Five Hats and Forgotten History

fans of the history guy know that I am a collector for example these are just a few of my toy canons and probably the most obvious part is my hat collection I do collect military hats and to be honest I only call myself a casual collector I know a lot of people who collect much more and our more expert that I am but they do enjoy collecting and I say it's part of my general love for history each item has a story but one of the most enjoyable parts of collecting is trying to collect full SATs whether that's baseball cards or decorative plates or state quarters or in this case a full set of the five colors of US Navy officer caps from the Second World War that's right the Navy had five different colors for essentially the same hat and all of those colors do represent some things about the odd time of the Second World War but it also just represents changing styles and the evolution of the United States Navy uniform but before we get to why there were five different colors of hats let's talk a little bit about military hats because a navy veteran will get mad that I call something like this a hat according to most people who served in the Navy this is called a cover in fact one website on military hat etiquette a pint that military hats are never called hats they are only referred to as covers but it's not clear how or why the military started using cover as a generic term for a hat the word cover itself is dry from the old French word career used as early as in the 12th century and meaning to protect or conceal the term is evolved over time to have a broad and diverse meaning cover can mean simply putting one thing over another but it can also mean to spread something completely over a surface putting collateral of equal value to something risk in a wager is called covering a bat the use of the term to refer to news reporting on a subject originated from newspaper reporting on football in the early 1900s but something close to the original meaning was applied to the game itself once the fordpass was invented and defenders had to cover a receiver the meaning to pass or travel over that is to cover ground was in use early in the 19th century whereas using the word to mean taking the place of an absent work may too became popularized in the 1970s for military use cover can mean anything that physically protects you from enemy fire seek cover but can also mean aiming at someone to cover an area in case the enemy moves through it or to provide covering fire to deter them from shooting back that term is also applied to protecting the vulnerable escape route covering the rear but the etymology of the use of the term in the military to refer to as a hat is not clear when veteran applying on a military website that it likely came when some sergeant was telling a soldier to cover their head when our Tillery was raining down and that's about as likely an explanation as any in fact the use of the term cover instead of hat or cap is largely a u.s. thing and not commonly used elsewhere there's disagreement over where and why this like started but despite the apparently nearly universal use of the term in the US military today review things like army magazine suggest that it is relatively new developing sometime after the Second World War the use of the word covers actually slang it's not officially used in military regulations although it's common enough that many official military websites will use the term cover but according to u.s. Navy regulations this is actually called a military-style cap which fun that leads to the question of why the Navy needs so many colors for essentially the same hat early US naval uniforms stressed the cocked hat by corner tricorn for officers in fact versions of the cocked hat were still part of the Navy uniform until 1947 the still use pattern of blue and gold for naval uniforms as a blue uniform with decorations was first established in 1802 the first time the uniform standards included something similar to these combination covers was in 1830 that was used with what was called the undress uniform and was called a blue cap or a round hat as the name implies that hats were made of blue cloth to match the officers coat the round topped hat with a short brim or peak included gold lace bands for senior officers which was the predecessor to the gold chinstrap still used on u.s. naval officer hats today as the fashion change in the uniform iqbal the hat grew rounder at the Bell by 1898 the more rounded hat gold chinstrap Navy emblem with eagle and anchors the history of the badge might be covered more fully in a future episode was fully recognizable as a precursor to the combination cover you see today activities in the Far East and acquisition of pacific interests resulted in the need for a tropical uniform and regulations for a service dress white uniform released in 1886 thus the Navy had at the outset of the 20th century just two of these five colors among their official uniform hats the blue hat worn with the blue uniform in a white version one with the white tropical uniform but a new technology added more color in 1910 pilot Eugene Elie took off from a modified deck of the Scout cruiser USS Birmingham in his Curtiss model for pusher aircraft in 1911 he landed on the modified deck of the armored Cruiser USS Pennsylvania the first landing of a fixed-wing aircraft on a warship in history as a result of these demonstrations the Navy started buying a handful of aircraft and naval aviation was born among the changes brought by this change in military technology the Navy white and blue service uniforms were demonstrated to be impractical for aviation officers khaki a more practical color that had been invented by the British in India and 1840s when soldiers died white uniform items with mud to blend in with the scenery was used then by US Marines and was more practical for the rigors and mess of aviation machines in 1912 the Navy approved the first use of a khaki uniform for naval officers but it was only khaki pants and it was only authorized for naval aviators during the Great War naval aviation grew quickly at the outset of the war the US had a total of 48 naval aviators as the war progressed to enable a VA ssin took on a broader role largely hunting u-boats the service expanded to more than 6,700 aviators in overall more than 30,000 personnel as a service was expanding in June of 1917 a full khaki summer dress uniform was approved for naval aviators it included a cap the first khaki cap in the Navy uniform regulations but it also became clear that the cloth for the khaki uniform was not suitable for winter and a winter uniform made from the forest green color used in the marine dress uniforms was also approved the uniform also included a matching colored hat while was officially forest green it was commonly called aviation green now naval aviators had their own distinct uniforms and the Navy had four colors of the same hat the color was authorized until 1922 when it was removed from the regulations but then due to the outcry from naval aviators that forest green hat was reauthorized in 1925 the cap turned out to be very practical in 1931 the use of the khaki uniform was extended to those serving aboard submarines shortly after Pearl Harbor the uniform was approved for officers in regular duty while the khaki uniform was used generally during the war it was actually for most of the Navy newly authorized at the outset of the war and that brings us to the fifth and most obscure color for the navy dress uniform a color that has been forever associated with one particular naval officer Ernest King was born in Ohio in 1878 and graduated from the u.s. Naval Academy in 1901 while still a cadet he served aboard the protected Cruiser USS San Francisco during the spanish-american war he served in the surface fleet and then the submarine force were designed the dolphin symbol used on the submarine warfare insignia he then moved to Naval Aviation where as a captain he trained and received his wings in May of 1927 he moved up the ranks and in 1941 was made an admiral and was commander-in-chief of the Atlantic Fleet after Pearl Harbor he was promoted for the position commander-in-chief of the u.s. fleet with operational command over the Atlantic Pacific and Asiatic fleet he continued to hold that command with in February 1942 he was also appointed chief of naval operations earnest King impacted many things in his tenure and there are various complaints and criticisms of his work but one of his most obscure impacts was a new uniform if you grew up on World War 2 movies like I did you might think the Navy always fought in khaki but remember the khaki uniform was only authorized outside of the aviation and submarine service in 1941 it was at the time brand-new and Ernest King didn't much like it it's not completely clear why he so disliked the khaki uniform but most accounts merely say that he thought the color looked like a land forces color and not a navy color although some accounts say it was his wife who disliked the color as unfashionable King saw the khaki is a stop-gap only and said about to find a new uniform reportedly inspired by the blue-gray uniform of Britain's RAF he decided on a gray uniform in April 1943 he proposed adopting the grey uniform to the Secretary of the Navy arguing that such a uniform would be more suitable for our present shipboard camouflage that is ships were gray not khaki so King saw a gray uniform has better camouflage on the ship the great which was never consistent with examples in multiple hues was actually officially called battleship gray although others also sometimes described as slate gray and somewhat derisively by officers who didn't like it ernest king gray king's vision was replaced the khaki an aviation green with grey saving white and blue uniforms for formal dress one of the interesting things about the battleship gray uniform is that it was supposed to have plastic buttons instead of the gilt brass buttons black plastic and also was supposed to have stitched emblems on it stitched in black rather than the gold braid that was commonly used ostensibly that was to save on the use of metals so that we could preserve wartime metals and that applied to the hat as well the Hat was supposed to have instead of the brass buttons on the side than the gold chinstrap was supposed to have black plastic buttons and a black chinstrap so why does this hat have gilt buttons in a gold strap officially the standard buttons and step were allowed as a transition period unofficially Admiral Chester Nimitz who was a commander-in-chief in the Pacific told the story that was later related in a biography of him at a wartime meeting in San Francisco Nimitz and King had just left a restaurant it was raining so they had coats on with no rank insignia Nimitz wore the khaki cap with gold buttons and strap while King was wearing his grey hat with black buttons and strap a reporter singled the gold on Nimitz his hat pushed right past King mistaking him for a petty officer the reporter said to the five-star Admiral of the fleet out of my way chief I want to get a picture of Admiral Nimitz King then changed the regulations to wearing gilt buttons and the gold chinstrap on the great uniform in 1944 King ordered the gilt button be replaced with the black strap and buttons but the order was widely ignored so what happened to the great uniform while King did not like the khaki Nimitz did not like the gray again it's not clear why but he argued that the khaki was more practical in the Pacific where he commanded Nimitz discouraged the use of the grey uniform in the Pacific in December 1945 King retired and Nimitz replaced him as chief of naval operations and the battleship gray uniform lost its most important supporter the great uniform was officially fully retired in 1940 not since it was only official for six years was barely worn by line officers in the Pacific and only a little bit by line officers in the Atlantic and mostly only worn by those officers who were serving near Admiral King in Washington DC the gray hats and uniforms are relatively rare and highly prized by collectors so what happened all these five colors well the original idea was to wear the blue hat with the winter blue dress and the white hat with the summer white by the Second World War the white hat was authorized to wear with the blue uniform but the blue hat was never authorized to be worn with the summer whites to simplify the uniform and save on costs for officers the blue cap was dropped in 1956 as unnecessary aviation green survived until 2010 when it was dropped as the Navy wanted to again simplify the uniform now the Navy only retains two colors of combination covers the white to wear with the various versions of more formal dress uniforms and the khaki to wear with the service uniform officers can also use the simpler overseas cap with the service uniform and the khaki military-style cap is seen less and less today there's so much more to talk about with u.s. naval combination covers and peaked hats there's of course all the ones that have been authorized for the petty officers and warrant officers and the hats for the other maritime surfaces like the Coast Guard and the United States Merchant Marine or the development of the various cat badges over time but talking about why we had five colors for the US Navy hat is enough for this one episode I didn't know something about all of these hats I have some history on them the forest green hat for example still has the original sticker inside this originally sold for $15 in this navy blue hat here was worn by an officer who served at the naval supply depot in Clearfield Utah which history guy fans will recognize as the subject of the very first episode of the history guy one of the reasons that I like collecting things is that every single one of these is a bit of history and even the color of uniforms that have long since become obsolete can be history that deserves to be remembered I hope you enjoyed this episode of the history guy short snippets of forgotten history between ten and fifteen minutes long and if you did enjoy please go ahead and click that thumbs up button if you have any questions our common suggestions for future episodes please write those in the comment section I will be happy to personally respond be sure to follow the history guy on Facebook Instagram Twitter and check out our merchandise on T spring comm and if you'd like more episodes on forgotten history all you need to do is subscribe [Music]

Channel: The History Guy: History Deserves to Be Remembered

Views: 179,152

Keywords: history, the history guy, history guy, us history, us navy, hats, covers, uniforms

Id: 4gGsjnlcnJQ

Length: 13min 44sec (824 seconds)

Published: Wed Jul 15 2020