Not 08 0r 37 but did you know....

[montbrehain]

I have a few pictures showing Kiwi troops in their own version of 08 webbing. Last week in the local rag there was a story of a local lady whos Grandad was in the NZEF. it had a couple of interesting photos , one clearly showing the NZ style belt. You can really see where the Pattern 37 idea came from? can anybody else supply more info ?

[John Thorne]

GREAT PICTURE! There were two special NZ webbing variants that I know of prior to WWI. The first is the 1910 engineers gear - I know almost nothing about that except that it existed. The second is the NZ Pattern 1913 gear - I'm reasonably sure that is what you have in your picture. The only piece of this gear that I have is a frog - mine is just like the one in the picture - marked "NZ", "M.E.CO. " and dated 1913. This type of frog was originally developed for the Ross bayonet (Canadian Pattern 1913) and is obviously the ancestor of the 37 pattern one. Your picture shows the "Walking Out" version - the front pieces would have been replaced with cartridge carriers in the full battle order setup.

As far as I have been able to tell, NZ P13 was similar to the Canadian Pattern 13 in that it was a back adjustment gear with reduction braces, but instead of the 3" belt used on the Canadian gear it had a 2" belt as shown. The belt itself is practically identical to the Pattern 1919 belt. The buckle is the US pattern Mills buckle that was also used on the Canadian pattern. NZ P13 had some similarities to the Belgian 1911 gear as well. These early versions of the back adjustment type of gear would lead directly to the post-war Pattern 1919, Pattern 1925, and Pattern 1928 sets, and ultimately to the 1932 Braithewaite Commitee Pattern 3, which was the direct forerunner of Pattern 1937 gear.

PLEASE post the rest of those photos - this is an area where there isn't much info available and your pics could be a major asset.