greener said:
Are the whites considered work dress? When do you wear them? Say someone gets recruited into the COMM RSCH trade and gets put in the sea element, what would he wear on a day to day basis if he's posted somewhere in Ottawa nowhere near a boat.. hypothetically speaking of course
Our workdress is called 'Naval Combat Dress' as I wrote above, the 'dress' part is unnautical & incorrect use of dress, but never mind.
There are 2 uniforms that are referred to as 'whites:' No 1C/D & No 3B. Number 1 is the ceremonial dress (1C) or undress (1B) (here 'dress' is used more or less correctly; it refers to the types of medals worn). This uniform consists of white shoes, white trousers, a
privately tailored white tunic (the only real tunic the navy wears), & the undress cap (which is really the dress cap since they took away cocked hats in 1939).
Number 3B is the same bottom half, but with a white, short-sleeved shirt. The shirt is issued, so more likely if you're told to wear whites it'll be 3B.
But once white
was workdress. Jr ratings (what is now MS & below) wore their white duck jumpers for evolutions such as coaling a ship! I think this is due to the fact that duck is more durable than serge when being washed all the time & perhaps it was a bit of tongue-in-cheek dress instructions from the Admiralty. The officer's undress white tunic gave way to an undress khaki tunic as the British army had found the colour to look smarter than dirty white.
Personally, while I enjoy the confort of naval combat
rig, I can't wait to wear my whites (either rig: 1 or 3) on NETPO this summer (I am a proud owner of the non-baggy polyester gabardine shirts). Though I would like the option to wear black shoes/boots with them since wearing 1 pr of shoes in the hot summer can't be olifactorially-sound.