To start with a little tongue-in-cheek fun !

This is a current [February 2011] RN web page. ****

 

No 4 IAWD and No 5 Work Dress

Blue - No 4 and No 5 Dress

**** Date Line 20th January 2012. For some inexplicable reason, the NAVAL UNIFORMS which I would say are of some interest to a person wanting to join the Royal Navy, have been taken off the RN Official Web Site Home Page and given to the National Archives at Kew! Odd, to say the least. If you go to the URL Link supplied by the Navy to the NA, you will again draw a blank simply because the NA page is a 'snap shot' of the RN Page AFTER the RN had removed the images of uniforms. Fortunately, the NA, the undisputed masters of Databases, have, if one bothers to search for it, a 'snap shot' from 2010, and that is how I retrieved these pictures which had been lost to my viewers. I will leave the matrix below in-situ as originally written, and the uniforms in question can now be seen on this page.

http://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/tna/20101208220218/http://www.royalnavy.mod.uk/training-and-people/rn-life/uniforms-and-badges-of-rank/blue-uniforms-of-the-royal-navy/no-4-iawd-and-no-5/index.htm

Rather a long URL I am afraid to a group of photographs which could be considered as pathetic, given the manifest expertise of the Naval Phot Branch. To guarantee a return on your efforts you should copy and paste this URL into your browser

IAWD / Work

4(I) IAWD	5 Work
Officers
Warrant Officers and Senior Ratings
Junior Ratings
Description and when worn
Improved Action Working Dress (IAWD) (Fire Retardant).	Illustrative working rigs worn at sea and ashore.
AWD will be worn as directed and with jersey HW as required.
Notes
Collars may be worn up or down as required.

No, the web page in itself is not the 'fun' part, but the mentioning of No 4's IAWD [Improved Action Working Dress] and notwithstanding that the rig is fire retardant whereas our AWD wasn't, leaves one in some doubt about why they have reduced the number from 8's to 4's. Is it, I wonder, that they only do half the WORK  we did and only see half the ACTION we saw which of course included world wide travel ? Or, is the cuts, the halving of their resources which has led to this down sizing ?  The rig No 5 has been reintroduced for ordinary work. In 1947, a trial started which introduced No 8's AWD to replace No 5's, No 3's and overalls. For BTE's [boys training establishments] No 8's would replace the white duck suit which was a spill-over from the Victorian/early Edwardian navy when all seamen [blue jackets] and stokers wore duck suits for working duties.  However, it had more or less been decided that when boy's returned to Shotley, to St Vincent, to Impregnable in 1946 that duck suits would no longer be used or issued, using instead the No 3 rig, and issuing an extra blue serge suit in lieu of the duck suite. The word of change had be mooted and very early on in 1948 boy's were issued with No 8's, but from 1946 to that time, duck suits were used and issued. DofV Letter 622/47/DGNT-AUCC Letters 1947 cover this point. The trial of the No 8 AWD rig was successful [although never universally agreed by senior officers as to the specifics] and an AFO {1475/50} was issued in May 1950 making No 8's the official rig for all occasions of ACTION and WORK except for cold climates and when doing particularly DIRTY WORK: in the latter case, overalls were the official rig. The AFO gave details of initial issues including VOCAB numbers, KUA, washing instructions, badges to be worn and the threats implicit if one dared to puts one's name or initials over the shirt pocket. Adding one's name stamped on a white tape over a breast shirt pocket, came much later on.

During the 1930's and right up to 1943, naval officers wore their traditional uniforms on all occasions; ceremonial, duty, work and action stations. This rig was called No 5's. Ratings wore serge {No 3's} or overalls for duty, work and action stations, with only anti-flash gear and steel helmets compulsory items. In 1943, after much frustration experienced by officers, the Admiralty caved into a lobbying which brought about AFO 4669/43 introducing the rig No 5A's.  No 5A's was essentially a type of serge top [a blouse] with normal service trousers, and this, officers used for work and action stations when onboard their ships.  They could not leave their ship wearing this rig. At this point, no rigs other than serge {No 3's}/overalls were worn by ratings. However, some officers refused to wear No 5A's and stuck with their jackets often worn over the top of white sweaters, which I know as a submarine jersey/sweater. 

The story starts in March 1949 a considerable time after the the first trials issue and after the collation of the various reports submitted by the Commanders-in-Chief and Flag Officers. The first PDF file you will see covers a loose minute from the Chairman of the Admiralty Uniform Clothing Committee [AUCC] to the Director of Victualling.

COLLATION OF TRIALS REPORTS.pdf

The Director of Victualling [DofV] appears pleased, writes a loose minute and passes it on to other Directors of other Admiralty Departments for their comments.

DIRECTOR OF VICTUALLING'S RESPONSE.pdf

They too agree and finally the 'big boy' signs it off APPROVAL LETTER.pdf, but, as we will see in the next PDF, something that started back in 1947 only gets the blessing {from the 4th Sea Lord} on the 2nd May 1950 to approve the necessary AFO. This remember, is just a shirt and trousers and not something like the design of a new attack submarine. We have seen this many many times and two such events which I have reported upon recently are the introduction of the Fleet Chief which took over 16 years before they got around to calling him a warrant officer and the white plastic top cap which took many years also to introduce.  What follows is the staff work, in loose minute form, from the Collation period above to the final approval of issuing the AFO.

APPROVED TO FINAL APPROVE !.pdf

The numbers game for the gratuitous issue of No 8's to the fleet.

NUMBERS GAME.pdf

Now a sample of the reports on No 8 Dress from the Commanders-in-Chief, Flag Officers and Captains. Some of them are rather petty but I suppose that is what happens when opinions are sought from far and wide and there is nothing of substance to comment on.

REPORTS PLUS DIRECTIVES.pdf

The Naval Ratings Handbook [BR 1938] dated 1951, had unfortunately being re-written and had gone to press at the time of the 1950 AFO saga.  As such a whole host of us were told that page 41 of the BR was to be ignored and yet they never issued a replacement glue-in page. Below I have copied that page.  You will readily see that No5's before No 8'S were introduced, can hardly have been the No5's which No8's replaced and that is why I have stressed above that the No 5's/No 5A's referred to was an officer rig. Note that No 8's in this BR points to overalls - for particularly dirty work.  The No 3's which No 8's did replace in certain circumstances is listed correctly as a blue serge suit.

DRESS RIG NUMBERS - 1951 NAVAL RATINGS HANDBOOK.pdf

Good bye.