Irving Berlin's
White Christmas
WWII Army Uniforms
Firstly, I did not make any of these uniform jackets from scratch. however, due to the challenges faced when coming up with accurate WWII uniforms for the stage, it became quite an adventure to assemble these uniforms and have them stand up to a high level of historical scrutiny. This page details the process I went through to assemble these virtually period accurate uniforms. The first, and perhaps biggest challenge was the size of the actors. Three out of the four men were all over 6 feet tall, the smallest chest among them was 40 inches, the largest 44. Click here for a more in depth analysis of the differences between the sizes of soldiers in the second world war and modern actors. Furthermore, unlike the Marine Corps, the Army markedly changed the details, fabric and even color of their uniforms after the Korean War; I therefore knew from the get-go that I could not mix and match actual uniforms from the period with more modern uniform pieces; neither between individuals in a scene nor, and especially, on the same actor. to complicate the issue further, the script has two different scenes in which uniforms are needed, the first is actually on the battlefield during the war, the other a decade later i.e. well worn battle fatigues vs. "class A" service uniforms. Note on the term "Class A": Technically this designation did not exist at the time of the Second World War; it was coined during the reordering of uniform regulations in 1954 to denote the highest level of "business wear" for army personnel. The Olive Drab dress uniforms of the 1940s, however, are direct ancestors of the Army Green Class A uniform and are, in many ways, basically the same. They are therefore often referred to as "Class A," especially considering the the Class A service uniform has been standard business wear for all army personnel, from general to private, for over 60 years. It has even come to define the very image of the army in public consciousness. The Army Green regulation service uniforms were phased out in 2015, replaced with dark blue variants, thus hearkening back to an even older heritage; those from the Revolution and the Civil War. |
The actor playing General Waverly was 6 ft. 3 in. tall with a size 14 shoe, a 42 inch chest and a 34 inch waist. the designer wanted an Eisenhower Jacket on the general during the battlefield scene. Eisenhower Jackets, while widely popular during WWII and the Korean War, were phased out in the 1960s and are no longer manufactured by any of the U.S Armed Forces, I therefore knew, aside from making one from scratch, that I HAD to find an actual one that fit him from the time period. Lo and behold, I found ONE on eBay marked 42L; I had to bid VERY aggressively and paid more than I ever wanted to for it, but I had it...and it meant now that, because the general was in the olive drab color of the 1940s, all the other men needed to, at least marginally, match that color-those being the three other leads and four ensemble members. Luckily, the jungle fatigues from the Viet Nam era are similar to the WWII color, despite the class A uniforms having already been changed to the new green color by then. Suffice it to say we were able to cobble together a rag tag unit of battle weary men in a relatively uniform color scheme -no pun intended.
general Waverly's Eisenhower jacket:
The top ribbon bar is a Veterans of Foreign War medal and would in this case be for WWI. The ribbons in the next tier are actually all ROTC awards: Proficiency, Personal Appearance and Commendation. Those in the last tier are real WWII service ribbons: National Defense, Occupation, and Army Service. The wings I made from the plastic pilot pins they hand out to kids at air ports with a generic blazer button glued in the middle, all painted a pewter-silver. The "U.S." collar devices are in fact Air Force. The stars on the shoulders are generic embroidered patches I got from a craft store. Clearly, at close inspection, all of this is largely nonsense; a major general would never wear his ROTC ribbons and the actual WWII ribbons are probably TOO contemporary for a mid-conflict uniform. The collar devices don't match the branch or the period as the Air Force wasn't formed as an independent branch out of the Army Air Corpse until 1946 and the wings...well...but put 20 feet and some stage lights on it all and it looked pretty convincing. The service stripes, on the other hand, are quite accurate. The straight stripes each denote 6 months of over-seas service, meaning General Waverly had served 2.5 years in combat of the second world war. The chevron stripes each denote 6 months of over-seas service during the First World War, meaning he served a year and a half during that conflict. the WWII stripes are actually pre-Viet Nam and I made the WWI chevrons from scratch. The officer braid on the cuff is just generic grosgrain ribbon that I added; although this jacket is actually from either WWII or Korea, it must have been an enlisted soldier's and not an officer's as it had no cuff braid. The patch on the right shoulder is the 4th infantry, denoting past service during WWI. The left shoulder patch is made up by me to denote the 151st division which is named by the script. This division has never existed in the U.S. Army and is pure fiction. I will discuss the design of this patch further below
"Class A" Service uniforms
Here we see, in order, the "class A" greens for General Waverly, Captain Bob Wallace and Private Phil Davis worn at the end of the show. These tunics are all post-1954, most likely 1980s or newer The cut and lapel/pocket details are all relatively congruous with those of the second world war. there are two key differences, however, that had to be reworked.
First, the belt. Army Officer's during WWII had belted uniforms while enlisted ranks did not. The belt was nearly always of self fabric with a brass buckle. With the new service uniforms in the 1950s, the Army did away with the belt; this belt-less mode has carried through to the present, even with the new blue uniforms. Since none of these post-Korea tunics originally came with belts, I had to make them. I couldn't use Marine belts - all Marine personnel wear belted uniforms, both then and now - because of the clear difference in color. I ended up getting pants from Army Surplus and cutting the belts out of the the center front length of the pant-legs. I, unfortunately, had to piece them as the length needed to go around the waist and have a reasonable overlap exceeded the length from waist to hem. I placed this seam so that it would be hidden under the overlap of the belt-end. I used Marine belt buckles which are very close to those of the period. You will notice that Captain Wallace's belt is ever so slightly different in color value from the tunic which may have been due to variations in fading from wear or different eras of dye formulas. I also made the belt loops from the cut-up pants. You might also notice the "quick-rigging" on Captain Wallace's belt. He had a very fast change into this uniform and thus the belt as well as the front buttons were rigged with snaps to facilitate this. Furthermore, you might notice the sleeve cuffs protruding from this tunic as well as the one for Phil Davis. These changes were so fast that they did not even have time to put a full shirt on. The shirt fronts for these uniforms were false "dickies" and the sleeve cuffs were sewn into the lining of the coat sleeve so as to cover their other shirt beneath giving the illusion without needing to change shirts. I bought XXL khaki dress shirts from Walmart and cut them up to make these parts. The XXL size was necessary as it provided more room in the collar to comfortably go over the shirt underneath as well as an overlap in the back for closure.
Another difference is the sleeve braid. After the 1950s, sleeve braids were done in black whereas during WWII they were in olive drab. Although you can still find actual "new-old stock" braiding from the period, it can be costly as it is collectible but also, and more importantly, it is the olive drab color of the 1940s, not the post 1950s green. I ended up using grosgrain ribbon -not braid- purchased from a local fabric store that was a pretty good green color-not too olive to look odd but different enough from the sleeve to "pop." You might notice that on the Eisenhower jacket above, which is actually from the period, the same grosgrain ribbon looks quite green against the olive drab, while on these post 1950s tunics the ribbon looks a tinge more olive.
First, the belt. Army Officer's during WWII had belted uniforms while enlisted ranks did not. The belt was nearly always of self fabric with a brass buckle. With the new service uniforms in the 1950s, the Army did away with the belt; this belt-less mode has carried through to the present, even with the new blue uniforms. Since none of these post-Korea tunics originally came with belts, I had to make them. I couldn't use Marine belts - all Marine personnel wear belted uniforms, both then and now - because of the clear difference in color. I ended up getting pants from Army Surplus and cutting the belts out of the the center front length of the pant-legs. I, unfortunately, had to piece them as the length needed to go around the waist and have a reasonable overlap exceeded the length from waist to hem. I placed this seam so that it would be hidden under the overlap of the belt-end. I used Marine belt buckles which are very close to those of the period. You will notice that Captain Wallace's belt is ever so slightly different in color value from the tunic which may have been due to variations in fading from wear or different eras of dye formulas. I also made the belt loops from the cut-up pants. You might also notice the "quick-rigging" on Captain Wallace's belt. He had a very fast change into this uniform and thus the belt as well as the front buttons were rigged with snaps to facilitate this. Furthermore, you might notice the sleeve cuffs protruding from this tunic as well as the one for Phil Davis. These changes were so fast that they did not even have time to put a full shirt on. The shirt fronts for these uniforms were false "dickies" and the sleeve cuffs were sewn into the lining of the coat sleeve so as to cover their other shirt beneath giving the illusion without needing to change shirts. I bought XXL khaki dress shirts from Walmart and cut them up to make these parts. The XXL size was necessary as it provided more room in the collar to comfortably go over the shirt underneath as well as an overlap in the back for closure.
Another difference is the sleeve braid. After the 1950s, sleeve braids were done in black whereas during WWII they were in olive drab. Although you can still find actual "new-old stock" braiding from the period, it can be costly as it is collectible but also, and more importantly, it is the olive drab color of the 1940s, not the post 1950s green. I ended up using grosgrain ribbon -not braid- purchased from a local fabric store that was a pretty good green color-not too olive to look odd but different enough from the sleeve to "pop." You might notice that on the Eisenhower jacket above, which is actually from the period, the same grosgrain ribbon looks quite green against the olive drab, while on these post 1950s tunics the ribbon looks a tinge more olive.