RAF Beret Cap Badges.. along with something else

Thinking about it that sounds the most likely.

If that was from the same event then it seems unusual that the ‘Reviewing Officer’ is listed as ‘ Rear Admiral Will Warrender‘, when the original post clearly has a picture of the CAS, Air Chief Marshal Sir Stephen Hillier reviewing the cadets

Surprised none of the ceremonial lot didn’t face plant floor wearing ammo boots on wet ground

Squadgy since I did some further delving on the twitter, if you look at the timestamp the first link was from 2018 with Air Chief Marshal Sir Stephen Hillier inspecting, Rear Admiral Will Warrender was this March

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I think it’s a navy blue beret…
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This may be a CCF school-specific uniform, like the Welbeck DSFC badge worn on RAF berets, or QVS wearing their redcoats & kilts as a special order of collective dress, then normal Single Service RN/Army/RAF No2 dress within their contingent sections. I think that’s being hinted at for Tonbridge…? Perhaps they are directly-sponsored by the RAF, for some historical or contemporary reason.

Also…as part of Air Force heritage: during WW2, members of the WAAF wore black/navy-blue berets (normally in fatigues). I have seen pictures of this.

RAF blue-grey berets appear to have started off with the Regiment in 1947, replacing (for them) forage caps, then becoming standard across the RAF in time for the RAFNS era.

Members of the ROC wore navy-blue berets with RAF uniform all the way from 1941 to 1995…as well as forage caps
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And to really add to the beret rainbow…does anyone have that edition of the RAF News with the picture of two RAF officers wearing green RM berets, after completing the extended ‘All Arms Plus’ crse?

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My guess is that it’s nothing as well-thought-out or based on tradition, but rather a desire to allow RAF section cadets to take place in a guard of honour without ‘spoiling’ the uniform look.

Personally, I like the random nature of a G of H with three different uniforms…

Whilst on camp a few years ago, I met an RAF Officer who wore a SAS beret, along with the old style tropical pattern DPM. He was a lovely chap, who after chatting over a beer in the officers mess, then offered to come and speak to the cadets the next evening. He had some cracking stories to tell, and the cadets were in awe of him!

Had some mates from TCW attached to 16AA some years back (early 2000’s)

RAF cap badge on maroon Berets :+1:t2: No jump training or P Coy…the CO didn’t want a Rainbow of Berets On Parade.

That’s quite common apparently for attached troops. It seems to be only the Royal Marines to whom the beret itself is the mark of passing out. For others it’s about the cap badge; and obviously, for Paras, P Coy is about earning the wings.

That’s because that’s what the maroon beret was always for. If you’re attached to the Airborne division you wore the beret, regardless of your arm of service. It’s nothing to do with the CO.

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Corps/regiment yes, service no.

RAF personnel are not supposed to wear any beret other than their own.

Unless things have changed, P Coy was to earn the beret and the parachute course itself, to earn the wings.

Tell that to the two Regiment FS who completed the AACC and returned wearing the green beret. There was one of those FS whom I knew, where even a Wg Cdr didn’t have the brass danglies to tell him not to wear it!

The man is question (also known as ‘Choppy’ or ‘Psycho’) had a bit of a reputation and I always felt that neither the Lord God nor the Devil himself would have told him.

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Sounds like fun!

No, that was the correct term for the period, i.e. RASC, RCS, RAMC, AAC, Infantry Regiment etc (Remembering of course that the “Army” doesn’t technically exist, it’s an amalgamation of different individual services.)

I stand corrected mate.

I know little about the Paras besides the dodgy stories about nights in or out with which my mate has regalled me… Paras… Bunch of nutters! :wink:

That appears not to be the whole story


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No worries mate.

As an aside, can you recall the guy who used to run the British Contingent for the Airborne March (up until around 2012)? His son was the Adjutant on our Sqn in the mid-nineties. He was ex-Para Reg and he once said to me that ‘these’ (pointing to his Flt Lt rank slides) ‘were harder to earn than these’ (pointing to his wings). When I did my FT1 at Catterick back in the day, there was a JROC course going on at the same time and we saw exactly what those guys were being put through.

When he was posted in I thought I recognised him. I’d met him when he was a Para Reg Corporal back in the early-eighties.

Mate, no-one messed with this guy and he wasn’t called ‘Psycho’ for nothing! I last saw him as a WO back in 2010 and he’s probably retired now. As a Cpl, he used to go to Kings Cross at weekends dressed as a tramp and live with homeless people. Whenever someone picked on the homeless guys (or himself) he used to hospitalise them. ‘Just to keep his skills up’, he said.

One day on a Stn Ex, he was a FS working in the WOC with a young SAC when a portly (non-Regiment) Wg Cdr entered. Psycho poked him in his gut and said ‘you’re a bit of a porker, aren’t you sir?’

The Wg Cdr knew who Psycho was, said nothing and left.

Would YOU want to tell this guy to remove his green lid and put a RAF one on? :rofl:

If anything the green lid in that case acts as a useful visual warning.

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