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Field Marshal Bernard Law Montgomery’s personally owned and worn black beret from the final campaign of World War II, worn by Montgomery of Alamein during the Allied advance into Germany in 1945. Manufactured by Kangol Wear Limited, the black wool beret is size 7 and bears an interior War Department broad-arrow mark and a “1945” date. Mounted to the front are Montgomery’s distinctive paired insignia: the silver-colored Royal Tank Regiment badge, depicting a tank within a laurel wreath beneath a crown and bearing the motto “FEAR NAUGHT,” and his embroidered General Officer’s badge, featuring crossed batons within a wreath surmounted by a crown. Included with the hat is a handwritten presentation note by Montgomery, executed in ink on an 8.75 x 4 “Deputy Supreme Commander / Allied Powers Europe / Paris - France” envelope, which reads: “This beret was worn by me in the campaign in Germany in 1945. I now present it to B. Altman & Co as a small token of my admiration and high regard. Montgomery of Alamein F.M., January 1956.” The envelope is displayed in an acrylic holder. In overall fine condition.
Includes a modern photographic print of Montgomery of Alamein wearing a similar beret, included for illustrative purposes and not verified as depicting the beret offered here.
Accompanied by a display case and a letter of provenance from the son of the original recipient, who states that the beret was presented to his father by his boss, Mr. Burke, upon his retirement from B. Altman & Company in approximately 1986. A World War II Marine, his father spent his entire 43-year career with B. Altman, beginning as an elevator operator while attending Pratt Institute at night to earn his engineering degree and eventually becoming the company’s chief engineer. The consignor recalls that his father was an immensely proud Marine and American who treasured the beret, and that the gift “meant more to him than words could describe.”
Few pieces of military dress became as closely identified with a single commander as Montgomery’s black, double-badged beret. Like Napoleon’s bicorne, MacArthur’s peaked cap, or Moshe Dayan’s eye patch, it became an instantly recognizable visual signature of the man who wore it. Montgomery adopted the black beret of the Royal Tank Regiment while commanding the Eighth Army in North Africa in 1942, adding his General Officer’s badge alongside the regiment’s tank badge. He quickly recognized its value on the battlefield, later recalling that the distinctive beret allowed his troops to recognize his presence. ‘It became, if you like, my signature,’ Montgomery wrote in his memoirs. He continued wearing the double-badged black beret through the campaigns that followed, and images of Montgomery in North Africa, Normandy, and across Europe made it inseparable from his wartime identity.
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