If found out by senior officers they would of been ordered to not do it, and probably were found out after the battle and stopped.

The pictures you posted look like British troops, not NZ troops and not troops involved in the Flers Courcelette Battle. I concur it is unlikely to be the view of the British Army and therefore, those leading continued to show insignia.

[FROGSMILE]

You seem to have made your mind up, so I’m not sure that I can help any further.  The soldier in the IWM photograph is not wearing a great coat, he is wearing a standard Service Dress jacket, nor is he wearing a cardigan externally, although he may have one underneath.  He does not have a stripe on either arm.  You have convinced yourself that it is your great uncle in the photograph, but there doesn’t appear to be any corroborating evidence of that.  Perhaps you are mistaken.  The photos I’ve posted are just a few of those available showing troops from Britain and the Dominions and are representative of a common form of dress when in action on the Western Front.  There is no ANZAC exceptionalism that I can see when wearing steel helmets, apart from the distinctive Australian pattern jacket worn by their troops.  Returning to the questions of your opening post, there isn’t really anything that I can add to what’s already been said.  Good luck though with your further research.

 

NB.  For your benefit all of the photos below are specifically of ANZAC troops and taken in the forward areas.  Rank stripes are apparent throughout.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[TEW]

I see from your post of last year regarding the IWM Q194 image that you pretty much nailed it that the unit given in the caption is wrong. Could it not be that the date is also wrong?

 

Over the years there have been quite a few IWM Object Descriptions queried on forum. If the photo was a month earlier he wouldn't have the stripe.

TEW

[SteveE]

I don't see anything in the photo concerned to suggest that any of the men are wearing anything other than standard service dress jackets so nothing is being worn over the top to obscure rank insignia.  In your earlier thread you've identified four of the men as being NCOs, the man you've identified as Sergeant Ernest Carr appears, to me at least, to have three stripes up so if it was a practice to remove rank insignia then it wasn't done as a matter of course.  Based on what I can see in the photo concerned I would presume that it comes down to whether or not you've correctly identified the individuals and unit concerned.

 

Steve  

[Ron Clifton]

The two German soldiers supporting a captured British soldier, in one of Frogsmile's photos posted yesterday morning, show clearly that they are both NCOs as well. If covering up rank insignia was common in the British Army (and I don't think it was) one might have expected the Germans to do something similar. British rank stripes were much more subdued in contrast, and I doubt that their presence was of much use to snipers, unlike the case with officers where the snipers were apparently told to identify them by their thinner looking legs, or occasionally by their rank badges on their cuffs. It was certainly for the latter reason that officers were encouraged to wear jackets which were less distinctive.

 

Ron

[GreyC]

Hi,

I haven´t heard of covering rank insignia below officer´s level in the German army nor have I seen any. What they did is cover up shoulder flaps and head bands, so as not to show units or branch.

GreyC

 

 

 

[PDGRIFFITHS]

Thank you for all who have shown interest in the original post and have replied. A most interesting discussion.

 

14 hours ago, TEW said:

I see from your post of last year regarding the IWM Q194 image that you pretty much nailed it that the unit given in the caption is wrong. Could it not be that the date is also wrong?

 

Over the years there have been quite a few IWM Object Descriptions queried on forum. If the photo was a month earlier he wouldn't have the stripe.

TEW

I would say the date of the Q194 photo is correct, as it is part of a series of photos taken on the first day, 15 Sept 1917 of the Flers Courcelette Battle. Together, they relate pretty closely to the written account.

 

In answer to FROGSMILE last post

On the contrary, I have not made up my mind that it is my Great Uncle in the photo. I cannot do that until I have an explanation of the counter evidence. I have used posts on this forum to ask the participants their view of the evidence. Which along with others you have provided.

I have a lot of evidence that it his him, but it is all consequential, but fits together nicely.

Most of it can be seen in the document I produced about it located in the post

Identification of New Zealand Soldiers in a Trench at the Battle of Flers-Courcelette
 

This recent piece of evidence I found by accident while reading a book, Diary of a Dink, by Lieutenant Charles Croft Marsack, about his WW1 service experiences as written in his diary. He returned to NZ on the same boat as my Grandfather and I wanted to see if he was mentioned. He was not, but did provide an account of the voyage. It was only reading further that I found he served in the NZRB from its inception and participated in the Battle of Flers Courcelette, hence the passage I presented. I would expect what he wrote, was true, but written in such away to imply that it was a view not widely held, even though they were taking counter measures against it. I believe the evidence you have presented of the photos prove it was not a widely held view.

The comment about the soldiers only wearing standard khaki tunic, is also helpful. I have already discounted that they were wearing their cardigan jackets.

I do not have military training or knowledge of WW1 operations, so rely on others in the forum, who have this experience to pass judgement on my conclusions. Up to now, what I have posted has had good feedback, of which I am truly grateful.

Peter Griffiths

Kerikeri NZ

[Nutting]

 

Quote

No relevance to the main content of the thread, but I have just noticed that almost every rifle in @Frogsmile's first photo above is fitted with a wire cutter of the 'shoot-through-the-wire-strand' variety.

 

 

Edited 8 June , 2021 by Nutting

[FROGSMILE]

53 minutes ago, Nutting said:

 

 

They are men of the Worcestershire Regiment, 29th Inf Div at the Somme in high summer 1916.