Ww2 Chaplain Assistant M1 helmet

[644td]

 

As most of you know I’ve narrowed my collecting down to mainly Chaplain helmets. I’ve amassed a decent collection of said helmets but I recently purchased a M1 helmet and it is possibly one of the hardest helmets to come by in my field of collecting.
The helmet is pretty common, it’s a front seam fixed loop McCord with stainless steel rim. The helmet has the tack weld marks by the loops. The helmet as a early raised rim brass buckle with a flat J hook on the other side. The helmet has a stress crack which is common with earlier helmets. The heat stamp is 334B. The soldiers named and service number is written inside the helmet.
The liner is a common Westinghouse with a broken green buckle leather chinstrap. His name in written on the inside of the liner and on the outside.
The helmet belonged to a Chaplain’s assistant. I know that’s exciting(sarcasm) but for me it’s a rare sight because most were not ID’ed or were reissued and never made it back to the states.
The helmet is named to Ralph Monroe Williams who served in the ETO

[manayunkman]

Congrats on this find.

[Usmc2004]

Nice one Marty! 

[whitecap]

Fantastic set

[Nickman983]

Congrats Marty! Have you been able to find out much about his service or not yet?

[644td]

3 hours ago, manayunkman said:

Congrats on this find.

 

2 hours ago, Usmc2004 said:

Nice one Marty! 

 

2 hours ago, whitecap said:

Fantastic set

Thank you guys

[644td]

1 hour ago, Nickman983 said:

Congrats Marty! Have you been able to find out much about his service or not yet?

Nick, 

the research beings but I’ve hit a lot of road blocks on the free side of the research. 
He was a retired school teacher and I’ve reached out to the school in hopes of a picture from a Veterans Day event that he may have Submitted a photo and bio. 

[Nickman983]

24 minutes ago, 644td said:

Nick, 

the research beings but I’ve hit a lot of road blocks on the free side of the research. 
He was a retired school teacher and I’ve reached out to the school in hopes of a picture from a Veterans Day event that he may have Submitted a photo and bio. 

I know how that goes unfortunately.

 

I just signed up for a free trial of fold3 to try to do some research on a helmet I recently picked up so I did a quick look to see what info I could find on Mr. Williams behind the paywall. It's probably not a ton of help but it looks like this his draft registration card.

 

Hope your lead with the school gets you some more info!

Williams, Ralph Monroe - Page 1.pdf

[644td]

43 minutes ago, Nickman983 said:

I know how that goes unfortunately.

 

I just signed up for a free trial of fold3 to try to do some research on a helmet I recently picked up so I did a quick look to see what info I could find on Mr. Williams behind the paywall. It's probably not a ton of help but it looks like this his draft registration card.

 

Hope your lead with the school gets you some more info!

Williams, Ralph Monroe - Page 1.pdf 348.78 kB · 2 downloads

Thank you for the draft card.

What’s so crazy is am a member of fold3 and I found everything but his draft card. 😂 

the thing about fold3 or any site like that’s new information is being added and I’ve gone back 6 months to a year later and found new information on vets. Another thing is just like Google it’s how you word it or key information added to your description.

 

thank you again,

Marty 

[Bugme]

Everyone tends to look at the Chaplain Assistant as the glorified altar boy to the Chaplain. However, this was not the case. While their job was to help the Chaplain with everything involving the Chaplain duties, the primary task of the Chaplain Assistant was that of the body guard, since Chaplains were officially, non-combatants.

 

An ID'd CA's helmet is about as rare as they get. Great helmet Marty!

[644td]

Thank you Scott and thank you Steve for allowing me to add it to my collection.

[CavalryCombatant]

That’s a killer lid Marty, congratulations!

[644td]

22 hours ago, CavalryCombatant said:

That’s a killer lid Marty, congratulations!

Thank you