Paratrooper Helmets/liner D-day

[helmetman54]

Hello

 

I have a question. I was thinking about D-day and the helmets used by paratroopers, and came up with a few questions.

1) Were most of the helmets used by paratroopers-Dbales? Did they just use standard M1's? Modified?? M1 C's were made after Dday, ??correct?

2) Were liners both factory made and rigger made? I was told that there were many rigger made liners in England before the landings..

 

Just curious…

Thanks HM54

[Av8er]

The Dead Man’s Corner Museum in Normandy has one of the most extensive Airborne in Normandy collections in the world. It is a constantly expanding collection. A close examination of the Airborne used M1 helmets on display show very few with D-bales, and most of the D-bales have been repaired, normally by brazing. A surprising number of the Airborne D-Day helmets on display are standard issue welded square bales. Some have Airborne chinstraps with the liner snaps, but a number of them are just standard welded square bales with the normal factory issue chinstraps. This is consistent with the D-Day used Airborne helmets that I saw at every museum in Normandy. Most of the helmets are identified to the specific soldier who wore it on D-Day, many of them were KIA, so the helmets are battlefield pickups that did not see service through the other European campaigns.

[ken88]

Here is rock solid evidence that not every paratrooper had an M2 helmet on D-day.

 

Some fixed loop M-1 types were coupled with Inland or other early low pressure airborne infantry liners, the set was then held together in a creative fashion, using tape, helmet nets, and or the liner's chin strap pulled over the helmet shell (I still have no idea of how they did this as the straps are too short to do this, but I'm guessing they extended them with wire on the inside).

 

 

Edit: to answer your questions:

There's no such thing as a rigger made D-day helmet liner. Don't be fooled by that, all paratroopers jumped with factory converted Hawley, Saint-Clair and Inland airborne infantry liners on D-day.

M-1C airborne helmets were never used on D-day, not even the front seam type. There has been a lot of debate on when the M-1c type was first used, they could have been issued for the Varsity jump in smaller numbers, they're a late war thing in any case. Production of these started after D-day, around October 1944.

[Easy502]

Westinghouse airborne liners were also used on D-Day, and the M1C airborne helmet arrived in ETO in August 1945, so it was never used during the war.

[helmetman54]

Thank you.

HM54

[helmetman54]

I have been thinking about this for the last few days. The so called "Rigger made" liners have me thinking....

During WW2 there was a shortage of Para liners and helmets... That would seem to be a good reason for the Rigger made liners, etc. Later after the war, the demand for jump liner/helmets should have been much less, and assuming the westinghouse factory put out a few at the end of the war, should have been able to meet demand... So with that all bbeing said, wouldn't it make sense that the modified liners were made during high demand... hence WW2??

Just my thoughts... I know there is no evidence to back this up, but does not this make some sense???

HM54

[Justin]

Rigger liners are not correct for WWII, period.

 

The theory is that rigger liners were made for the pending invasion of Japan which did not take place, which is most likely why you see so many rigger liners in Korean war era airborne helmets.

[helmetman54]

Justin

That is exactly what I am saying. Possibly not for D-day, but for the Japanese invasion. This would still indicate that they were made /modified during WW2.

HM54

[Pegasus6]

Shortages of liners also continued through Varsity and also included glider born troops. There is a great picture from Varsity, I say great as in the photographic evidence wise, but it is a FB with ABN Liner that is being inspected due to its being partially crushed during the crash of a glider... As far as post War/japan is concerned different supply chains also matter. There is a great photo of a group of Marines on Iwo Jima, and you can see the A-yokes hanging down from one of the devil dogs liners. The thought being there that within the USMC supply chain, the paramarines had already been disbanded so the ABN liners were issued just like regular liners; keeping in mind the NAVY had already procured/paid for those, the Army wouldnt get its hands on; outside of the Army supply chain system. Just some thoughts.

 

I was also tracking D-Day time period including early Westinghouse abn liners included in the mixture of earlier produced as mentioned above.

 

VR

Peg6

[Easy502]

Early Westinghouse abn liner used on D-Day is much more rarer than a Inland abn one !!

[ken88]

Yes, you'd almost forget about those D-day Westinghouse liners since they are that rare. They seem to have erroneous female chin strap sockets, larger in diameter compared to the sockets on other airborne infantry liners. The only one I've ever seen is described in American Paratrooper Helmets by Michel De Trez.