1942 parachute regiment beret

**Troy1942** · 10-14-2019, 12:33 PM

Hello!

I have acquired from my grandfather after he passed away a 1942 para beret, I have some questions About the item which I unfortunately never got to ask and was wondering if some one could help, a little back story first

He wasn’t in the parachute regiment he was in the raf regiment and fought in North Africa, Italy, Greece, Palestine, Iraq, I know he did parachute jumps in Egypt I remember him saying, he also said he did a lot of driving behind enemy lines when he was in North Africa (I’m not implying he was in the sas) but other than a few other story’s he never really said anything about the war.. hated talking about it like many. So my questions are.. would he have acquired the beret In Egypt after completing parachute training? Would he have fought along side the regiment and possibly been gifted it?

And just

p[ATTACH=CONFIG]1347203[/ATTACH out of curiosity are these berets rare?

Many thanks
Troy

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**Grimebox** · 10-14-2019, 01:31 PM

Do you have any photos of the inside of the beret, namely the date?
1942 is the year they (the maroon/red beret) were introduced and in my experience are quite rare.
Do you have anything concrete about his service (paperwork, etc)? Whilst he could have ‘picked up’ up the beret on his travels something tells me he might have led an interesting war

**Troy1942** · 10-14-2019, 03:41 PM

Here are some more picture of the beret and an early war photo of my grandfather and is comrades (he’s bottom right)

Yes I have quite a lot of paper work, medals etc I have his service number too, but there all at my parents house il go over there in the next couple of days and get some more info

**Grimebox** · 10-14-2019, 04:09 PM

I would suggest that your Grandfather might have been one of these:
Royal Air Force Commandos - Wikipedia

RAF SERVICING COMMANDOS

I think researching his military service will be very interesting. A beret (even in this moth eaten condition) attributed to an RAF Regiment commando would be very rare, in any case a 1942 dated beret (in my opinion) is quite rare and very desirable.