My M1 Helmets

[militariacollector]

Here are my 2 WWII era M1 helmets that are in my collection.

 

The first was purchased about 5 years ago at a nearby gun show. It is a fixed bail, front seam helmet. I bought it with the liner, which is a late war model. I believe that this helmet was post-war used and the chinstraps may be reproductions or unissued (and later sewn on). I'll explain my reasoning in a minute. I also think the liner chinstrap might be a repro as well.

 

 

The shells is in good condition with the usual paint chipping on the rim and a couple small dents. Chinstraps were attached with white thread and are khaki. They seem to be in very nice condition which leads me to believe that they aren't original to the helmet.

The inside of the shell is marked with the names of 3 users. 2 names are in black marker and one is in pen.

 

 

I hope someone can answer my first question, seeing how we have a few ex-army members here. Post-war, how did American soldiers mark their equipment? This helmet as well as my other one (used post-war) has the last name as well as 3 numbers (which I believe are part of their Serial Number). If American soldiers did not mark their equipment in this way, I believe that these helmets were purchased by the Canadian Government post-war and used by the Canadian army. If someone can confirm this, that would be great.

 

The liner is late war and the adjustable headband is dated 1945. The leather chinstrap is mint, which suggests it's probably a repro. The buckle is green.

 

 

 

 

 

I'm not familiar with the liner markings. In the center is P2 enclosed in a circle (see pictures). Faintly visible are the remnants of a rectangular shaped marking enclosing the circle. To the side of that is a number (60127 are the only visible digits) and closer to the front is another marking (see below picture). Does anyone know what these are?

 

 

 

 

Thats all for the first helmet. If anyone has any questions or wants more pictures, please don't hesitate to ask.

[militariacollector]

Helmet 2

 

This helmet was purchased last week at a flea market. I posted a couple weeks ago about fixed bail helmets being used post-war. I bought this from the same vendor, except they only had this one at the flea market. I'm going this Friday to their shop and I'm going to try and pick up as many fixed bail or WWII issue helmets as I can find.

 

Anyways, back to the helmet. When I walked up to the helmet, this is what I saw.

 

 

 

Nothing exciting, they usually have post war helmets and it isn't my field of interest. Once I picked it up I could see that the liner was post war, but the buckles were fixed. That caught my eye. I lifted up the helmet cover and saw it was a front seam. I asked how much it was and promptly handed over the $25.

Once I got back to my vehicle I took off the cover and to my delight, it still had its original coat of paint on. The one I had previously saw at his store had been repainted.

 

 

I took the liner out and the previous owner had gone to town with a black marker. I do not know if this was done during their service because I really don't know how he could have gotten away with it.

 

 

 

The Canada flag on the side was also a clue that the helmet may have been sold to the Canadians, or the other possibility was that the owner was just Canadian.

 

He had also taken the black marker to the inside which was a pity, and there are the names of at least 6 previous owners.

Note: the names on the covers don't match those on the helmet, so it may have just been added for sale.

 

 

On one side of the helmet are numbers or letters that were painted some time ago in yellow paint. I can't read them clearly but if anyone knows what they are for, please tell me. Also on the front it looks like there was a yellow square

Side:

Front:

 

More pictures:

I realized today that with the ring attached to the chinstrap, it makes it much easier to quickly undo the strap. I'm assuming that this is what it is for.

 

 

[militariacollector]

2 more pictures:

 

 

[peter]

Both shells are nice fixed bailed which is typical for WW2 shells, however: the chinstraps on the first shell are later added. That doesn't mean these are not original, just later additions. The liner which came with the first helmet looks like a Dutch M52 liner, which are very simular to the US liners. The leather chinstrap, however, is a reproduction.

 

The second helmet has chinstraps of 1970's -'80's vintage attached to it but he shell is also a nice one! Too bad for the marker drawings on it... Nice helmets, though!

[militariacollector]

Thanks for the help Peter. I picked up 2 more this past week and I'll get around posting them later.

 

Anyone have any idea of the yellow numbers on the side?

[Bob Hudson]

If there marks inside the helmet are indeed those of soldiers who used it, then there's nothing wrong with leaving those in there; they are a part of its history.

 

If you do want to removed, get some Goo Gone (one of those orange citrus based cleaners) and some of those green 3M scrubbing pads used for washing pots and pans. Saturate the pad with Goo Gone, then spray the inside of the helmet, and then start scrubbing a circular pattern, starting with a light amount of pressure and increasing it only until the black writing starts to come off. I have used this with success many times, including once when someone wrote "US GAS MASK" with marker on a WWII German gas mask can. They actually wrote that over the hand painted German soldier's serial number but I was able to remove the marker pen writing without harming any of the underplying original paint.

 

As for US helmet markings: in WWII they would have used the initial of their last name and the last four digits of their serial number so it would have looked like W2456.

[militariacollector]

Thanks for the help. As for the names, I'm going to leave them there, as you said, it's part of the helmet's history.

The serial numbers and names in black marker are those of Canadians. The helmets were sold to the Canadian Army and were sold to the surplus store where I bought them from.