Australia's Terracotta Warriors

BY KATRINA NICOLSON

Military uniforms perform multiple functions. In battle they offer protection, camouflage, comfort, and, importantly, distinguish between opposing combatants. Behind the frontline they promote cohesion within the military unit, easily identifying a group, while rank insignia establish a disciplinary hierarchy. In a museum they take on a new educative role.

The Shrine collects uniforms from all eras of modern conflict. They offer insight into the conditions of military life and serve to illustrate the development of more functional designs and safer materials across time. A recent donation from former Warrant Officer Class 1 (WO1) Andrew Daniels, additionally offers an opportunity to explore a littleknown area of Australian service.

Daniels donated his Australian Multicam Camouflage Uniform (AMCU), the most recent iteration of the Australian Army uniform. Launched in 2014, it represents a significant advance in design, camouflage in desert terrain, and useability from the previous Disruptive Pattern Camouflage Uniform (DPCU). This is an important addition to the Shrine’s collection, but it is the accompanying unusual terracotta coloured beret and cap that intrigues.

Berets have been used to denote differing units within the Australian Defence Forces since the 1940s. Many will be familiar to most: black for the Royal Australian Armoured Corp; Rifle and Sherwood green for the Royal Australian Regiment and the 1st and 2nd Commando Regiments respectively; fawn for the Special Air Service Regiment; varying shades of blue for air services; and scarlet for the Royal Australian Corps of Military Police. Familiar too, the blue beret and dove insignia of the United Nations Peacekeeping Forces.

Daniels’ unfamiliar terracotta head gear is from the final deployment of his forty-plus year career—ten months serving with the Multinational Force and Observers (MFO) in Sinai, Egypt. Daniels worked within a small team run by an Albanian from Kosovo and alongside local Egyptian and Bedouin people. His role was operations planning, control, and supervision, and primarily coordinating logistics with civilian contractors.

The MFO began in 1981 as a non- United Nations force charged with keeping the Egypt–Israeli peace agreements. It is one of Australia’s longest running, but least known, peacekeeping missions. Australian involvement from 1982– 86 was provision of a combined Australian/New Zealand Air Force helicopter squadron. In 1993 a new commitment was made to provide an Army contingent. Never large, at present there are 27 Australians serving with the MFO.