Who Here Knows Sumpin' 'Bout Helmets?

[Atticus]

I got these two helmets when I was a kid. The first, I bought at an Army Navy store in Wilmington, N.C. when I was eight or nine years old...that would be 1963 or 1964. I painted the crude butterbar on the front just after I bought it.

About the same time, a local trawler dragged the second one up from the bottom of the Atlantic and her captain gave it to me. I'm thinking it is a relic from the Battle of the Atlantic which was waged just offshore of Beaufort twenty years before. I remember when I got it, it was covered with marine growth, and the straps had completely rotted out of the liner. Being a kid, I just threw the liner away and kept the steel pot.

I think they are both M1s. I think they are both swivel bale. The navy one has a front seam and the army one has a rear seam...I think. Can anyone here tell me anything more about these two gems?

AF

 

[Clark J]

G man I think the first is Korean war...od straping,,War 2 is khaki.Not 100% sure but then I just came from a wedding,,,,,,,buzzed!!!!

 

[watchmanjimg]

Geoff:

Helmets of this design are all M1s, so no question there. Both are swivel bale (which was introduced by the middle of WW2), and while the front seam helmet is clearly of WW2 manufacture I'm not so sure about the other one. The rear seam helmets started appearing in late WW2 and are often encountered with the darker OD Shade 7 webbing. However, Clark was getting warmer with his Korea suggestion. The metal hardware used to attach the straps originated sometime after WW2 but I'm unsure of the exact date. A quick review of my Stanton Korean War reference shows numerous M1 helmets with the earlier sewn chinstraps but none with the metal clips. It's my understanding that the earlier clips were painted green. Are yours? Does the chinstrap's hardware show any markings at all? Some are marked with small anchors, for example. In any case it's not uncommon to see WW2- and Korean-era helmets retrofitted with the later straps and hardware and used during the Vietnam period and perhaps thereafter.

The paint and finish of your helmet offer additional clues. WW2 helmets were typically painted over a cork finish, while helmets produced by the Vietnam era had a finer "sand" texture. From your picture it appears that yours has the sand finish. Additionally, your helmet seems to have been repainted dark OD over a lighter shade. The lighter green with sand finish is typical of Vietnam-era helmets. Although I can't pinpoint the exact date of your helmet's manufacture, based on the foregoing I'd say it was probably only a few years old when you bought it (produced mid-'50s to early '60s).

The liner may not have been issued with this particular steel helmet so there's no telling if they're of similar vintage without closer inspection. If you look closely at the inner crown area you may be able to make out a manufacturer's mark and/or a date of manufacture. The liner is of a pattern produced from WW2 through about 1963 or 1964, but the OD7 webbing suggests Korea or later. The sweatband looks to be a WW2 vintage OD3 example.

I hope this helps, and let us know if you find any markings inside the liner.

 

[Atticus]

Hi Jim. The only thing I know for sure is that neither helmet is Vietnam era. They've both been in my possession since 1963 or 1964. The army helmet had been declared surplus sometime before then. And the navy helmet had rested on the bottom of the ocean for many years before I got it in the early sixties.

AF

 

[Atticus]

I just inspected the liner of the green helmet. In the top of crown is stamped the number "30". I can find no other markings on either the liner or the steel pot. Oh, and the metal hardware on the bales is painted green.

AF

 

[RCSignals]

As far as I know the metal attaching hardware of the straps to the outer helmet indicate replacement straps. In other words they aren't a good indicator of date of the actual helmet manufacture. Neither really is the paint as helmets did get refurbished and repainted, sometimes as a soldier project.

 

[watchmanjimg]

As far as I know the metal attaching hardware of the straps to the outer helmet indicate replacement straps. In other words they aren't a good indicator of date of the actual helmet manufacture. Neither really is the paint as helmets did get refurbished and repainted, sometimes as a soldier project.

The metal hardware on the straps does not necessarily indicate replacement straps as this was the only type of strap fitted to helmets manufactured after it was standardized, which was sometime in the 1950s. While it's true the steel helmet itself could have been manufactured during the latter part of WW2, as configured it would have been issued and used anytime from perhaps the mid-1950s until the day before Geoff bought it.

 

[Atticus]

As far as I know the metal attaching hardware of the straps to the outer helmet indicate replacement straps. In other words they aren't a good indicator of date of the actual helmet manufacture. Neither really is the paint as helmets did get refurbished and repainted, sometimes as a soldier project.

Also, I am confident that I put much more wear on the green helmet than did its original owner. Y'all have no idea how many beaches I stormed and how many machine gun nests I knocked out while wearing that old helmet. I remember getting killed in it, too. I got killed a lot, actually. Of course, when a kid got killed, he had to do a split-S into the ground and his helmet had to fly off and land in the dirt beside him....just like on Combat.

AF

 

[dmar836]

LOL. I'm a veteran of that campaign myself.

 

[Atticus]

Actually, this whole helmet thing started when I was recently cleaning out a closet in my childhood home and found a bunch of stuff I had when I was a kid. Here are a couple of other helmets I bought back in the sixties. One is a Nazi air raid warden’s helmet that I bought in London in 1968 or 1969. The other is a WWII, Canadian Mk II. I can't remember when I bought it.

BTW, I'm still looking for my high school M-51...adorned with its big "Student Target" patch...and my original Con Surfboards T-shirt with the psychedelic Con Butterfly on the back. I can't find a trace of either...but I did find a film canister, filled with curious small seeds, in the bottom of my old sock drawer. I'm thinking it may date back to when I wanted to be a farmer...before I wanted to be a lawyer.

AF

 

[Dr H]

Seeds might be almost as valuable as the fine helmets these days

 

[Atticus]

Seeds might be almost as valuable as the fine helmets these days

If those old seeds would still germinate after all this time, what grew would definitely be an heirloom variety of its species...which might be a good thing.

AF