the bottom left ribbon is an unofficial medal called the Washington, Lafayette, Wilson medal 1777 to 1917 to commemorate  the alliance to France.

As the title says, could do with a bit of assistance. Managed to snag this poorly looking M4A2 for a half decent price, unfortunately it is missing its ear flaps. Now I can imagine the flaps got ripped out for a reason, or they could of just got lost over time. The plan however is to recreate the flaps and the steel inserts.    Now for the questions, and what I could do with some assistance with. Short of purchasing a complete one; or leaving it as is and displaying it as a place filler for the earlier M4, I could do with Some measurements of the fabric flap outer bits. Also what the insert on the inside feels like, is it a one piece formed bit of Hadfield Manganese? Or is it rigid and build up of multiple parts.  If anyone could do drawing complete with some measurements and roughly an idea of the overall shape of the insert, I should be able to create a template.    Utter madness? Yeah maybe, it could be fun though and I enjoy making stuff.    I seem to remember seeing a few pictures of some C47 and glider pilots wearing these, and I'm sure one of them is actually an earlier M4 as the fabric area was also missing. If anyone knows of those images or has come across others, feel free to share.      

i accept your offer  need your address  best braxton

. A bunch of UK friends arrived here this morning    A group of six 1970's Triumph sports cars arrived here this morning for a tour of the area, one of the friends is a Jeep owner and he will be acting as an unofficial guide for them, we will be meeting up over the course of the next few days at several of the events here.    A photo of a British owned Jeep that was also on the same ferry as them.        Norman D. Landing, Forum Normandy Correspondent, 03 June  2O26.   ..        

. hi Kat,   I too live vicariously again through my days, weeks, years, making posts here on the forum . . . . . . . . pleased that you come onboard and read them.   Norman D. Landing, Forum Normandy Correspondent, 03 June  2O26.   ..    

. hi earlymb,   yes eighty year old originals wouldn't now survive the constant or regular movement of the gear stick and the transfer levers, if I had fitted them back when I bought them they weren't so old then, as wasn't the jeep OR ME . . . . . . . . . . . .  !!!!!  as I was telling Johan yesterday I have a bunch of original pressed steel Pal nuts that I never fitted to the chassis bolts as I thought the constant off-roading in mud would have rotted them, I would imagine that nearly 95% of Jeeps wouldn't still have them now after age or rebuilds.  A comment below about Pal nuts from another website     I am not sure why you would use them, as the service publications for aircraft engines no longer recommend that you use them. They recommend that you throw them away. I have rebuilt many aircraft engines, and the only time we used them was for an engine on a C-47 for the external bolts and studs. The judges at the airshows are known to look for them and the internal ones we left off anyway.      Norman D. Landing, Forum Normandy Correspondent, 03 June  2O26.   ..

SSI

Many thanks for your replies, much apreaciated. Could this be worn on a deck jacket on the shoulder or was this just for the particular clothing pictured and what was this glow patch thing I have seen when these are up for sale?

This also is pretty interesting for the MBU-12 time line as the first official contract (in 1974 for Wright Patterson) is 27 months after production of this face piece.  The face forms used for the MBU-12/P were sculpted by Ned Ostendorf based on a 1967 USAF survey. It is entirely possible those same face forms, or near-identical ones, were issued to Carleton for the HGU-35/P mask at an earlier date, and that the 1974 (Wright Patterson) contract to Sierra was for the production-configured system, and not the first fabrication from those forms. So not only a lucky find, but also a very interesting historical piece.