Origins of Tiger Stripe: British Windproof and French Lizard Camouflage

Hey guys, thanks for tuning in to another video on ForgottenWeapons.com. I'm Ian McCollum, and I'm joined today by Mr. Owen Thornton. Also known as Kamu Man. And you are writing a book for Headstamp Publications, or rather you have written a book for Headstamp Publications about tiger stripe camouflage, yeah? That's correct. Tiger stripe camouflage has been one of my passions for as long as I know. I think you said you've been collecting it literally for 40 years now? That's correct. I'm 55 now, and I got my first piece of tiger stripe when I was 15. Okay. Yeah, I know. I've seen a lot, a lot of tiger stripe. There's a few things that I haven't seen. Okay. Yeah, there's still. There's always something. There's always something, and I'm constantly amazed every month something different comes up. All right, so the most important part of this whole story is naturally the part that involves the French. Well. As with everything. Well, with fine wine, beautiful food. He's just humoring me here now. Yeah, the Eiffel Tower, of course. But the French are known to be the originators of tiger stripe camouflage. So in the book, you start with French lizard camo. Correct. As the progenitor of Vietnamese tiger stripe, and I'm curious how that whole progression took place. Where did it start, and how did it end up? Well, France at the end of World War II were basically, and they were beaten into the ground. They didn't have any resources, so they put the feelers out, and the allies started providing them with camouflage uniforms, which were surplus to their stock. So the Americans provided the frog skin camouflage, which I'm going to show here, and this is also. Oh, that's cool stuff too. Yeah, I mean, this is like Marine Corps camouflage. Yeah. Of the famous Iwo Jima, you know, any Pacific battle used the frog skin camouflage, but at the end of World War II, it was deemed surplus. America gave France the majority of its camouflage stock, because the war in Indochina, or Vietnam, was starting to heat up. They needed stock. They provided Marine Corps camouflage to the French, along with British windproof camouflage. Okay. And this windproof, it's very earthy, it's brown, you know, it's very dull, but it's a beautiful camouflage. The French adopted this camouflage, and they called it the sausage skins, because it was, even though it was for the tropics, it is a windproof uniform designed for the winter. Okay. So it was very hot and uncomfortable, but the French in 1947 came up with a... Well, it's France, so they have to do their own thing. Well, they have to do their own thing, and they're like very classy, and they come from a long line of couture designers, clothing, and they invented a camouflage smock, which they deemed the 1947 pattern. Okay. But what they used, they copied the pockets from an American M42 jumpsuit that was used in Normandy. They also copied the tail of the jacket from the British Denison smock. Okay. But one thing that's very important, they made their own unique pattern. So they didn't draw from any other patterns, but they used, say, for the British windproof pattern, they used the earthy movements of that, and they came up with what became known as the lizard camouflage pattern. Okay. Now, the lizard camouflage pattern was an immediate hit with the troops. They loved it. It was unique, it had a lean, it was like it was for the paratroopers, and French paratroopers at that stage, there was a lot of French foreign legion guys, a lot of ex-servicemen from all around the world. The classic saying, you join the French foreign legion, you want to disappear. A lot of people wanted to disappear. A lot of people wanted to disappear. But by the time that the colonial wars heated up in Southeast Asia, the stuff's kind of heavy. It's a very heavy smock. I mean, it's a hard-wearing smock. It was originally designed for a European theater of war. They developed by 1951 a lightweight version of this jacket, and instead of this heavy canvas, it was made in more of a linen, a lightweight, breathable linen, and that was called the 1951 pattern smock, which I have an example here. Okay. So this is basically, it's not, well, the pattern's a little different too. Well, the pattern, they just amended the pattern. They thought that using a lighter brown, a lighter brown base color, that it was more suited to the tropical climate. But what happened is this jacket tended to stand out like a sore thumb. The colors were, the designers were just a little bit off on the colors. So by 1952, they changed the print to this more jungly, yeah, these more jungly colors. But what you're also seeing is you're starting to see these red, brown stripes. They're starting to take the shape of a well-known pattern that developed a little bit later. So this is a 1952 print. Okay. So all of this is being used in Indochina. All of this has been used simultaneously in Indochina. There wasn't just, there was British windproof, the American frogskin, the French. There was German splinter pattern from World War II. There was German oak leaf patterns being used. There's German surplus stock being used as ground sheets. This fits their weapons as well, which were a complete mix of everything. Everything. Sturmgewehrs, M1 carbines, MAS 44s. Correct. And on a weapons topic, you'll find even 1970 Vietcong arm stashes were still being discovered with your MP40s, your Sturmgewehrs, MG42s, MG34s, as well as every other weapon known to man. From knives, to spears, to swords, to homemade hand grenades, homemade handguns, and even there became homemade camouflage. Okay. One would imagine that this gets some prestige with the Vietnamese forces. The Vietnamese airborne forces and the Vietnamese Marines were considered an elite force. So they needed their own camouflage pattern. By about 1958, stocks of the original French and British and American camouflage had literally dried up. And this was literally, like when you say stocks, it's just what they captured from the French? No, they were given by the French on like a land lease, similar to land lease in World War II. Okay. You know, boots, beans, bullets. So the Vietnamese actually had a step back. They looked at all their uniforms. They looked at the way the war was starting to heat up. They seen on the horizon the Viet Minh that turned into the North Vietnamese Army. They were starting to start to look on the march going south again. So they realized they needed to re-armor, re-gear up, you know. So the Vietnamese Marines were issued a new uniform, which was called the Tiger Stripe. And the Tiger Stripe is basically a Vietnamese copy of the French lizard pattern. You can definitely see the similarity between that and the 52, the last iteration. Without a doubt. I mean, that's the host camouflage, you know. They copied that. And it's almost like a artist's rendition of that pattern. And by 1959, they had looked at the 47-47, the 47-51, the 47-52, it was a 47-53, and a 54, and a 56. Because the French just kept fine-tuning their print. Which, of course, the Vietnamese wanted to copy. So jump forward to like 1962, and the Vietnamese had copied the pattern to what nearly became one of its final forms. And this is a 1962 dated pair of Tiger Stripe pants, which was seen service in this print for five years. Then it was re-changed again in 66. It was changed again in 68. It was changed again in 72. And then it's morphed into what the layman can see the Tiger Stripe pattern is. But that took 40 years. So from 1947 to 1975, that print had a very active life. That's really cool. Yeah. And of course, later on in the Gulf War, it was reactivated again. It was reprinted by American companies, but given desert colors. And it was used right up to people like Arterix and Crye Precision have used it, amongst a handful, you know, a literal boatload of other companies, you know. So, you know, all in, it's an 80 years old camouflage pattern, which is, to excuse the pun, has good legs. So what you're saying is Tiger Stripe is much more than just one camo pattern. There must be at least 30 different renditions of Tiger Stripe from its original print. If only there were some way that people could get an idea of that full history and see them all. Well, that's what I've given a substantial part of my life, creating this archive of original pieces, which I'm going to showcase in the book as best I can. There might be an omission, of course, nothing's perfect, but I'm going to give it a good old college try to make sure that we nail it. He's selling himself a bit short here as a phenomenal collection of the entire history of Tiger Stripe. You're too kind. So if you're interested in this, we have the Kickstarter for the book currently ongoing. I have a link to that Kickstarter in the description text below. If you'd like to know more about the entire history of Tiger Stripe, being able to identify all of the different patterns, as well as some of the cool customized stuff, field created stuff, various insignias, patches, units associated with it, all sorts of cool stuff, definitely check out that book. Along with original unpublished photographs, which we have thousands of. Anyway, thank you for joining us to talk about the French connection to this. My pleasure. Of course, that's what I'm going to want to dig into first. You love that French stuff, but don't worry, we have that covered. Excellent. And I think we'll be back to talk about some other interesting esoteric details of Tiger Stripe. There you go. Thanks for watching. Hopefully you enjoyed the video.