ID'd Gas Mask - recent acquisition

[speeder3]

Hello all-

 

My family and I attended the recent antiques and collectibles show in Portland, Oregon and I was pleasantly surprised to see quite a lot of milsurp stuff for sale. There was a lot of really nice stuff available and I managed to pick up a few items for my collection.

 

I got this really nice gas mask kit to display in my "trench room". The only item missing is the small canister of anti-dimming compound. This unit has the yellow canister. The hose and mouth piece are in really good shape, and the nose clip is complete. As you can see it's a size 2 which is really small! I recently read that the average size of a WW1 soldier on the front line was 132 lbs. so I can see the need for small masks. As you can see, it's ID'd to a Corporal E.N. McKee (#298406), assigned to him on September 2, 1918. Interestingly, Cpl. McKee altered what appears to be a previous soldier's initials, "O.M.J." (#298294). Any further information about either of these gentlemen would be much appreciated.

 

Thanks for looking.

 

Brian

 

 

[bellasilva]

Very cool. Both men served in the Coast Artillery Corps. Ole M. Johnson's passenger list shows him with the 65th Coast Artillery Corps, but Everett McKee's does not specify which unit, although I'm willing to bet it was also the 65th.

[speeder3]

I appreciate the quick response, bellasilva. Thank you for that info. So from what I can find via Google, the 65th CAC was a training regiment organized on Jan. 1, 1918 at Ft. Rosecrans, in California. It was then demobilized on Feb. 28, 1919 at Camp Lewis, WA (not far from my home), which would explain the mask's existence here in the Pacific Northwest. The lack of dates entered on the mask's Form A1 would indicate that it most likely did not leave the U.S.

 

Brian