DRAB KHAKI NOT EASY TO OBTAIN

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 3, Issue 272, 17 February 1941, Page 6

DRAB KHAKI NOT EASY TO OBTAIN

For a "plain" colour, fulfilling a simplu utilitarian purpose, the ldiaki I of Army uniforms oilers a complex. lec.hni.eal problem. As many as eight distinct sliatl.es of dye, some of them as vivid as orange, canary and Alice blue, must be blended to procure the exact colour the Army specifies. Lieut-Colonel Vere Pailiter, of the United States Army Quartermaster Corps, said recently that 90 per cent of the rejections of clolh were because of its shades and that 99 per cent of the shade difficulties \*crc clue to lack of chemical control somewhere in the process of manufacturing tlie cloth. The problem ol matching the regulation Army shade of'khaki docs not end with supply of cioth of accepted hue. The dyes* must be able to- withstand the effect?

of air, dust, torrid sun, acidity, humidity and washing in caustic soda. In the last Avar it was a common occurrcncci to sec troops whose uniforms had variously weathered several months of wearing and. washing i emerging in shades ranging from | dirty white to almost an olive green.