Pictures of Canadian soliders wearing khaki drill.

I'm searching for pictures of Canadian soliders in italy wearing Khaki drill uniforms (especially 48th highlanders) for refernece to help me put together a repro uniform. I've already searched the web myself but haven't been able to come up with anything really good that shows the uniform in detail or the patching in detail. Any help would be appreciated.

Go to the 'Faces of War' site within the Library and Archives website and type 48th highlanders into the search function, about 25 images will appear and at least half a dozen of these are Highlanders in KD.

Mike, I recognize the provenance of some of the photos (from LAC), are the others in your collection? And we need to talk....
Lorne, the tropical dress worn in Sicily and Italy was not Canadian made khaki drill. IIRC it was Brit or Indian made. In Italy, the climate resulted in two uniforms being issued, summer uniforms and battledress. The method of wearing insignia was different for the two orders of dress. The summer dress, whether a shirt or a bush jacket was identified with an armlet. The armlet had the regimental title and formation patch and,if appropriate nco rank. Officers had their rank on slip ons, see the pic immediately above this post. These were worn to protect the garments. Tropical dress shirts and bush jackets were more easily damaged than battledress. IIRC, summer uniforms were not permanent issue, eg the battledress was the permanent garment for the soldier, and stored for the summer, but the tropical dress was issued for the season only, and then withdrawn.

Hi Bill...all of these images were in my Aertex file...I,m not even sure where they came from but some no doubt are from NAC...Others may be things that I found on the web,ebay or scanned from my own collection....

Wow, thanks for the photos. That should give me a good reference to look to.

Like Bill says ...all the uniforms shown in the photos are not Canadian made. British or Indian made Aertex shows up from time to time especially in overseas auctions but is really scarce over here. there are a few companies that(at least used to ) make repros of these types of uniforms worn in the Italian theatre. The mannequin at the top with the Hasty P insignia is an original 1943 dated example of Brit made aertex,this type with the pleated pockets..

US manufactured War Aid clothing was also worn by Canadians in Italy.

Thanks for all the responses guys. I'm always amazed at the wealth of knowledge and the impressive collections that poeple on this forum have.

Here is a pic from my Grandfathers memento's which shows a mix of khaki and serge BD. Gramps is in the middle. Taken somewhere in Italy.

I also have a Canadian made pair of khaki trousers that belonged to Gramps...said he was issued these in France. They are very heavyweight cotton duck material. He was a mechanic so maybe they had first dibs on any Canadian made khaki.

Also have this unissued 1940 dated khaki blouse. The early date makes me wonder how none got overseas.

The BD Blouse illustrated, although manufactured in KD was actually the Canadian version of British Denim BD and was therefore not considered to be a summer uniform.

The KD for 1st Canadian Division came from British stores and the division changed from BD to KD once they were at sea enroute from the UK to Sicily. The Commonwealth forces in Italy were supplied through MEF sources, hence the diversity of non-Canadian clothing found in that theatre.