Thailand
The beret is used in the various armed forces of Thailand. The colors used are:
- Maroon - Paratroops, Special Forces
- Khaki green - Army Reserve Force students
- Black - all other Army units}, Airforce, Paramilitary force (Tahan Phran), Paratroop Police, Border Patrol Police
- Camouflage - Royal Thai Marine Corps
- Light blue - UN Missions
The black beret is also worn by ordinary police in certain situations.
United Kingdom
The British Army were the first to adopt modern-style berets as part of their uniform. In 1918, the French 70th Chasseurs Alpins were training with the British Tank Corps. The Chasseurs Alpins wore a distinctive large beret and Major-General Sir Hugh Elles, the TC's Colonel, realised that the beret would be practical headwear for his tank crews, forced to move in a reduced space. He thought, however, that the Chasseur beret was "too sloppy" and the Basque style beret of the French tank crews was "too skimpy", so a compromise based on the Scottish tam o'shanter was designed and submitted for the approval of George V in November 1923. It was adopted in March 1924.
Today, every British military unit wears a beret, with the exception of Scottish and Irish infantry regiments, who wear the tam o'shanter and the caubeen respectively. Many of these berets are in distinctive colors and all are worn with the cap badge of the service, regiment or corps.
The colors are as follows:
- Khaki - Foot Guards, Household Cavalry, Honourable Artillery Company, Princess of Wales's Royal Regiment, Royal Anglian Regiment, Green Howards
- Light grey - Royal Scots Dragoon Guards, Queen Alexandra's Royal Army Nursing Corps
- Brown - King's Royal Hussars
- Black - Royal Tank Regiment
- Dark (Rifle) green - Light Infantry, Royal Green Jackets, Royal Gurkha Rifles
- Maroon - Parachute Regiment, other troops serving in airborne role
- Beige - Special Air Service
- Sky blue - Army Air Corps
- Grass green - Intelligence Corps
- Scarlet - Royal Military Police
- Green - Adjutant General's Corps
- Navy blue - all other Army units, Royal Navy, Royal Marines Band Service
- Commando green - Royal Marines (except Band Service), other commando-qualified troops
- RAF blue - Royal Air Force (including RAF Regiment)
The Royal Tank Regiment, Army Air Corps, Parachute Regiment and SAS never wear any other form of uniform headgear except the beret (i.e. they do not wear peaked caps). Troops from other services, regiments or corps on attachment to units with distinctive colored berets often wear those berets (with their own cap badge). Colonels, brigadiers and generals usually continue to wear the beret of the regiment or corps to which they used to belong with the cap badge distinctive to their rank. The Royal Regiment of Fusiliers and Royal Welch Fusiliers wear a colored feather hackle on the beret.
United States
The United States Army Special Forces are generally known as "green berets" for the color of their headgear. Other US Army units can also be distinguished by the color of their headgear, as follows:
- Green - Special Forces
- Brown - Rangers
- Maroon - paratroopers
- Black - all other US Army units
Berets were originally worn only by elite units of the US Army. Hence, there was controversy when in 2001 the United States Army adopted the black beret, previously reserved for the Rangers, as standard headgear for all army units. The Rangers are now distinguished by brown berets.
In the United States Air Force, the uniform of security police personnel includes a dark blue beret.
Learn about additional fashion or textile industry topics:
Hat & Headwear Industry
Definitions
| The above article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/beret 1/31/05 |