WWII USN airman survival vest

[Gregory]

Hello,

 

As the lovers of WWII military aviation know there was the USAAF's flight gear called "C-1 Vest, Emergency Sustenance" which was practical survival vest in order to be a little closer to modern terminology.

 

My question for the flight gear focused colleagues would be the following: Did the US Navy's BuAer take into consideration to equip naval aviators with similar survival vest or to adapt USAAF's pattern for them? If my memory serves me right I have never seen WWII USN/USMC airman with such a vest.

 

Thanks in advance for your comments.

 

Best regards

 

Greg

[sgtbrown]

To the best of my knowledge, the Navy did not use the C-1 vest until after WWII. I do have a photo of a Korean War Corsair pilot wearing one.

 

A little-known fact is AAF pilots found them to be a problem when worn under the life vest and chute harness. An instruction sheet was put out showing how to take a musette bag and rig it to attach to the chute harness for carrying the vest till the pilot was on the ground.

 

Tom

 

Please note the log of my being wrong is 2" thick and I am on Volume #4!

[Gregory]

Tom, thank you very much.

[dustin]

Gregory, the buaer did experiment with an idea of a survival vest with early considerations and testing with the C-1 vest in 1944 with losing interest rather quickly then toying again with the idea late 1945 made of mesh material but never made it past testing but an adopted vest was presented in the early 1950's.

My opinion would be that it is highly likey some USN/USMC aviatiors used the C-1 vest on a very limited scale though and could not be ruled out as there was alot of contact between units stationed near each other.

I have spent many years researching the development and research of rescue equipment by the buaer and I can see why they did not really take the idea of the vest seriously.

First the vest (C-1) adopted by the AAF was a forward step for them over the previous seat and back type kits but a lateral or backward step for the Buaer the reason is the buaer had in service the M-592 back pad kit.Now we have to go back a little bit and take a look at a few things.

All life rafts used by the buaer had what they called the "compliment of emergency equipment" which included signal devices ,rations ,fishing kits,first aid etc..and upon the adoption of the parachute type one man raft they had to drop the compliment of emergency equipment to reduce bulk so to supplement this the buaer developed the back pad kit to carry the compliment of emergency equipment and to be used in conjunction with the parachute type raft.Quickly they found that all this was bulky and by early 1943 they began to try and combine the back pad kit and raft kit into one kit that could be sat on ultimately leading into the develoment of the PK-1 pararaft kit.The back pad kit condensed everything on the back adding weight and bulk ,a vest would retain the wieght and bulk but just distribute the components around the body not really accomplishing anything.This can be seen by future reports from the AAF. Weight and bulk were the primary concerns for individual equipment development.Technology at the time did not allow for the desirable result a vest might provide.In 1944 the idea of a vest was not a reality for the buaer but by the late and early 1945 as technology was catching up items became more compact or streamlined allowing the idea of a light weight vest a new reality and also by lessons learned from combat what was truely important and what was not.The idea of "rescue" or "survival" equipment was in it's infantsy and a whole new area during WWII ultimately packaging was the key in future rescue equipment.The C-1 vest was the grandad of all future vest used by the air services into taday but not really practical during WWII.

[Gregory]

Dustin

 

Thank you very much for such detailed information. I am very thankful.

 

Best wishes

 

Greg

[sgtbrown]

I finally found the book with that photo. If you look, you can see the C-1 sticking out under his MkII life vest.

 

Tom

[sgtbrown]

Guess what bozo forgot to add the photo?

 

Tom