Field jacket made from Mitchell pattern tent ----------

[General Apathy]

 

Hi Forum Members & Readers, I only ever collected up till 1945 but when the odd post war interesting piece appeared then I took that as well.

 

This is a field jacket made from a camouflage tent, I gather it is the Mitchell pattern of camouflage other than that I can't particularly date the jacket or sadly the wearer.

 

It has internal pockets that have been recovered from some other U.S. Army jacket possibly a parka, inside the sleeve cuffs are pieces of velcro again possibly roughly cut from a parka. Under the rear collar is a full length zip however there is no hood present. Some of the stitching is pretty good and other sections of it a little wobbly in line.

 

I would appreciate any comments you have regarding it's possible date line and usage. :thumbsup:

 

Cheers Lewis

[General Apathy]

 

Cont..............

 

The rear.

 

Cheers Lewis

[General Apathy]

 

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The shoulder loop with remains of cotton from removal of insignia, there are cotton threads on both side of the chest above the pockets .

 

Cheers Lewis

[General Apathy]

 

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The inside.

 

Cheers Lewis

[General Apathy]

 

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Inside pocket detail.

 

Cheers Lewis

[Sabrejet]

This is certainly a wierd and wonderful creation Ken..possibly even a one off?! Thanks for sharing.

 

Ian :think:

[son of desertrat]

I REALLY like it!

[vintageproductions]

There are a couple of threads here on the forum about these jackets. Some were made and tested on Okinawa while others were made for the civilian market.

[ABrangerjoe]

I like it too, wish I had one.

-Joe

[Justin]

I can't tell you anything about it, but it's freakin' awesome. :drool2:

[General Apathy]

There are a couple of threads here on the forum about these jackets. Some were made and tested on Okinawa while others were made for the civilian market.

 

 

Thanks, I have tried 15 to 20 different searches based on Mitchell / jacket / camo and all variations of that and so far all I have come up with are helmets covers. :think:

 

Will have another attempt when I have the time

 

Cheers Lewis

[vintageproductions]

Here is one of the threads

 

http://www.usmilitariaforum.com/forums/ind...hl=experimental

[General Apathy]

Hi Ian, son of desertrat, Joe and Justin,

 

Thanks for your interest and enjoyment of the jacket.

 

Cheers Lewis

[General Apathy]

Here is one of the threads

 

http://www.usmilitariaforum.com/forums/ind...hl=experimental

 

Thanks for the link :thumbsup: , never thought about using ' experimental ' would never have found it with the key words I was using.

 

Quite a bit to read on the link.

 

Cheers Lewis

[B229]

A very interesting jacket. This is the first of these I've ever seen that actually had insignia sewn on it. Officer's rank on the shoulder loops and tapes above the pockets. Any evidence of SSI on the shoulder? Your jacket is also unlined and appears to use the reversible fabric from an actual shelter half. Perhaps this one is tailor made from your description.

 

The majority of these jackets I've handled were commercially produced copies of the M-65 field coat, possibly made by a government contractor, such as Alpha Industries and use standard US style labels or very similar labels. They are lined and are not made from the shelter half fabric. These are examples shown in the other thread. I have never seen any evidence that these were ever experimental, test, etc. Alpha made an ERDL M-65 in the 1970's that was a commerical item, but was identical to the government contract coats they were making for the DoD.

[Sabrejet]

Ken..just a thought. Could yours be a commercial example, as described above, which has had its lining removed to reveal the brown-side camo...hence the exposed pocket linings and lack of a hood/label etc? (Not much point in sewing a zipper into the collar if there was never going to be a hood!)

 

Ian :think:

[General Apathy]

 

 

A very interesting jacket. This is the first of these I've ever seen that actually had insignia sewn on it. Officer's rank on the shoulder loops and tapes above the pockets. Any evidence of SSI on the shoulder? Your jacket is also unlined and appears to use the reversible fabric from an actual shelter half. Perhaps this one is tailor made from your description.

 

The majority of these jackets I've handled were commercially produced copies of the M-65 field coat, possibly made by a government contractor, such as Alpha Industries and use standard US style labels or very similar labels. They are lined and are not made from the shelter half fabric. These are examples shown in the other thread. I have never seen any evidence that these were ever experimental, test, etc. Alpha made an ERDL M-65 in the 1970's that was a commerical item, but was identical to the government contract coats they were making for the DoD.

 

Hi B229, Thanks for your addition into this post, as I mentioned in my first post this is outside of my usual era of collecting but I recognised that it was interesting at the time that I bought it, it's sat in a box for the last twenty years and only came out to add to the forum this week.

 

I did a quick look over it and saw the threads of cotton on the shoulder loops and on the chest, also inside the sleeves, however it was only just reading your comments about being the first one that you have seen with any evidence of attached insignia. So looking at it again I could see that there is fading on both sleeves externally and the left sleeve appears to be a normal full size 1st Cav patch ???, the right sleeve appears to be a similar shape to a Cav patch but half that size.

 

The jacket is definitely shelter tent material and as I trained to be a tailor on leaving school then I can see that this is a one off manufacture and not commercial made, it is as I describe tenet material and has never been lined. The pockets I suspect are take-outs from a field parka I wore one of these as a teenager with a scooter, inside the sleeve cuffs are squares of Velcro surrounded by roughly hacked material from the donor jacket.

 

The left sleeve 1st Can patch photo's are shown above and the patch shape and the material fade can be seen, two photo's of the right sleeve are in the following post.

 

Look forward to any possible comments that you might have, thanks :thumbsup:

 

Cheers Lewis

 

 

 

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Reason for edit, corrected text from left to tight sleeve

[General Apathy]

 

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Two shots of the patched area on the right sleeve, I have no knowledge of what this patch might have been. :think:

 

Cheers Lewis

[B229]

Two shots of the patched area on the right sleeve, I have no knowledge of what this patch might have been. :think:

 

Cheers Lewis[/font]

 

Thanks for the updates and the photos...this gets even more interesting. Obviously 1st Cav on the left. Right could be a lot of things if it's sheild shaped: USARV, MACV, etc. I agree that it looks like yours have components taken from a parka and/or field coat and used to make this coat. This is the first example I have seen that isn't a commercially produced coat...and I've seen a number of these. Very nice.

[General Apathy]

 

Thanks for the updates and the photos...this gets even more interesting. Obviously 1st Cav on the left. Right could be a lot of things if it's sheild shaped: USARV, MACV, etc. I agree that it looks like yours have components taken from a parka and/or field coat and used to make this coat. This is the first example I have seen that isn't a commercially produced coat...and I've seen a number of these. Very nice.

 

Hi B229, thanks again for your fresh toughts on the jacket now that you have seen the patched areas, do you have any thoughts regarding the patches would they have been regular colored or subdued.

 

Attached above is the photo of the hacked off donor square of velcro sewn into the sleeve cuff.

 

Having viewed the jacket and some of it's construction would you consider that this would have been a Nam tailoring sweatshop that put this together.

 

Cheers Lewis

[B229]

Hi B229, thanks again for your fresh toughts on the jacket now that you have seen the patched areas, do you have any thoughts regarding the patches would they have been regular colored or subdued.

 

Attached above is the photo of the hacked off donor square of velcro sewn into the sleeve cuff.

 

Having viewed the jacket and some of it's construction would you consider that this would have been a Nam tailoring sweatshop that put this together.

 

Cheers Lewis

 

That looks like it was cut from the same location on the cuff of a standard M-65 field coat. No way to know for certain where this thing was made, but Vietnam is certainly a good possibility. Could also have been Japan or Okinawa. Also no way to know on the insignia, but I'd guess it was probably subdued. It would certainly look better with subdued insignia!