Why did British soldiers wear shorts in WW2?

by RoadTheExile

I'm not familiar with any other modern military that isn't either a commonwealth force or a successor force like the South Africans or Rhodesians who wore shorts. Even other forces in the same regions like the Germans/Italians in Africa or the Japanese in the Pacific (they might have used them scarcely I think, maybe). So what was the thinking there and why didn't it catch on before or after?

wotan_weevil

Many WW2 armies used tropical uniforms with shorts. In many cases, the cotton shorts were an alternative to wool trousers, and were much more comfortable in hot weather. Of the European armies whose soldiers were expected to fight in tropical climates, the British, German, Italian, and French armies wore wool trousers with their standard uniforms. These armies all had tropical and/or summer uniforms better suited to hot weather.

The British started the war with cotton denim shorts as their pants for their tropical uniform; these were also used by British colonial and Dominion troops:

Mid-war, the British introduced cotton trousers as a warm-weather uniform, issuing these for the invasion of Sicily. One motivation for the change from shorts to trousers was malaria (which was common in parts of Sicily and Italy) - trousers provide better protection from mosquitoes. Shorts continued to be used by British/Dominion forces in the tropics, and weren't completely replaced by trousers for Sicily and Italy, either:

The Germans also wore shorts with their tropical uniform, which saw use in North Africa:

They introduced lightweight cotton or linen clothing as fatigue uniforms, to be worn when working rather than fighting. Soldiers in southern Europe wore the trousers as part of their combat uniform, at first unofficially, and then officially when those in charge realised that this was a very sensible thing to do.

Italy issued cotton trousers as part of their summer uniform (their non-summer uniform being wool), and cotton shorts as their tropical uniform. As with the Germans, their tropical uniform was worn in Africa:

The French, like the Italians, had a summer uniform with cotton trousers and a tropical uniform with shorts.

Like the southern Europeans (Italy and France), Japan used cotton summer uniforms and wool winter uniforms. They didn't issue shorts as part of a tropical uniform; their troops simply wore the cotton summer uniform in the tropics and warm weather elsewhere. Sometimes, shorts were worn by Japanese troops, but these were non-regulation, and uncommon:

The US followed Japanese practice, with a cotton summer uniform, which they wore in the tropics.

Chinese soldiers appeared in shorts, as least as far north as Shanghai:

In same cases, troops can be seen with trousers folded/rolled up to shorten them:

After WW2, cotton uniforms became more common, and largely replaced shorts as tropical wear. Shorts were still sometimes worn by troops in the tropics: