大象传媒 Collaborative Article: Kitbag Special
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- Contributed by听
- Helen
- Article ID:听
- A2078390
- Contributed on:听
- 25 November 2003
The 大象传媒 asked WW2 Members to add a short anecdote on the subject of WW2 kitbags.
We asked the following questions:
- Did the kitbag serve a special function - for example, did it ever save a life?
- Were there any special objects in the kitbag?
- If so, were they issued by the military? If the special objects weren't conventional issue, then who gave them to the owner?
- Did the kitbag or any of its contents survive the war until today?
Read members' responses in the forum below.
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These messages were added to this story by site members between June 2003 and January 2006. It is no longer possible to leave messages here. Find out more about the site contributors.
Message 1 - kitbags
Posted on: 26 November 2003 by haryyo
One of my uncles lived with us during WW11, and due to his job he was in a reserved occupation, so he was enlisted in the local Home guard, but it was really a sinecure enlistment and he was only required to attend a monthly parade and an annual weekend exercise.
The presence of his uniform, hanging in the hall cupboard, was part of the fixtures, and ignored by all.
My mother, being forced to cater for a family of 5 children with the barely adequate rations, had long learned to use her wiles by conserving and hiding what little extras she could scrounge.
In her wisdom she secreted five large bars of almost unobtainable chocolate in my uncle`s kitbag, hoping to suprise her brood on the following Christmas.
As luck would have it, my uncle`s home guard company were called to attend an unexpected exercise and route march; one can imagine the scene when my uncle returned with the thanks of his fellow "soldiers" for my mother`s generousity on the treat she had provide to ease them through their 5 mile ordeal.
听
Message 2 - kitbags
Posted on: 01 December 2003 by Helen
Dear harryo
Thanks for your contribution. I loved the story.
Best wishes,
Helen WW2 Team
Message 1 - Kit bags.
FSMO, Field Service Marching Order, hated by every soldier who ever served. Big Pack, Small Pack, Cross straps, Two pouches, Belt and Bayonet frog, water bottle and carrier. Like mules we carried every stitch of gear we had in those packs complete with Kit bag.
Infantry training meant everything had its place, woe and behold if you moved things about or put things in there that should not be there.
Movements meant the kit had to be packed as per the Standing instructions, the large pack went high on your back the small pack hung off the belt at your side, or sometimes beneath your large pack, the pouches went on your chest and the bayonet frog complete with scabbard and bayonet on your belt behind you.The water bottle and carrier on the oposite side. The kit bag was then hoisted on your shoulder and with the rifle at the trail you staggered off to your destination.
I was moving on leave from Bordon in Hampshire and had to report when my ten days were up at Catterick so everything went with me including the rifle issued at Brancepeth in Durham that no storeman would take off me as it would upset their stock.
What to do with said rifle, easy, unpack kit bag and repack with my rifle down the middle, spare boots at the base greatcoat wrapped round it and all the rest of the kit stuffed in some where.
Ten hours later I was home, Mum being Mum promptly unpacked everything to wash it while I was catching up with sleep. I awoke to one hell of a bang under the window and dived out of bed by a reflex action wondering what the hell had happened. Mum was shouting at Dad and when I looked out Dad was holding the rifle looking white as a sheet. Mum letting him have it as she had dropped the sheets on the floor in fright. No I had not left it with a round up the spout. Dad had been fascinated with the rifle having never handled an army model before and having got some blanks from somehwere had loaded one in and pulled the trigger, he was under the impression blanks were only like puff balls and the noise in the enclosed yard had shaken him.
I showed him how it was done let him fire a couple more, (we lived on the outskirts of a village where people shot game) then made him clean it which he did every day until I went back with the cleanest rifle any soldier ever had.
Back to Catterick with the rifle once more in the kit bag where I finally managed to get rid of it. When ever we had Christmas singsongs round the piano after that Dad would sing, "Pack up your Rifle in your old kit bag and Bang bang bang" it was a family joke for years.
Frank Mee.
Message 1 - Unwanted Kit.
Further to the story I published earlier here is more on the subject.
We were posted to MELF on the Troopship Empress of Scotland, four of us dressed in the dreaded FSMO and kitbags.
At Suez on the Red Sea we were indoctrinated into the hazards of desert living and of course as we were passing through the transit camp still lived out of our packs and kitbag. Posted to a base camp we at last unpacked and folded away our kitbags but not for long. We four were posted on to a desert outpost so repacked the kitbags with unwanted kit and left them at the QM stores. A few weeks later we were back to base I took my truck and picked up the kitbags from the QM. As I dumped them outside the barrack hut a couple of the boys who knew I always had a bottle of two of the Stella beer some where on the truck came out to beg some. We sat drinking and "Brummy" said "I will go empty my kitbag" down the steps into the hut he went and we could hear the banging and crashing as he tipped it all out followed by a horrendous scream and out of the hut shot "Brummy" white as a sheet. When we had managed to calm him down with another of my secret Stella's he told us what had happened. Having removed his boots to relieve his feet from the heat he emptied his kit from the bag only to find himself staring eye to eye at a Scorpion. They were yellow coloured viscious little beggars who took umbrage at being disturbed, it ran towards "Brummy's" bootless feet and "Brummy" took off out of the hut.
We all laughed our heads off then suddenly thought "hey wait a minute whats in our Kitbags". The lads all picked up the entrenching tools and stood back, I got up on the truck and after unlacing them emptied the bags on to the sand one at a time, the kit was pulled aside and then the next one emptied. The last bag also had a passenger, there was a mad smashing of entrenching tools on the kit and sand, yells and shouts as the lads skipped about trying to nail the thing with their shovels and it disapeared down the steps into the hut. We all looked at each other in dismay that was two of them in there somewhere. Our bed legs suddenly got boots, seven pound jam tins with noxious liquids in them to deter the yellow perils from getting in bed with us and each morning we would reach out of bed grab a boot and bang it on the floor to shake out unwanted baggage before putting our feet in them. Needless to say "Cockney" who had left his pot plates and mug in the kit bag (we had taken metal mess tins with us) had to go and explain how they came to be smashed to bits to a Qm who would not part with his own sweat. We moved several times packing and unpacking those kitbags and always made sure we had some sort of weapon with us as we stood on something to empty them out, every one thought we were mad or I should say Macnoon, the Egyptian for desert madness. My medals did not include one for the hazards of emptying kitbags in desert conditions life is never fair is it.
Our kitbags were white with number name rank and unit stencilled on them which got blotted out and re written as we moved around. My old bag was looking the worse for wear when we were put on readiness for Korea and the old bag taken away to be replaced with a green one which followed me for the rest of my career.
You never learned to love it but it could hide a multitude of sins once on the way up through the ranks and free from inspection. Coming home from Germany mine often held the extra booze over and above what Customs allowed and as we travelled in our own transport on the Roll on Roll of Ferries we must claim to have invented booze trips before they came to be every day happenings thanks to the old kitbag. You could sit and smell the bag when short of a drink because we did not always make it without breakages.
Frank Mee.
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