Look what I found in one of my old WW2 RAAF books, a buddy-buddy shot of a Yank pilot and a wedgetailed eagle, nice enough detail for all you A2 boyos?
Looks like the bird has stretched his cuffs right out of shape!
Seriously, they look overlong, perhaps theatre replacements. Could the A2 be Australian made? I have seen similar ones made in Australia with rather wide pockets.
The man's cover(hat) doesn't appear to have as much material as regulation headgear would have specified in order to produce the "crushlook" when the inner wire was removed.
Dunno about an Australian issue, our chaps seemed to go with the old blue battledress, although maybe in the Nth African campaign they used khaki. I'll look for another colour pic.
This fellow is indeed a US Serviceman. His name was/is C.E.Warfield of the USAAC taken in 1942 by Ronald K Monroe. This image (which is slightly different from the one in the book- obviously a series of shots) is in the collection of the AWM and the official caption says he was admiring a Wedge Tailed Eagle.
Monroe was an Army Photographer/ Cinematographer so it probably was set up, but the subject is real. That doesn't explain the jacket however which is indeed a bit wierd. I've sharpened the shot and it certainly does look as though what should be a waist knit appears to be leather I also recall seeing an Aussie made A-2 (V505 which I think was the Stagg glove company) which had cuffs which looked like socks. The pockets do also appear to be a bit wide.
Greg, unfortunaltey whilst the RAAF used US Aircraft and some of the flight kit, we didn't get the leather!!
Interesting foot note also that Lt Monroe died at the age of 39 on the 4th July 1945 when he was a member of the Land Headquarters Military History Section. Possibly an accident as he appears to have done quite a bit of aerial photography as well.
I meant to add that it's interesting to see what the retouchers did to the colours! You'd think that he was wearing a russett jacket but it's actually more of a seal colour.
The real shots appear to have been taken on a partly overcast day so they fixed that as well!
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