Kit

(A.T.S. Remembered)

Kit

As women were generally not in the 'field' in the same way as men, they were not issued with webbing or packs for their personal equipment. Instead, they were issued with a bag for their kit and then specialist items of clothing to enable them to carry out other tasks. Some of the items they were issued with were:

Equipment

An oblong canvas bag was given out to ATS for carrying their clothing etc. This had two strong handles on the top and a lace up closure on the top. Members were also issued with a tin mug, eating utensils and mess tins.
Some members were issued with a gas cape.
Teddy Bear coat - this was the nickname for the warm coat that was issued to ATS on gunsites. It was made of synthetic fur fabric and had a large number of pockets that could be used to hold items such as torches, and had a large hood.
A special ATS lanyard was issued which was worn on the left shoulder on the S.D. Members of the Royal Artillery were allowed to wear the white lanyard of the R.A. and this was worn on the right shoulder on the S.D. and sometimes on the B.D. as well.

Sports

ATS members had to undertake P.E. (Physical Exercise) nearly every day and were provided with a brown split skirt under which they wore their wool knickers, and a short sleeved beech brown shirt with brown edging on the sleeves and collar.

One item particularly liked by the members was the respirator bag, or gas mask bag as it is commonly known. The reason for this was that members did not have anywhere to put their personal belongings whilst out and about in their S.D. The solution? To empty out your respirator and use the bag as a handbag. Members were obviously not supposed to do this, but after the early years of the war, it was realised that gas attack was not likely, so the members felt justified in using their bag this way. Later in the war the members were issued with a special A.T.S. handbag and so this practice stopped. The following cartoon illustrates the situation:

cartoon

Some of the specialist jobs the ATS had to undertake, meant that they had to have issues of specialist items:

Despatch riders wore a variety of equipment. Some of them wore their normal ATS cap, S.D. Jacket, jodhpurs and boots and used the despatch riders raincoat and leggings in bad weather. Others were seen using a despatch rider’s helmet, B.D. Jacket and knee length trousers and first world war putties.
Hospital blues were used when ATS members were in hospital convalescing. This consisted of an S.D. pattern skirt and B.D. pattern blouse in blue.
Armourers were issued with a navy blue refer jacket and white skirt, white shirt and navy tie. They often also wore the Royal Artillery Field cap. This clothing was issued so that they could be seen in the middle of a firing range, which was often a green field. With the normal khaki version of the clothing, the ATS may have been hit by practice shells as they would not have been easily visible.
ATS members were expected to carry out fatigues and had several different types of overall for these. A white overall with a wrapover front was worn with a white cloth cap for kitchen duties. A khaki denim wrapover overall was worn for general duties and khaki denim overall with sewn in trouser legs was used for maintenance.

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