Tonight my thanks go to Wojciech Musial who has very kindly sent me pictures of a South African made 37 pattern webbing holster. This example was made in the Union of South Africa during World War Two and is identical in form to the British made examples:
The official 37 pattern manual describes the holster as:
Pistol Case- This consists of a woven article finished to accommodate the 0.380 revolver. It is lined with smooth webbing and the flap is closed by a snap fastener. Two double hooks are provided of the back for attachment to the waist belt and a similar hook is fitted horizontally at the top for connecting to the ammunition pouch when the article is to be carried over the pistol case.
Of interest is the particularly crude stitching around the end of the muzzle part of the holster. This is completed with a blanket stitch, although it is unclear if this was the way the holster was manufactured or if it is a later repair. The C-Hooks are made of a base metal rather than brass and this was most likely an economy measure to save a strategic metal for other more important purposes. The holster was made by Daniel Isaac Fram and the maker’s stamp is on the underside of the holster flap:
South African webbing is always hard to find and pieces rarely come on the market so it has been great to be able to share Wojciech’s item on the blog.
It is worth reminding ourselves of the description from the 37 pattern webbing manual:
Early Canadian basic pouches had the same 3/4″ wide strap, but seem to have swapped over to the wider pattern in around 1941. Despite these pouches late date of manufacture, the underside of the lid still retains three loops to hold Ballistite cartridges for grenade launchers:
The second major difference is the top brass buckle on each pouch, which is of a completely different design to that used in other parts of the Empire:
The rear of the pouch has a pair of ‘C’ hooks:
This pouch is particularly well made, as is typical of Canadian manufacture. This pair was made in 1943 by Zephyr Loom and Textile:
The Canadian acceptance mark of a /|\ inside a ‘C’ is stamped on the underside of each pouch lid:
Like much Canadian webbing found today, this pair of pouches is in almost unissued condition and is another great addition to my little set. I find collecting up the Empire variants of 37 pattern and the various pack fillers to be great fun and hopefully I can continue to fill out my collection.
It is useful to compare this design with that produced in Britain (see 
Like the British design, a pair of male studs is provided to cater for both full and empty pouches. The third major difference is harder to spot, but the British design had an internal divider to separate the two Lee Enfield chargers. The Canadian design does not, just having a single, large, open pocket:
The rear of the carrier is broadly similar to the British version, with a pair of ‘C’ hooks to attach it to the waist belt and the brace attachment sewn above to allow the shoulder braces to fasten on:
This example is stamped ‘ZL&T Ltd 1940’ on the rear:
This indicates it was manufactured by Zephyr Loom and Textile Ltd, one of the two largest manufacturers of accoutrements in Canada.
Just as a reminder, the official British Army pamphlet describes brace attachments as:
The buckle and loop are also a little crude, being stamped from heavy gauge brass sheet:
The back of the brace attachment is marked ‘Bata 1943’:
This mark is a little faint, but gets more visible when tilted in the light. Bata seems to have produced webbing up until 1943 so this would have come from their final year of production. For more information on this company please check out the post 
The top fastenings were replaced with 1” straps and Twigg buckles to allow the carrier to be attached to the thinner straps of the 37 pattern set:
These straps are also slightly angled, in a way the old 08 design was not. This was because men tended to carry the entrenching tool on the rear, over their buttocks, rather than on the side as the designers had intended. The angled buckles make the connection of the carrier to the bottom of the shoulder braces less awkward as they mirror the angles of these straps more closely than if they had been at ninety degrees to the main carrier.
Note the longer strap and buckle used to tighten around the helve and prevent it coming out. This was later felt to be inadequate and post war carriers have an addition strap set at 90 degrees to this one to help prevent the helve slipping out of the end.
This is the mark of the company Waring and Gillow who were one of a number of firms contracted to make webbing in World War Two by the government. Waring and Gillow were a large furniture manufacturer before the war and they put their upholstery section to work making webbing, kit bags and tents during the war. The skills needed to manipulate heavy upholstery fabric through a sewing machine would have been easily transferred to working with webbing and canvas.
Update: My thanks to Rich for pointing me to these two additional photographs of Fusilier Payne’s entrenching tool cover and it’s contents:
Although the sleeve carrier had been produced during the war to save manufacturing costs, once in peacetime the skeleton design of carrier resumed production, being made up of criss-crossing strips of webbing:
It might be helpful at this point to remind ourselves of the official description from the fitting instructions:
Bonderisation is a chemical process where steel is passed through a phosphate solution, this leaves a layer of crystalline zinc phosphate on the surface of the metal that prevents corrosion and gives the metal its dull black finish. This has the advantage of being far cheaper than the old brass fittings, but not rusting like a pure steel buckle would. Clearly the finish was only suitable for flat stampings such as buckles as the press stud on the top of the carrier is made of brass, but enamelled black:
The webbing with a blackened finish was given a special stores code to distinguish it from the older webbing, either CN/B/XXXX or CN/XXXX/B. The webbing code is stamped on the inside of the water bottle carrier in black ink:
Post war 37 pattern webbing is largely ignored by collectors as it is unsuitable for World War Two impressions and collectors seem to have a natural bias towards that conflict. Consequently post war 37 pattern webbing with black fittings is considerably cheaper than webbing with brass fittings and is usually found in near-mint condition. Going forward I would quite like to build up a set of this bonderised webbing and hopefully I can bring you more components as I acquire them.
I hope you will forgive me coming back to a topic we have already covered, but the manufacture of this pouch is sufficiently different from the earlier example that I felt it warranted its own post, especially as all examples of South African webbing are very rare so the more information available for collectors the better. The most obvious thing to note about the pouch is its colour, it is far greener than normal South African Production, and I believe it has been blancoed at some point in its life. This is particularly evident on the rear, where the colouring fades out towards the centre:
It is worth noting the way the ‘C’ hooks are sewn to the body of the pouch, with two small pieces of webbing, one for each hook and sewn very close together. The positioning of the hooks is also higher than on the SAPAW example:
The design of the attachment for the top buckle is also radically different, with the DI Fram example having the buckle fitted much closer to the main body of the pouch:
The quality of the DI Fram pouch is far higher than that of the SAPAW version, and the webbing material is much stiffer, this is very noticeable in the front view:
The top flap of the pouch does not have the blank round loops of the SAPAW version, but is nicely stamped with the maker’s mark and a purple /|\ inside a ‘U’ mark indicating acceptance into South African service:
The difference in manufacturing between the two South African webbing companies is marked, and whilst both are pretty poorly made, the DI Fram pouch is clearly a superior product. I still have a way to go until I have a full set of South African 37 pattern, but it is starting to come together:
