Thoughts on UK made No9 bayonets

[Peter Laidler]

I wouldn't associate a bit of blue paint with RAF service per-se simply because bayonets weren't painted. And if they were it'd be a camouflaged colour but a shiny blade would be a give-away! The RAF were brought down to earth with a bit of a bump - if you'll excuse the phrase - in the early 70's by Sir Derek Rayner. He set about the nonsense of different Arms having different vehicles, colours, webbing weapons etc etc. He saved zillions by telling everyone including the RN to get khaki vehicles, use Army webbing and small arms. Their hierarchy dragged their heels in of course and it was like pulling teeth. So, as he described it, he '.....pulled their bloody teeth out.........'

The BEST thing was that within 1 hour, he stopped the different Forces purchasing commercially exact vehicles (like cars and vans....) in special gloss khaki, RAF grey-blue and Navy deep blue. In these special colours, they were worthless at auction post service!

Sorry to go off at a tangent but it is a dire foggy day in darkest Oxfordshire.............. A lot of public school Cadet Forces, the CCF's, had No4 and No9 bayonets for years and years but when H&S and then PC-ness came into being in the early 80's onwards they had to hand them in. My sons school still had a load that they kept with rounded tips or welded from the rear into the scabbards.

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