Web Equipment, Braithwaite: List of Changes

List of Changes and Other Official Documentation

None are known and reference to “Braithwaite Web Equipment” exists in two documents, thus far encountered. Both documents are bilingual - in Afrikaans and English.

The first was in a 1945 document, D.D. 409 S.A. PERMANENT FORCE ARMS AND ACCOUTREMENTS S.A. STAANDE MAG. WAPENS EN MONDERING. This was a kit issue list, this example being for a equipment still on charge to 27479 L/Cpl G.F. Lamont, father of the owner of the set of Patt. ’35 illustrated here. Click on the thumbnail at left to access this document.

A later discovery was by Peter J. Smith, in U.D.F. Archives and comprised a page from a Report, compiled in March 1938, by the War Supplies Board in South Africa. The Board had the responsibility for establishing how and where supplies could be obtained in the event of war. The paragraph’s opening statement stated that South Africa had no manufacturing facilities for web equipment, such that all supplies of material, including brass fittings, came from overseas, i.e. the U.K., in the form of M.E.Co. This single sheet, comprising just Item 4(i) covers what webbing was available within South Africa, referring to “…Braithwaite…” Web Equipment, being one of two Patterns the other being “…Pattern. ’08…”. Comment is made that 25,000 sets of Braithwaite were obtained after consultation with the War Office (they meant that of the U.K.), but that the W.O. had decided not to standardise the equipment. The reasons for this will be dealt with in a future new KW section, but the important factor was the W.O.’s decision to adopt Patt. ’37 W.E..