WWII CAP Uniform Question - women wearing hats indoors

[RiverAux]

I've got access to a group photo of CAP members at a banquet during WWII.  Everyone is the equivalent of today's CAP service dress uniform.  However, I happend to notice that all the women in the photo were wearing flight caps while none of the men had hats on. 

Was this some sort of uniform convention of that day -- men take hats off indoors, but women wear them? 

[CAPTShaw]

Yes that is correct

[JohnKachenmeister]

Yes that is correct

Traditionally, only men removed their hats indoors.  Ladies usually had them clipped to their hair.

[es_g0d]

If I recall properly, that remained true until at least the late 80s with regard to the  female beret.  I could be totally wrong, but I seem to remember reading that in the 39-1 of bygone years.  The female beret is different than, say, the beret used at National Blue Beret.  It was more of a Monica Lewinsky style (begging forgiveness from the readership).  If you think about it, traditionally women were not required to remove their hats while indoors -- recall the older ladies from church, and you'll see what I mean.

[wacapgh]

The 70's/80's female berets were pretty stiff - you could actually put dents into them. There was an amazing amount of room in them as well. The volume of hair some of the females could coil up inside one was amazing at times. With the hair inside and a half dozen bobby pins, they were "on for the duration".

Also at the time, all enlisted/NCO cadet flight caps has cloth insignia. The metal disc was only worn on the female beret.

[O-Rex]

I remember the female berets (they had them in the Army too)  the gals hated them: they were worn perched on the back of the head, and yes, it took some hardware to keep them on, not to mention, like wacapgh said, they were pretty stiff and didn't exactly fold flat for storage, like flight/garrison caps or unisex berets did: if you removed them, there was no place to put them.

That's pretty much why Service "bus driver' Caps for male enlisted went away: they are a pain to travel with (not to mention the procurement cost of issuing them:) the Army & Marines stopped issuing them in the late 70's, I think USAF was kind of off & on.  I'm starting to see them on Marines again: was in 'Dago' a couple of years back and some guys just out of Boot Camp were wearing them.

[Hawk200]

That's pretty much why Service "bus driver' Caps for male enlisted went away: they are a pain to travel with (not to mention the procurement cost of issuing them:) the Army & Marines stopped issuing them in the late 70's, I think USAF was kind of off & on.  I'm starting to see them on Marines again: was in 'Dago' a couple of years back and some guys just out of Boot Camp were wearing them.

There seems to be a cycle when they're out of vogue, then they come back. The Army is allowing NCO's and up to wear a service cap with the ASU as an option, enlisted still wear beret.

For the Air Force, McPeak did away with them, but then showed up to Nixon's funeral with the flight cap on. It didn't go over very well, was considered too informal for such an occasion. It came back as an option when Fogleman took over.

As to the old practice of women wearing them indoors, requiring removal was creating a single standard for all personnel, basically disregarding the normal civilian culture. Easier, yes. Is it really an issue? Some say no. Personally, I wouldn't have a problem with it, I think that there are a lot of practices from our the 1900's that our culture could stand to do again. There isn't near as much class or common courteousy in today's society.

[Timothy]

Those suckers were most definitely pinned to their hair. Since the military was more worried about getting bodies to fill non-combat roles and free men to go overseas, I doubt they even thought about it and allowed wear indoors.

As a whole, the US armed forces during the war was very lax on hats indoors (and not under arms), and there are tons of photos accross all branches where this happens. Lots of pictures on the CAP main site of aircrew in ready rooms or in the radio shack with hats on... it was a different time.

The same thing goes for how they used to wear those hats; at a jaunty angle that would get you in trouble today. I think simplification and polyester were the death of the classic uniform. If I was suddenly the CNO, or any branch chief, they would hate me because their uniform closet would take a 60 year head-spin.

I have a closet full of WWII uniforms and they all make their modern equivalent look bad.

[Gunner C]

Those suckers were most definitely pinned to their hair. Since the military was more worried about getting bodies to fill non-combat roles and free men to go overseas, I doubt they even thought about it and allowed wear indoors.
I have a closet full of WWII uniforms and they all make their modern equivalent look bad.

Yes, the old uniforms had MUCH more style than just about anything you see these days with the notable exception of ANY Marine uniform.

IIRC, women were allowed by both regulation and tradition to wear headgear indoors.  WIWA NCO I was raked over the coals for requiring an enlisted woman to remove her headgear when I was a company CQ at DLI.  (of course I also told a woman that her moustache was out of regulation and addressed a female WO as "Mr. Smith".  As The Duke said "Life is hard; it's harder when you're stupid").