Super interested if this is the same Carpathia as well, eagle mtn

Wow… words cannot explain how grateful we are for all of this information! I’m with my mom and she said her and the brothers would play with that helmet as kids back in the 60’s! haha   We’re super excited to share this information with my uncles and grandma. It’s a piece of family history that will be new to all of us. Seriously thank you, thank you, thank you!   - Shannon

With the better photos just provided, I concur  

I wonder if the ship he left in was the same Carpathia that rescued the Titanic survivors 

I’ve spent 30+years as a medical social worker. Almost all of that in association with two, ”Level One Trauma Centers.” I worked for many years on the evening shift in the ER of a very busy urban trauma center. But the following story is from my time on the faculty in a Family Medicine Residency program, in a large urban university hospital & Trauma Center.) Right up front, I want to be clear that in this work, we encounter some difficult things. Our world is as full of ugliness and cruelty as it is of beauty and compassion. And we can often be left to sort out those details on our own.    I also need to acknowledge my own struggle sometimes with cries for mercy that only arise when ones vengeance has failed or when some offending act is simply, excused. We live in a difficult time. I suppose we always have. But this feels different. And thus, I'm compelled to think. (Most of the following details are drawn from my personal journal in which through the years I’ve reflected on the work I do. Work that is often confusing and confounding.  My recent retirement conveniently provides time to do exactly that. Perhaps in excess. Sorry.)   Perhaps 20 or 25 years ago, in my work at the hospital, I met a combat veteran of World War Two. At the end of his life, quite literally on his death bed, he recounted to me a troubling story from his youth. His war.   He told me of dutifully assaulting a strong enemy line, an assault in which many of his friends and “comrades” had been fatally struck down by enemy machine-gun fire. He told me how he too had been struck down by a bullet that lost most of its force as it drilled through his rifle before painfully penetrating the flesh beneath his left arm. (Lifting his arm and shifting the loose hospital gown, he showed the scar. Also revealing an ancient tattoo of his blood type adjacent to the wound on his left chest wall.) He went on to explain how their assault had almost been repulsed when the enemy guns suddenly went silent. And enemy soldiers suddenly stood beside their empty weapons with arms raised in surrender.   With sudden tears in his eyes and fingers clinched in supplication he suddenly and unexpectedly plead for my mercy. Seeking my forgiveness for an act that had occurred eight years before I had even been born. And he then told how he and his surviving squad members had slowly risen from the snow, walked forward, and through searing pain and rage had murdered the now unarmed enemy. “Murdered” was the very word he used.   Having denied mercy some 54 or 55 years earlier, he now begged for what he’d once been unable to extend. Think about this. For just a moment. Please. What do you think?   Now consider this further detail. This old man had been born in Germany and had only immigrated to the US in 1952. (The same year I was born.) And that tattoo on his left side? It revealed to me a historical detail I’d recognized as a result of my own interest in and study of martial history. He had not been a mere draftee, fighting in the GERMAN army, but had been a volunteer in the vicious Nazi SS. And those unarmed enemy he told of murdering in December of 1944, had been Americans.   I held his hand. And forgave him. And then with his permission I called a Protestant Chaplain to visit with him as well. This all felt so, right. (or had I simply been moved by an old man’s tears?)   (Later that night I found myself considering the stories I’d heard, of my own uncle who I never had a chance to know.  Jimmy had been killed in that same war. In that same year.  By a German.  And is buried in the American Battle Monuments Cemetery in Nettuno, Italy.) But this old man was not the vicious storm-trooper of martial lore. He was a loving husband, a father, and grandfather. A humble welder who’d worked for the same company for 40 years. And my sense was he’d never shared this story with his wife or children. He died in the night, maybe 1 or 2 days later. (And this dialog remains our secret.) Was what I did, and what I've done since, mercy? Or merely merciful? Was mercy, mine even to give? Was it something else? Something that was simply just and proper. Is that mercy too?   Briefly compelled to explore manifestations of that ideal, I started with the dictionary: Merriam -Websters Dictonary: Definition of Mercy 1 a :  compassion or forbearance shown especially to an offender or to one subject to one’s power    b : imprisonment rather than death 2 a : a blessing that is an act of divine favor or compassion    b : a fortunate circumstance And then I went on-line: from “Got Questions: Your questions. Biblical Answers.” I chose from the menu, "What does it mean that God is merciful?      Answer: “God being merciful basically means that, when we deserve punishment, He doesn’t punish us, and in fact blesses us instead. Mercy is the withholding of a just condemnation.”   But I’m not God. From another source: “Grace is getting what you do not deserve; while mercy is not getting what you do deserve.”   Which left the question, What does ANYONE deserve? And who is to choose?  Dang. From the Episcopal Church “Daily word of Grace 4/23/2020, I found this:   “mercy is also what God gives us every day regardless of how aware or unaware we are of it-by not punishing us for every foul thought word and deed, not punishing us for the myriad selfish “devices and desires of our own hearts” (The Book of Common Prayer 41), not punishing us for the many ways we hurt others and hurt ourselves, not punishing us for our conscious and unconscious taking God for granted and presuming on God’s grace.”   And so still thinking, pondering, and wondering, it occurs to me that there IT is. Without condition.   I suppose at a time such as this and under such circumstances, such a petition for the lords’ mercy is entirely warranted. Regardless of everything else. I suppose. Hope, and prayers. Ich hatt' einen Kameraden

No, I bought these from DanerousDuckStuff. They seem to specialize in vintage jewelry, clothing, ties, footwear, etc, etc. When I see something odd on a site I always check the to see if they have other, similar items. I breezed through lots of this seller's items and didn't see another piece of militaria.   I just got them today. Here is a better view. These do not react to UV light. But I see a shiny substance on the extreme edges that I suspect are to minimize fraying. 

What a great find, 10k rope is very cool, never new they made such a thing.

Well believe it or not I found an old sheath that is very close to the WW-2 version.....Close enough to where I'm fine with the fit, just not quite as narrow as the two in the pic.   I did have to make a strap/snap for it as the one on it was broken off on one side.    I bought it about a month ago with a lot of old knife scabbards a local gun shop got in.....No maker's markings I can find.    LOL....At least it has part of the guy's name and US Army scratched in it....It will serve.     

You are correct-they were brothers! https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/31709537/casper_yost-offutt Thanks for the post.       Steve

Militbuff,   In the interim, can you post pictures of the buckle disassembled from the sides?   Meaning, just a picture of the buckle and pieces lying flat?     Thanks,   OD