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USMC Force Recon gloves 1969 - 70 era.


craig_pickrall
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Never seen these gloves before? I've checked some Recon Marines but nothing, Experimental item? Very interesting, something like the "Delta" mesh jungle boots?

Hope to learn more.

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craig_pickrall

The only thing I can tell you is they came from a retired full COL that was in Recon in 69. I do not wish to reveal his name.

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  • 8 months later...

Hi all,

Yes, these gloves were used in the 1st Recon Bn:

scanne10.jpg

But also by regular grunts of 4th Marines in 1969:

scanne11.jpg

If your gloves are for sale, please let me know thumbsup.gif

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Hi,

 

In october 29th 1965, following a July 15th 3rd Mar Div Forward request, III MAF G4 Division reported that individuals in sawgrass and dense underbrush consistently suffer from numerous hand cuts and infections. G4 Div reported that the request was made for issue, on an organizational basis, of gloves similar to those worn by naval aviators to combat and combat support units. G4 recommendations were to procure limited quantities of aviation gloves and other commercial types and forward to FMFPac for evaluation.

III MAF G4 in coordination with the Office of the Deputy Chief of Staff (RD&S) took the following action : procurement of test quantitiess of candidats items and promulgation of a project directive for their test and evaluation.

 

In april 1966, III MAF received samples of different types of gloves, furnished by the Marine Corps Landing Force Development Center. They were distributed to troop units for field test use in thick brush and elephant grass.

 

By the end of 1968, units received the new gloves, for exemple 2/5 Infantry received 850 lightweight tropical gloves in december 1968.

 

Have a nice week end

Semper Fi

Croc

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  • 2 weeks later...

I thought I'd add my 2-cents to the discussion (though it may only be worth a penny....or less crying.gif)

 

I was in 1st Recon from early 67-mid 68. I find the pictures of these gloves to be very interesting. Elephant grass was definitely a pain. When we walked through it we ended up with razor-thin slices all over our arms, hands, necks and faces, even on our lower legs as the damn stuff even had a knack of working into the seam between boot tops and bloused trousers....most unpleasant.

 

I will qualify my comment by saying that my observations are mostly limited to my company. We normally didn't encounter other Recon patrols in the bush unless we were swapping-out on one of the permanent OPs (and it was carefully planned that way). I did see other teams from B, C, and Force Company cammied up and in bush dress while we waited around the LZ our turn on the insert helos. I don't recall any gloves of this sort during my time in the Nam. Don't get me wrong; I'm not saying they didn't exist, I'm just saying that I didn't see any in Marine Recon in 67-68; certainly possible they showed up after I left; they may also have been issued selectively for field-testing.

 

That said, I don't remember our supply NCO mentioning anything about gloves like this in the supply chain......I wish we had them! The only gloves I remember were worn occasionally by the point man, then normally only when in thick brush such as the Elephant grass or the wait-a-minute vines. Those gloves were normally just basic rather heavy leather work-type gloves with an adjustment strap at the wrist to snug them up. They were the same gloves we wore for rappelling.

 

I would be curious as to who the Recon COL is.....only because I might know him. To me the gloves look like hot weather flight gloves. Now that 40 years have gone by I suppose it's OK to admit that we sometimes pilfered items from the helos on the way to the bush or while the flight crews were being briefed. Most desirable were the dehydrated rations normally kept in a box under the gunner's or crew chief's web seat, strobe lights (highly desirable, especially the ones with the blue filter), and the little 1-cell survival flashlights that were attached to the flotation vests. It's not impossible that some grunts or Reconners might have souvenired unattended flight gloves from a helo. It's also possible that these were more common in 3rd Division where they encountered much more of the Elephant grass and low brush orounf the Z (particularly the Grunts) than we did in the Danang and Chu Lai AORs.

 

Sorry......I wish I could add something useful from personal experience but can't add anything more to the discussion about these gloves.

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Forgot to add to my earlier post.......I might be mistaken but I would hazard a guess that the picture of the 1st Recon patrol would have been taken post 1968 (perhaps very late 1968). I say that only based on the fact that most/all of them are wearing the camouflaged jungle utilities. These utilities were not available in any numbers during 1967 or at least until after my departure in mid-68. l think I mentioned in an earlier post on another topic that these were not readily available in our supply chain in 1967 and the first part of 1968. Our best source during at least early 1968 was the Air Force SPs at Danang Airbase. We would trade captured weapons to them for various sizes of these.

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The only thing I can tell you is they came from a retired full COL that was in Recon in 69. I do not wish to reveal his name.

 

I just noted that, in the second sentence of this post you indicated you don't want to identify the Colonel. I didn't notice it earlier. I tried to go back and edit out my question about his ID but could no longer edit it by that time.

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craig_pickrall

There is certainly no harm in asking but at his request I am not revealing his name. Thanks for the additional details of RECON uniforms and gear during this time period.

 

The only avaition type glove I'm familiar with is the NOMEX type with long wristlet. That didn't have any mesh. Because of the fire hazard I didn't think an aviation unit would wear a nylon glove especially with a mesh pattern.

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There is certainly no harm in asking but at his request I am not revealing his name. Thanks for the additional details of RECON uniforms and gear during this time period.

 

The only avaition type glove I'm familiar with is the NOMEX type with long wristlet. That didn't have any mesh. Because of the fire hazard I didn't think an aviation unit would wear a nylon glove especially with a mesh pattern.

 

I know the type of gloves you're talking about. I have 2-3 pairs of unworn ones in my A-bag that were issued to me when I was flying. However, I don't know if they had Nomex flight suits, gloves, etc in 1967-68. Since I never wore any gloves in the field, even when running point, I never had a need to personally liberate any flight gloves, so can't say specifically what the pilot's gloves looked like though I seem to remember some of the gunners who rode in the back with us Recon Marines wore thin brown leather gloves (my memory is admittedly 40 years old on a subject I gave little attention to at the time). I seem to remember the flight suits were sort of a light tanish-green color that really didn't look like the more recent Nomex material like the ones in my A-bag.

 

I was only speculating on the fact they might have been warm-weather flight gloves due to the fact the cut of the glove (leather/cloth) was identical to the later nomex flight gloves. As I said in my earlier post(s), I'd never seen gloves exactly like these during my tour in Nam.

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  • 15 years later...
dave grunt

I was issued a pair of these " jungle gloves " as we called them. I think it was jun-jul 69. "A" 1/7 1st Mar Div. They really helped with the elephant grass. No one ever knew what I was talking about. Anybody has a pair for sale please contact me.

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