U.S. Navy M1 Executive Officer's Helmet

"The exec is a prick!"
No offense is meant, that's just the way it was back in my Navy. Where the captain played the role of the aloof autocrat the exec was his second in command, his hatchet man, his ass-kicker, his...ahh...vice principal. Yikes!

Here's a surprisingly accurate Hollywood view of how the US Navy marked its M1 helmets. The executive officer ("XO") here, a cranky David Hedison (remember "Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea"?), seems intent on the matter at hand in this still from the movie "The Enemy Below". A somewhat drowsy Robert Mitchum seems to have other things on his mind:

torpedos perhaps?  (Sorry moms and dads).

This helmet is the second from the "dumpster collection" series begun last week.

This beauty has seen some hard service as indicated by the multitude of stress cracks as well as the many layers of paint it sports.


This shell, as salvaged, was sans chinstrap.  I added this 1972-style chinstrap in later years.

 


What is it about the M1 that I never get tired of looking at them (sorry if you do).



Note the stress cracks as well as the subsequent rust leeching from below the paint.


More cracks on the side of the shell make it pretty obvious why this helmet was discarded.

Note the zinc chromate primer peeking out, typical of the mid-1970s.


Cracks viewed from the inside of the shell.  Also evident are the multiple layers, and hues of, gray paint applied to the shell, somewhat haphazardly.


The "heat of the steel" number appears on the inside front of this McCord manufactured shell.


The rear seam indicates this lid is of post 1944 manufacture.


Close-up of the swivel bail showing quite a bit of "saltiness" contrasted with the fairly ship-shape 1972 chinstrap.  Again, to be clear, I added this chinstrap later, merely so the lid would appear as the others in my collection (displayed with chinstraps).   Generally destroyer M1s suffered greatly from exposure to salt spray and corrosive gun ash, this pot is no exception.


Very little of the original texture remains, in this instance it appears to be sand which would further identify this shell as being from the very early 1960s as that is the period when sand replaced cork as the texturing material mixed into the paint.

Shipboard M1s carried a variety of markings.  Fortuantely (for the collector) for the most part Navy lids were free of mandated marking regulations.  Both of the destroyers I was on carried a wide palatte of custom-painted helmets from the staid to the sometimes zany.  Similar, I guess to the members of the crew.

Go here for a really cool Youtube featuring the U.S.S. Dehaven (DD-727) my first, and favorite, ship.


Humphrey Bogart and Robert Francis in one of my all-time favorites "The Caine Mutiny".

From destroyer, to dumpster, to Combat Helmets of the 2oth Century...

what a fine looking piece of Hadfield steel!

provenance:
accession number: MOAharmoldv2. 182.2
United States Navy Executive Officer's M1 Helmet
Acquired 1974, Naval Station Long Beach, California
Condition: good

Next week, another cool Navy lid!

Mannie

U.S. Navy M1 Hospital Corpsman Helmet

As a young destroyer sailor in the U.S. Navy in 1973 I was homeported in Long Beach California.  Several months prior to the end of my enlistment I was hauling a trash can to the dumpster at the end of the pier, and saw some other guys rooting around in the dumpster retrieving stuff.   Frequently, especially with the Vietnam war ending and many ships slated for sale or deactivation, lots of materiel was getting "surveyed" (Navy term for "thrown away").  Guys were hauling all kinds of stuff out of that dumpster, including some helmet shells, three of which went into my now empty trash can and then eventually mailed home.

These three shells and the Japanese helmet I found while stationed on Guam (read here) formed the nucleus of what has become my helmet collection.  Helmets included the Hospital Corpsman lid featured here as well as a repair party helmet and an executive officer's helmet, both to be profiled later in this series.

A Geneva Cross within a white circle is typical for a shipboard corpsman's helmet, and this one is from the late 1960s early 1970s.  Often these helmets were marked "Medical Department", "MED", "HC", or perhaps with the Caduceus insignia, or simply left olive drab or any variety of gray to blueish gray.  

Below is yours truly holding a Navy Corpsman's helmet used at Normandy in WWII.  The owner was Jay Huston of Grand Rapids Michigan, and the helmet now resides, permanently, in an exhibit at the Public Museum of Grand Rapids, entitled "V is for Veterans" which I curated several years ago.

Note that, save for the stenciled name on the chinstrap, the helmet has no makings at all. As a member of SNAG-2 (Special Naval Assault Group 2) Mr. Huston landed on the beach on D plus one. Jay insisted that no medics had marked helmets, or at least that's the way he remembered it. Perhaps the helmets in his unit were unmarked but it is safe to say that many if not most Navy beach units wore helmets which identified them as USN personnel in some manner, as did those Navy medics pictured below.



My point being that there is a lot of variation not only in the way helmets were (or weren't) marked, but also in the way events are remembered.

Here's what I remember; the sickbays on my ships, both destroyers, had a few lids marked with Geneva Crosses...

like this one.

Now for some detail shots, and the first one is very instructive for those who collect USN helmets and wish to date them.  Even if I was completely unfamiliar with this particular helmet I would know that it was in service from the early part or World War Two until at least 1973, and that blotch of yellow paint is the clue.  The cork particles in the paint as well as the front- butted rim indicate WWII.  The yellow paint is the tip-off for 1973.


The Navy banned the ubiquitous red-lead primer in 1973 for environmental reasons and switched over to zinc chromate.  This lid is spattered in several places with zinc chromate primer.


This is the "heat of the steel" marking on the inside front of the helmet.


The "hook and arrow" chinstrap furniture, as well as the strap itself are all in very good condition.

Close up of the spot-welded swivel bail.


Visible above are the spot-welds joining the rim to the shell as well as the manufacturers mark.  The "S" (inverted in pic) indicates that the shell was manufactured by the Schlueter Manufacturing Company of St. Louis, MO.  Most shells were manufactured by McCord Radiator in Detroit, far fewer were made by Schlueter.  Nearly all of my Navy shells are Schlueters.  Perhaps a reader can shed some light on why that might be.


The front-butted rim seam indicates manufacture prior to 1944.

Another fine looking M1 helmet from Uncle Sam's Navy.  I have to wonder who "PEZ" was.

U.S. Navy hospital corpsmen have a rich history and a justly deserved respect among sailors and Marines.  They are the ones who have heroically and selflessly risked (and lost) their own lives to save the lives of countless others on thousands of battlefields.

This is how many Marines have seen them:

However, as a fairly lack-luster young sailor, this was my only contact with his hallowed group of sailors:

                                               "ouch"



Navy Corpsmen, I salute them all.

provenance:
accession number: MOAharmoldv2. 193
United States Navy Medical Corpsman M1 Helmet
Acquired 1974, Naval Station Long Beach, California
Condition: very good

U.S. Navy M1 Repair Party Helmet

THIS IS NOT A DRILL!



This sailor coming down the ladder means some shipmate's about to be rescued from a very dangerous situation.

When there was fire or flooding aboard ships of the United States Navy it was the job of the men of the repair parties to save the ship. And the helmet they wore from 1942 until the early 1990s was the good old McCord M1.

The standard M1 shell painted red and labeled with concise information regarding the number of the team or repair party locker that the team was operating out of.  The larger the ship the more repair lockers and parties.

This photograph is from the 17th edition of the Bluejacket's Manual, the traditional handbook of the American sailor for over a century.   These black and white photos were copied from my BJM from 1970.

The sailors in this damage control party are preparing to enter a burning space.  Hoses are charged and at the ready, the men are wearing OBAs (oxygen breathing apparatuses) and are crouched below the smoke and heat level ready for the leading petty officer to undog the watertight door and send them in.  Although every sailor was trained for this duty, the shipboard parties were comprised of specialists, hull technicians, and damage controlmen.

Every other sailor, not a part of the party, stands by as a ready labor pool to be utilized as needed.

                                                                             

Damage Controlman

                                            

      Hull Technician

Nearly all repair party helmets were equipped with battery-powered helmet-mounted lamps.  Often these provided the only illumination in a space in which flooding or fire had shorted out the electricity.


The waterproof black hose connects the wiring from the headlamp to the waterproof battery box.


The battery box clipped to the sailor's belt.  This is a typical WWII repair party M1 in all respects.


This rear view provides a glimpse of the battery box and also identifies the helmet as belonging to repair party two, and stowed in repair locker two.  The repair lockers were located in strategic areas of the ship and were completely redundant in equipment.





Though not brilliant by the standards of today's technology, these little headlamps did help save ships for over 40 years.


This battery box is well marked, another in my collection is not.


Clearly marked "OFF", whatcha call "sailor proof".


Note the original green corked finish under the thick layer of sand and flat red paint.


Marking on the rear of the helmet.

A similar helmet I'll be posting at another date is a "REP-3" helmet (and now you all know what that means).   Marking the helmets in the rear made it handy to keep track of who was who in a smoky chaotic situation.


Close up of the front seam on this earlier M1.


You can just make out the heat treatment numbers.


This model has the swivel bales,


and some pretty "salty" (literally) hardware.  Seagoing M1s could be exposed to a lot of salt spray and corrosive powder smoke.  While I was on destroyers, I seldom saw a pristine M1.


The marking "UNIT 22" causes me to think that this helmet was from a larger ship.  The sooty grime and firefighting foam residue on the surface also leads me to believe that it has seen action.


These were the good guys,


and this trusty M1 was their helmet for nearly half a century.

See you next week with another Navy M1

Mannie