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helmet cooking


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I opened this thread expecting it to be about techniques the fakers use to age their creations. Lots of exotic freshies showing up...especially medic helmets these days...that have that "baked" look.

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No photos of in use cooking, but I have a unit painted 3rd ID helmet (with matching hawely liner) that was obviously used to cook in...

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Burning Hazard

The only one I know of. It's actually a bit of a myth that the M1 was used for cooking, all that leaded paint would not be healthy when heated up.

 

Pat

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When I was in the army (Viet Nam era) it was beaten into our heads in basic that you never, ever use a helmet for cooking or put it in a fire for any reason. If you were caught doing so you would be paying for the helmet and facing disciplinary action for destroying government property. Cooking in it would not only burn off the chinstrap but also remove the temper from the steel making it useless. I don't imagine it was much different in WWII but there is always somebody that is going to do it anyway.

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I agree 100% with QED4. I spent 20+ years in the Army and never heard or saw an instance of it happening. We shaved out of them all the time, but never put the helmet itself over a heat source.

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We were also instructed to never cook in them. The heat ruins em.

Carried water in mine but thats it. Sat on it sometimes too. We also had food enough provided.

C rats MRES and hot chow so its not like you ever needed to cook in them. During the wars... they prob scrounged up an abondoned steel pot to cook in and not the one they wore.....

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Just for fun,

 

These are two photos from the November 1982 issue of SOLDIERS Magazine, this one I remember reading myself back then, in fact there were several copies in our Day Room, that I took one home with me when I ETSed a few weeks later, haven't had it in many years but was able to find a copy online to buy, as I got into collecting these from the 60s (Army Information Digest/Army Digest) and the 70s up till my time (Army Digest/Soldiers)

 

In it, the man in the photos, one M/Sgt Mike Mason, a Vietnam 1st Cav Div vet, presumably Infantry (Can't see pockets for CIB) currently serving at Headquarters United States Army patch here

 

Mason, clearly a long serving soldier, Reminisces on the soon to be replaced Steel Pot with the new Fritz, he claimed to have made popcorn in the helmet one time in Nam, also one time fresh beans, dried Navy Beans, soaked in water to make them soft then using C-Ration grease (grease from Pork Slices etc), plus bacon grease from the cooks or something, and cooked, both times using C-4 chunks from a claymore to heat helmet.

 

He also laments the fact that you can't dig hasty positions, or cop a squat on the new Fritz when Taking 10 :lol: .

 

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Never cooked in one, but I seem to recall shaving with one.

 

Of course, if you did that, then you had to clean it thoroughly. I got out of that habit and brought a shallow plastic tub to the field instead.

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There is a Boarding House Far Far Away.....Were they Serve Ham and Eggs Three Times a Day........O How Them Boarders yell
When They Hear the Dinner Bell.......They Give the Landlord Hell Three times a Day.

 

battleground.jpg

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thanks for all the replies, I have had ww2 vets tell me about boiling water in it to clean their socks , I was told from the same vets that they would steal from the cooks whatever was in the large cooking pots by dipping there helmets into it,

when I was in the Corps, we were threaten with serve penalty about using the helmet for anything but to put on our grapes.

 

semper fi

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  • 4 weeks later...
  • 2 weeks later...

I had a front seam swivel bail back when I was young that had very clearly been cooked in. There was soot and fire damage to the paint. One of the bails has been broken off, so perhaps someone kept a spare beater to cook in, but there is no doubt that had sat on a fire or in coals. All the damage was on the dome, not the rim, so it had been sitting upside down.

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I had a front seam swivel bail back when I was young that had very clearly been cooked in. There was soot and fire damage to the paint. One of the bails has been broken off, so perhaps someone kept a spare beater to cook in, but there is no doubt that had sat on a fire or in coals. All the damage was on the dome, not the rim, so it had been sitting upside down.

Could be too a kid had it before you camping in their backyard? Or the boyscouts etc etc. Personally when I was in.... We had plenty of food and even if we didnt... I never wanted any food or crud like that in my helmet. Besides being instructed many times over to never cook in it...... I never wanted to mess mine up.

And cooking in it would definately trash it so, I would guess it happened.. Im certain it did..... But I am guessing, rarely with the one you were wearing. I could see cooking in a picked up discarded pot, ours or theirs but not the one I have to wear. Not the one you are counting on to deflect shrapnel or a bullet.

Besides, lead paint residue in the food prob not too good for ya.

Besdies the messy grease that would be left over... etc etc etc ...

the heat ruins the steels hardness.

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I had a front seam swivel bail back when I was young that had very clearly been cooked in. There was soot and fire damage to the paint. One of the bails has been broken off, so perhaps someone kept a spare beater to cook in, but there is no doubt that had sat on a fire or in coals. All the damage was on the dome, not the rim, so it had been sitting upside down.

 

Theres one piece of gear I remember a lot of folks cooking in, including me. And that was the canteen cup.

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I can’t speak to its history prior to my purchase in 1990 or so, but it was picked out from a pile of helmets at a flea market surplus dealer. I got it because it was the cheapest, as I was in elementary school, making money more important than condition. It’s possible I still have it, but I’ve not seen it in 10-15 years. I hate being the jerk that says “I’ve got one, but I can’t provide pics,” but here I am. I remember the dome having a number of minor dents, and the paint being a lighter green. I don’t recall there being any cork.

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  • 1 month later...
Cap Camouflage Pattern I

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Found this going through some files I had saved, stupidly I did not record where I found it. Christmas dinner in Vietnam, I believe the photo was taken by a soldier named Bana

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great photo thank you

 

in hollywood movies, i remember a seen that the marine some where in the PTO , was cooking and threw the helmet on with the food in it, old movie, i will one day remember and list it here.

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Those were very different times. Back then, children's toys, their cribs......everything was painted with lead based paints. No one gave it a second thought. Many people chain smoked. The danger of cooking in a painted helmet would not have crossed their minds.

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