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Thin Barracks Shoes and Great Hobnailed Hulks


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world war I nerd

Photo No. 26: This beautifully preserved pair of 1912 Russet Leather Shoes shows the original tan color of the calfskin before being darkened by either shoe dressing or neetsfoot oil. The contract stamp, displayed in the inset, shows the shoe to be Specification No. 1258, and that the contract was dated June 1918. Note that the khaki pull tab is still present.

 

Photos courtesy of the airborne53 collection

Olivier, if you read this post can you please post a side, front, back, and bottom view of this shoe, along with a clear photo of the markings inside?

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Photo No. 27: This pair of Army recruits photographed sometime in 1917 or early in 1918 are both wearing the 1912 Russet Leather Shoe. They also both have a first pattern U.S. made gasmask satchel, which was comprised of an American made bag and British style sling slung from the shoulder. Also of interest, is the two toned cartridge belt pocket flaps. This particular type of cartridge belt has been the subject of at least one thread elsewhere on the forum.

 

Photo courtesy of the John Adam-Graf collection

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Photo No. 28: This 1912 Russet Leather Shoe is one of a pair that was recently offered for sale by Advance Guard Militaria. I’m reasonably sure that this pattern of russet shoe belongs to one of the late war specification numbers. At top is the outside of the right shoe. Below that is the inside of the same shoe. The inset shows the only marking that was present on this shoe. The photo on the right shows the russet leather shoes worn with the longer “spat” type, 1916 Canvas Leggings. Also of interest is the obsolete 1903 belt hook on the bayonet scabbard.

Photos courtesy of the John Adam-Graf collection

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Photo No. 29: Each of these three late war recruits with long packs and “tin hats” are also wearing the 1912 Russet Leather Shoe and a mixture of both long and short canvas leggings.

 

Photo courtesy of the John Adam-Graf collection

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Photo No. 30: Front and the back of a pair of late pattern russet shoes without the pull strap.

 

Photos courtesy of the John Adam-Graf collection

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Photo No. 31: A side by side comparison of a mid-production 1912 Russet Leather Shoe and that of a late-production 1912 Russet Leather Shoe. Both shoes feature eight pairs of lacing eyelets, a cap toe, white cotton duck lining, and a single leather outer sole. The earlier shoe has a khaki pull strap, while the later shoe does not. Note, the left hand shoe is riding higher, due to the fact it has had a half sole nailed over the outer sole, and because it has some sort spinning disc screwed onto the heel, which allowed the wearer to more easily swivel or execute a turn on the heel. This device raised the height of the back of the shoe by approximately 3/8 of an inch.

 

Photos courtesy of the Carl Panak and the John Adam-Graf collections

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Photo No. 32: The most noticeable difference between an early shoe and a late show is at the back. Notice how the back-strap on the early shoe does not reach all the way to the top, while the back-strap on the late shoe does. This was likely done to prevent the exposed backstay seam from separating.

Photos courtesy of the Carl Panak and John Adam-Graf collections

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Photo No. 33: The soles of both the pre WW I 1912 Russet Leather Shoe and the russet shoe that was fabricated during the war remained essentially unchanged. Notice that a single row of nails line the entire outer edge of the heel, and that an additional half row of nails further protects only the outside edge of the heel from wear.

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Photo No. 34: The only identifiable difference in the front view of the early and later shoes is the absence of a pull strap on the late pattern shoes (right). This was likely due to a specification change abolishing the pull strap which was no longer needed to secure the short 1910 style Canvas Legging as it had been replaced by the longer 1916 style Canvas Leggings. The inset shows an alternate style of pull strap bearing the inscription “U.S. Army Shoes”.

 

Photos courtesy of the Carl Panak and John Adam-Graf collections

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Photo No 35: Initially the 1912 Russet Leather Shoe had seven pairs of brown enameled lacing eyelets for shoes up to size No. 7. All shoes size 7 ½ through size 12 required eight pairs of lacing eyelets. Because of the vast size disparity in the men that made up the American Army during WW I, by mid 1918 Army shoes were issued in 21 different lengths – size 5 through 14 by half sizes. There was no half size available for Size No. 15. Each length was also available in six different widths (B, C, D, E, EE, & EEE), making a total of 126 available sizes. Due to the increase in shoe sizes, the larger shoes needed an extra row, or nine pairs of lacing eyelets.

 

Each pair of russet shoes came with a pair of olive drab woven linen tubular shoe laces with metal tips. From top to bottom: This early pair of russet shoes, which is thought to be a prototype only has only six pairs of lacing eyelets. The center pair features eight pairs, and the bottom pair shows nine pairs.

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Major Munson estimated the life expectancy of the shoe he helped design to be as follows:

 

During ordinary campaign, under usual conditions of moisture and roughness of roads as found in this country, a pair of shoes may be expected to last about two months and be sufficient, with light repairs, for a journey of five to six hundred miles over ordinary terrain. But local conditions may vary materially modify and reduce this estimate. Rocks and sharp gravel rub away soles rapidly, particularly if wet; while continued wetting for a fortnight or so may cause the stitching to rot and the shoe to fall apart and become unserviceable.

 

The Soldier’s Foot and the Military Shoe, Edward Lyman Munson, 1912, page 141 – 147

During the two years since the russet shoe had been issued, in actual service the shoe was highly regarded by the enlisted men due to the fact that it fit properly, was lightweight, comfortable, and didn’t hurt their feet. The officers lauded the russet shoe because it was clean, neat, and could hold a polish. The War Department approved of the russet shoe because of its military appearance, and because it cut the number of shoe styles issued by the Army down from five to just two*, and the number of shoe lasts that were needed to fabricate the various military shoes down from as many as ten different lasts to just one.

*The 1904 Gymnasium shoe was the only regulation Army shoe to escape the 1914 Army shoe purge. It continued to be issued along with two pairs of russet shoes to all enlisted men until it too was abolished as an article of equipment sometime in 1918.

From 1912 to 1916, other than a few issues regarding the tanning method and composition of the shoe’s soles and heels, all parties involved were satisfied with the new Army shoe. It wasn’t until 1916, that the escalating trouble in Mexico tested the russet shoe’s durability in its role as a full time field shoe. While in Mexico, the arid climate and inhospitable terrain south of the border caused the russet shoe to literally fall apart. A member of the 10th Cavalry Regiment who had been scouring the mountains and deserts of Chihuahua, Mexico for Pancho Villa for just three weeks elaborated on this surprising turn of events:

 

Native beef and parched corn were the principal ration and for many days the men were without salt. They were in the mountains of Mexico following the hot trail of Mexican bandits. Men wore out their clothing and shoes and were obliged in many instances to use their shelter tents for patches and their stirrup hoods tied around their feet to keep from being absolutely barefoot.

 

1st Sergeant Vance Hunter Marchbanks, Troop C, 10th Cavalry Regiment, Punitive Expedition

The failure of the 1912 Russet Leather Shoe in its role as a field shoe led the Quartermaster Department (QTMD) to conclude:

 

That on account of the numerous complaints that the regulation shoe, while excellent in all other respects, was too light in construction and material, and consequently did not possess the necessary wearing qualities for service in the field.

 

The Annual Report of the Quartermaster General for the Fiscal Year Ended June 30, 1916, page 351

To rectify the situation, the QTMD hastily devise a more robust field shoe with a hobnailed sole. This shoe was designated the 1916 Heavy Marching Shoe. One quarter million pairs of the heavy marching shoe were manufactured and dispatched to Mexico in 1916. The 1916 Heavy Marching Shoe was not heard from again until America entered into the War to End all Wars.

 

Despite the Russet Leather Shoe’s poor performance as a field shoe in Mexico, the 1912 Russet Leather Shoe soldiered on. Two months after the Punitive Expedition was withdrawn from Mexico, the russet shoe was still the U.S. Army’s principal dress, garrison and field shoe. As such it was issued to almost every volunteer, recruit and conscript that swelled the ranks of the U.S. Army after Congress declared war on April 6, 1917. Further evidence of the 1912 Russet Shoes unsuitability as a field shoe surfaced, both at home and abroad during the bitter winter of 1917 – 1918. Stateside, on the muddy grounds of a temporary overflow camp called Camp Greenleaf, that was erected on the grounds of Ft. Oglethorpe, Georgia, one recruit noted the effects that the cold wet weather, the icy mud and the result of the men’s attempts to dry their shoes near the Sibley stoves in their squad tents had on the Army’s russet shoe:

 

Oglethorpe means mud, yellow clay mud, deep, viscous, interminable. It was not so bad that January morning for the ground was thawed only on top, but, even so, it was the worst mud most of us had ever seen. It stuck to the soles of our shoes, one layer after another, balling up our feet to the size of hams … The next day the ground was covered with icy slush. Our shoes – still the dress shoes we had been issued at Slocum* – were soaked through, the soles of which (through too close proximity to the stove when we tried to dry them evenings) were already in bad shape. Before we were issued our heavy trench shoes some of us were walking around with bare toes in the icy mud … Wonder of wonders! On that very day every man in the company was issued two pairs of new shoes, trench shoes and dress shoes.**How wonderful these great hobnailed hulks of rough leather seemed to us. Only Doc Carter, who wore, I believe thirteen’s, was disappointed. After standing in line nearly the whole of the afternoon, he learned that, although there were plenty of shoes, there were none large enough for him. “They ain’t got nuthin but boy’s sizes,” he complained.***

 

Private First Class Frederick A. Pootle, Evacuation Hospital No. 8, AEF

*Ft. Slocum occupied David’s Island at the western end of Long Island, New York from 1867 to 1965. During WW I over 140,000 recruits from New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and the New England states passed though that post.

 

**To differentiate between the three roles that the 1912 Russet Shoe played in the life of the average soldier, the men took to calling it a “dress” shoe when it was worn for formal occasions. They referred to it as a “barracks” or “garrison” shoe for ordinary day to day wear on the post. And when the shoe was oiled and worn in the field, the soldiers frequently called it a “marching” shoe. In addition, the fact that the same shoe was at various times called the russet, russet-tan, dress, barracks, garrison, “regulation” and “Munson last” shoe has certainly muddied the waters. This is partially why historians and collectors often assume that a number of different shoe styles were issued between 1912 and 1919 when in fact it was primarily just one shoe with far too many nicknames.

***Until sometime in early to mid 1918, size 12 was the largest size shoe that the Army stocked.

 

Overseas, at approximately the same time, the 42nd Division was ordered to shift from the Fifth Training Area near Vaucouleurs to the Seventh Training Area, some eighty miles distant for its advanced training. On December 31, 1917, in the midst of a blizzard, the men of the 42nd, many still shod in their well worn russet shoes set out. Over the next six days the men trudged between fifteen and twenty miles each day through deep snow. Despite being warned and admonished, at the end of each day’s march, the men persisted in drying their sodden shoes in front of an open fire with predictable results:

 

Of course the shoes in drying out at night would shrink and the next day many of them had to be cut to allow the entrance of the feet. Also, some of the men would hold their shoes too close to the fire and burn the leather, causing the soles to become loose and drop off later during the march. Two days out the regiment had a large number of men practically barefoot.

 

Alabama’s Own in France, 1919, William H. Amerine, page 83

Midway through what would later be called “The Valley Forge Hike”, the Chaplain of the “Fighting 69th” couldn’t help but notice that the:

 

Men hiked with frozen feet, with shoes so broken that their feet were in the snow; many could be seen in wooden sabots or with their feet wrapped in burlap.

 

Chaplain Francis Duffy, 165th Infantry Regiment, 42nd Division, AEF

Despite the hardships, the men arrived at their destination in near freezing weather with their shoes in tatters or entirely absent, singing of all things – In the Good Ole Summertime. Badly in need of replacement footwear, and with hardly a spare American shoe to be found in Europe, the 42nd Division’s replacement shoes would arrive in the form of English made hobnailed field shoes.

 

Photo No. 36: This French “picture post card” shows members of the 165th Infantry Regiment, 42nd Division still wearing 1912 Russet Shoes in June of 1918. Note that each of the men is wearing a French style overseas cap, two of which appear to have brass regimental numbers affixed to the cap’s curtain.

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The 1912 Russet Shoe continued to be worn and issued in the AEF all the way up to the Armistice, and throughout the occupation of Germany. The russet shoe also occasionally turned up as a replacement shoe in the trenches. This was especially true during the final months of the war when the division and regimental supply trains had difficulty keeping up with the rapidly advancing infantrymen. This fact is attested to by the following diary entry that was penned during the autumn Meuse-Argonne offensive:

 

We ground on until about 10:00 and then Sgt. Pratha issued some shoes that had just come in to the battery; I got a pair of russet shoes out of it.

 

Captain Robert Joseph Casey, Battery A, 124th Artillery Regiment, 33rd Division, AEF

The 1912 Russet Shoes less than stellar service as a field shoe, first in Mexico, and later in France was summed up in a post WW I tome that devoted a number of its pages to the shoes and clothing worn by the U.S. Army during the first year of the Great War:

 

Though excellent in pattern, it proved short-lived when subjected to severe service in France. Similar complaints had been made in respect to the marching shoe* in 1916, when a large part of our Army was serving on the Mexican border.

 

Medical Department of the United States Army in the World War, Vol. VI, 1926, Weston P. Chamberlain, page 626

*Here the term “marching shoe”, has been incorrectly used to describe the 1912 Russet Leather Shoe. Prior to 1914 the field shoes that the U.S. Army issued had been categorized as marching shoes by the Quartermaster Department. In the above quote, because the context was in reference to the Russet Leather Shoe’s role as a field shoe, the writers chose to use the older and obsolete name of marching shoe.

 

For the most part the poor service provided during the winter of 1917 – 1918 led to the demise of the 1912 Russet Leather Shoe being issued, used or even thought of as a field shoe. It was replaced by the stouter and stronger hobnailed 1917 Field Shoe (Trench Shoe) as soon as that shoe was available. The 1912 Russet Shoe however, continued to be issued and worn as a garrison and dress shoe until a new russet service shoe, Specification No. 412-2-2, was adopted by the Army on April 15, 1919.

 

Photo No. 37: The 1912 Russet Leather Shoe shoes up often in 3rd Army and post war photographs of American Doughboys. In this photograph of men from the “Yankee Division”, each man has been issued a pair or russet shoes to replace his hobnails while awaiting their orders to sail home.

 

Photo courtesy of the John Adam-Graf collection

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Hello,

 

didn't have the time yet to read all the thread, but I can just say it's an amazing job ... I'll take some time this evening to read this virtual book B)

 

Regards, E

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After examining a number of post war photographs of Doughboys wearing what at first glance, appear be 1912 Russet Leather Shoes, I noticed that in many instances, they are in fact something different. Here are a few of irregularities I’ve discovered, along with some theories I’ve developed for what they might be.

 

Photo No. 38: If you look closely at the russet shoes worn by the seated Doughboy from the 32nd Infantry Division on the right, you will notice that just an inch or two in front of the heel, the sole of the shoe becomes noticeable thicker. This is because a half sole has been added to the shoe’s original outer sole. Half soles which were approximately 3/16 inch thick were frequently hammered over a worn out outer sole to extend the shoe’s life.

Photo courtesy of the John Adam-Graf collection

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Photo No. 39: The close up (left) of the shoe in question affords a better view of the “step” on the sole where the half sole begins. The opposite photo shows a half sole that has been applied to the bottom of a 1912 Russet Leather Shoe.

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Photo No. 40: Both of these soldiers sporting a 1st Army, Machine Gun, Anti-Aircraft SSI wear a variation of the russet shoe which incorporates lacing hooks at the top of the shoe. This type of russet shoe can be found gracing the feet of numerous Doughboys in post Armistice photographs. It is my belief that this style of russet shoe was purchased overseas in large quantities by the AEF and issued to the American soldiers who would soon be turning home.

 

Photo courtesy of the John Adam-Graf collection

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Photo No. 41: In this close up of the shoes from the above photo, the lacing hooks which begin after the fifth row of eyelets are plainly visible. It is possible that this type of russet leather shoe represents one of the later specification changes. I believe that this is unlikely because the U.S. Army abolished the use of lacing hooks on all regulation Army shoes back in 1904, because they were easily bent or broken, and because they caused the canvas leggings to prematurely wear out.

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Photo No. 42: The one thing on this pair of russet shoes that all but leaps off the photograph is the shoe’s unusually thick sole. Aside from what look to be a triple, as opposed a single sole, the russet shoes closely mirrors the appearance of the regulation Army russet shoe.

 

Photo courtesy of the John Adam-Graf collection

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Photo No. 43: However, I believe these shoes to be the British B2 Pattern Ankle Boot without hobnails. At upper left is a 1912 Russet Leather Shoe. Below that is a British B2 Ankle Boot. The overall appearance of the two shoe types is remarkably similar. Other that the sole’s thickness, the two obvious differences between the two is the pebbled texture on the British upper and the toe cap on the American shoe. These can be explained by the fact that British shoes were manufactured from both smooth and pebbled leather, and that a toe cap, or “toe case” as the English called it, was added to all British ankle boots in September of 1918. If you imagine a toe cap on the British shoe and compare it to the enlargement of one of the shoes from above, the two shoes would be remarkably similar. The lack of hobnails can be attributed to the fact that all British field shoes were manufactured without hobnails. The hobnails were added at regiment or division level.

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Photo No. 44: The russet shoes in this photograph are clearly non-regulation. They appear to be either of British manufacture, privately purchased by the individual soldiers, or they were procured locally through official channels by the AEF.

 

Photo courtesy of the John Adam-Graf collection

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Photo No. 45: Notice that one pair of shoes from the above photo features lacing hooks while the other does not. The upper photograph is of a pair of British ankle boots that bear a striking resemblance to the left hand shoe. However, the British shoes are not an exact match for either of russet shoes worn by these two Doughboys.

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Photo No. 46: The russet shoes in the foreground of this photo, and in the inset, have very likely been privately purchased by the soldier, as they are noticeably more stylish and delicate that the regulation russet shoe. They also have far too many rows of lacing eyelets.

 

Photo courtesy of the John Adam-Graf collection

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Photo No. 47: The private purchase russet shoes from the above photograph compared to a similar, but not identical pair of commercially made non-military russet shoes.

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Photo No. 48: The heavy duty shoes worn by this Doughboy are a complete mystery to me. This is pure speculation, but they could be a pair of officer’s knee-high, lace front “Aviators Boots” that have been cut down. If you’ve ever laced up a pair of these boots, you’ll know why a soldier or officer would want to cut them down to a more manageable height!

 

Photo courtesy of the John Adam-Graf collection

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