Knickers to the enemy!
QUESTION In the war, why did the Wrens get a clothing allowance for underwear? During World War ii, WAAFs (Women’s Auxiliary Air Force) and ATS (Auxiliary Territorial Service) personnel were given a complete uniform wardrobe, which included underwear.
The Wrens (Women’s royal naval Service), however, got outer garments only and an allowance of £8 to be spent in the naval (Pusser’s) Stores on underwear.
These stores provided very unglamorous underwear and woollen black stockings. Some civilian retailers accepted the dockets for anything from their store.
i used them to buy my wedding outfit, a brown two-piece suit, blouse and white raincoat, from a shop in Morecambe, Lancs, near where i was stationed at inskip. i made my own underwear from parachute silk. i also used the dockets to buy silk stockings rather than wear the woollen ones from the Pusser’s Stores. Wendy Hogarth (Wren 1942-45),
Bromsgrove, Worcs. unDer the World War ii utility scheme and austerity regulations, underwear was regulated and exact proportions of leg width, gusset and design were carefully specified, whether for French knickers or close-fitting briefs, bras or corsets.
By 1942, women’s underwear producers were permitted to work on only six templates for knickers. economies of scale meant little choice other than peach, cream, white or green for briefs and uniform shades such as khaki, blue or grey for over-knickers made of wool or flannel.
The latter were hated by young servicewomen, many of whom admitted wearing such ‘passion-killers’ only for kit inspections or their annual medical check.
Other nicknames for these horrors were ‘blackouts’, ‘boy bafflers’, eTBs (elastic top and bottoms) and ‘wrist catchers’.
WrnS got one uniform (hat, greatcoat, raincoat, two suits, shoes, stockings, shirts, collars and tie). They bought replacements from an £8 allowance.
Wrens began to make clothes out of all sorts. Old blankets became winter coats and parachute material became dresses, nightwear and knickers. At the imperial War Museum’s Fashion On The ration exhibition in 2015, a highlight was a knicker and bra set made for Countess Mountbatten out of an rAF silk map during World War ii.
Lesley Wilson, Watford, Herts. QUESTION What were the advantages of the ‘turret’ ships pioneered by Captain Cowper Phipps Coles? The turret ironclad warship was a late19th century innovation with enormous advantages over broadside guns.
The commander of a turret ship could simply turn the guns, not the ship. gun turret ports were much smaller than those through which broadside guns had to be fired, giving turret ship gun crews greater protection from enemy shot.
And gun crews could be much smaller in number, having to serve only a few heavy guns and having no longer to aim, only to load and fire the guns. Before the advent of steam-powered ironclads, no way had been devised to combine the turret with the sailing rigs of the time.
Captain Cowper Phipps Coles (1819-70) entered the navy aged 11 and distinguished himself at the siege of Sevastopol during the Crimean War against russia. he was made captain on February 27, 1856. On August 2 that year, he was commander of the paddle boat Stromboli in the Black Sea when he helped construct from 29 casks lashed together with spars a 45ft raft, named the Lady nancy.
The raft supported a 32lb gun and, because of its small draft, was used to attack russian stores in Taganrog. For this action, Coles became a hero.
After the war, Coles was placed on half pay but, inspired by his raft, he began designing turret ships. he filed a patent for a revolving turret on March 10, 1859. his invention was superseded by the American uSS Monitor, the world’s first mastless ironclad with a turret, designed by Swedish-American John ericsson.
But Coles’s design was technologically superior to ericsson’s. his turret rested on rollers below the waterline while ericsson’s spindle, protected with armour plating, was prone to jam.
eventually two royal navy ships, hMS Captain and Monarch, were built to his design but he perished when hMS Captain capsized in poor weather on the night of September 6, 1870.
Charles Fraser, Inverness. QUESTION How accurate has Ridley Scott’s 1982 sci-fi film Blade Runner proved in its predictions of the world in 2019? FurTher to the previous answer, other aspects of the future depicted parallel today’s reality. improved design and construction techniques have driven dramatic increases in the skyscraper height, with the 828m Burj Khalifa in Dubai approaching designs seen in the film.
retro-fitting buildings with new services, lifts and even facades to make them fit for the present is also commonplace. And the ‘all-seeing eye’ — the police’s esper computer system, able to analyse photographs, search rooms and read car number plates — clearly prefigured today’s sophisticated surveillance systems.
Chris Rogers, Edgware, Middx.
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