Slouch hat
Australia and New Zealand have had various models of slouch hat as standard issue headwear since the late Victorian period.
Today it is worn by military personnel from a number of countries, although it is primarily associated with Australia, where it is considered to be a national symbol.
During the American Civil War (1861–65) the headgear was common among both Confederate and Union troops in the Western Theater, although not always with its brim turned up at the side.
The headwear saw primary use by 15 battalions of Austrian Jägers (skirmishers) and it featured an upturned brim, leather chinstrap and feather plume.
[5] An 1884 painting displayed in the regimental museum of the pipe band of 1st Battalion, Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders shows the unit in service dress, crossing the veldt in Zululand, wearing khaki slouch hats.
German colonial police units in South West Africa wore a khaki slouch hat with a small national cockade on the front and the right side pinned up by a metal Imperial crown device.
[4] After Federation, the slouch hat became standard Australian Army headgear in 1903 and since then it has developed into an important national symbol.
[16] Some units of the Royal Australian Armoured Corps such as cavalry and light horse regiments wear emu plumes behind the Rising Sun badge.
This is a reference to a practice dating from World War 1, where Light Horsemen would chase down emus and steal their feathers to mount in their hat as a mark of their riding skill.
Throughout the late Victorian era and early 1900s slouch hats were widely worn by the Canadian military, from the Yukon to South Africa.
Though the Service Cap became standard after the formation of the Territorial Force in 1908, the Royal East Kent Mounted Rifles used them for ceremonial purposes until around 1910.
[24] [25] During World War II, British soldiers serving in the jungles of Burma often wore the slouch hat.
The standard headgear for US soldiers in the Vietnam War in the 1960s was a fatigue baseball or field cap that offered little protection from the sun.
The local tailors usually used green fatigue cloth or leopard skin pattern military camouflage from old parachutes.
[citation needed] The US 1st Air Commando Group members officially adopted the green slouch hat on 22 May 1964[27] as their distinctive and practical headgear.
In 1972 the US Army authorized female drill sergeants to wear a bush hat based on the Australian design as their distinctive headgear.
[29] The Rhodesian African Rifles and Grey's Scouts continued to wear the slouch after the introduction of the new uniform, although they were replaced with berets for working dress.
