altered CC Irvin

[Hawkeye]

Coastal Command Irvin thats had the hood altered into a smallish collar. I wonder if this was a wartime or postwar alteration?

http://cgi.ebay.com/Canada-Great-Britai ... _500wt_922

 

[Dr H]

More likely postwar IMHO. When I was scouring EBay originally looking for my Irvin, I saw a fair number of butchered CC Irvins (presumably to increase their value to buyers - as ironically they are more wearable despite being 'neither fish nor fowl'.

I was quite keen to buy a CC Irvin initially as Sunderlands flew out of Calshot near my home town of Southampton, but the urge to buy an Irvin from the BoB period won out instead.

 

[philip.ed]

Out of interest, were any CC Irvins used in the BoB?

 

[Roughwear]

Most CC jackets are four panel construction and date from 1941 onwards. I used to own an extremely rare two panel CC jacket made by IAC which dated to late 1940. So there were probably very few around during the BoB and would have been issued to Coastal Command. I have not seen pictures from 1940 of fighter or bomber pilots wearing them, although one occasionally does later in the War. In fact the summer of 1940 was a hot one and you see few pictures of fighter pilots wearing Irvins, in contrast to the previous winter when they were worn a lot by Hurricane pilots in France.

 

[philip.ed]

Cheers for that Andrew So why did you sell it? It sounds like a great jacket!

 

[Roughwear]

Sadly it was a little too small for me! Here a are three pics of the 1940 CC Irvin from a few years ago. The main zip was a 1950s replacement.

 

[philip.ed]

Wow! The condition looks mint. I bet the buyer was extremely happy.