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Sub Lt Andrew Perry on Navy Combat Gear during the Gulf War. (RNM)

Transcript: “Well, we wear a thing called ‘Eights’, which is blue. They are fireproof, or they are fire proofed. Sort of cotton-treated trousers and shirts, same sort of thing. As opposed to this sort of stuff which is all…And over the top of that we wear an action coverall, which is just a white, just like a white overall, which is again is supposed to be anti-flash i.e. you are not supposed to burn. And that’s our sort of Action Gear. (Special boots?) Yeah, DMS boots (directly moulded sole), non-conductive obviously, with steel toecaps. And it is supposed to be woollen, you know, woollen socks – that sort of thing – nothing which can melt. I mean; fireproofing is the most important thing. And on top of the action coverall we wear anti-flash gloves, which again are just the white, just white and an anti-flash hood, which again is just a white hood. Funny old thing. (How was it in the Gulf) Well, I mean when I got there the weather had cooled down quite substantially. But it was still pretty hot and oppressive, and as I say, when you are wearing it 24 hours a day except for when you took it off for a shower and then you put it back on again. I mean, OK we were lucky, unlike the minesweepers, we still had our laundry people onboard so you could get it laundered. Yeah it wasn’t… Along with that you constantly carried around with you your AGR, respirators, gas respirator. (What does AGR stand for?) I don’t know actually. Anti Gas Respirator I think. I think, don’t quote me. So we’ve got an AGR, life jacket, ELSA as I say, Emergency Life Saving Apparatus – which gives you the eight minutes of breathing to get out – and a ‘battle bag’, which had all our MBCD gear in it. I.e. the charcoal suits, the silly boots all that sort of stuff as well as the anti-flash gear which you had with you all the time and silly little things like a mug, your action mug which you could have a drink in at action stations or they could stick food in. So that was the full apparatus, and there was actually quite a lot of it when you went to action stations and you needed to have it with you all the time.”

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