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Uncover your potential', indeed! Once you stop ogling the girl, though, you might notice that this Australian Special Air Service (SAS) recruiting poster shows Australian Disruptive Pattern Camouflage to very good effect. [Image courtesy Brad Turner collection.]

Canadian Disruptive Pattern (late)
Canada

The Canadian Airborne Regiment was created on 8 April 1968. It was not originally intended to be an administrative regiment in the sense commonly accepted throughout the British Commonwealth; rather, it was envisioned as a large and mobile rapid-reaction force, through which young infantry leaders would rotate before returning to promotion in their own regiments. However, the Canadian Airborne Regiment soon adopted its own badges, colours, and history, and sought to replace the identity of its members from Canada's line regiments with that of the Airborne.

It might have been this quest for a distinctive identity that led to the introduction of jump smocks patterned in Canadian Disruptive Pattern (DP) camouflage.

Production of the earlier olive drab (OD) jump smock had ceased in 1958, after the reorganisation of Canada's Mobile Striking Force (MSF); and stocks of the OD smock had been exhausted by the time the Canadian Airborne Regiment was formed. Throughout the first six years of the Regiment's existence, all efforts made to obtain a jump smock through official channels proved fruitless.

Then, in 1974, the Commanding Officer of the Regiment, Col. G. H. Lessard, CMM, MB, O St J, CD, directed his Deputy Commander LCol G. R. Hirter, to arrange production of a smock as a 'private purchase' item. Allegedly Hirter approached a Canadian Army clothing contractor, Peerless Garments, and was advised that the company had just been contracted to produce combat shirts and pants for the Tanzanian Armed Forces, using a variant of British Disruptive Pattern, which was to be printed by a sub-contractor, Celanese Chemicals.

The Canadian Airborne Regiment approved the 'Tanzanian DPM' pattern for the new smocks, and Hirter arranged for Celanese Chemicals to produce additional material at the end of the Tanzanian contract. Peerless Garments agreed to produce the smocks, and the order was placed.

Word of the Airborne Regiment's unofficial smock contract created a huge uproar within the Canadian Army Clothing Procurement office. When the Chief of Defence Staff heard that members of the Airborne Regiment were prepared to pay for their smocks out of their own pockets, however, he immediately directed the Clothing Procurement office to assume responsibility for the contract, using public funds.

Unfortunately, the example of Canadian DP shown here does not represent the earlier 'Tanzanian DPM', which used a darker 'orange brown' instead of moderate yellowish brown, and 'rich green' instead of greyish olive. Rather, it is an example of the later Canadian DP smock, which was manufactured by Ambridge & Thompson. It is not known exactly when these smocks superseded 'Tanzanian DPM' (the example shown here was manufactured in 1989), but the camouflage pattern is likewise based upon British Disruptive Pattern. Indeed, the colours are much closer to those of the British design, although it must be noted that two of the colours have been reversed, with greyish olive green in place of the original moderate yellowish brown, and dark greyish yellow in place of the original greyish olive.

The Canadian Airborne Regiment was officially disbanded in 1995, after the notorious Somalia Affair. However, jump smocks patterned in Canadian DP continue to be worn by parachute instructors at the Canadian Parachute Centre in CFB Trenton.

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