Pre-WWII M1917A1 'Kelly' Helmet ("202 /ZD") Complete Liner, C/S. NOS Unissued!

Pre-WWII M1917A1 'Kelly' Helmet (

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Seller Store bataan12213
(6208) 100.0%,

Location: Little Rock, Arkansas
Ships to: US,
Item: 235783742496

All returns accepted:ReturnsNotAccepted
Conflict:WW II (1939-45)
Original/Reproduction:Original
Theme:Militaria
Country/Region of Manufacture:United States
Region of Origin:United States

Pre-WWII USMC Army M1917A1 ‘Kelly’ HELMET (heat batch stamped ‘202 / ZD’), complete with a 100% intact steel-frame 4-tongued Leather LINER and mustard-khaki, box-stitched WEB C/S with a steel KEEPER and a cast-brass BUCKLE! Pearl Harbor, Bataan, Corregidor, Wake Island, China Marines, Iceland mission!!! (This Helmet is similar to one my father wore on Bataan and the Death March.) These shells were made between 1917 and 1918 by one of fourteen known manufacturers of the AMERICAN version of the M1917 Helmet. By the process of elimination the second letter, ‘D’ denotes either the Bossett Corporation (116,735 units produced) or the Benjamin Electric Company (33,600 units produced). NEAR MINT New Old Stock (NOS) Unissued! These are SCARCE in this condition!! WWI shell, legibly heat/batch stamped on the underside of the brim: 202 ZD These were supplied to both the U.S. Marine Corps, Army, and the Navy. (Aboard ships of war, helmets were part of “ship’s stores” for use by landing parties.) This modified M1917A1 helmet remained in the USMC’s and the Army’s stateside supply system until the opening months of the WWII. The Oilcloth Liner and Leather C/S having been replaced during the years 1932-1936 with a newly designed steel-spring-frame-and-leather LINER and mustard-khaki Web C/S. NOTE: This steel shell is not one of British “Brodie” MKI or M1917 manganese shells that we acquired from Britain in 1917 but an American-made shell, circa 1917-1918 that was turned in for modification. NOTE: The WWI-era American-made shells rolled and stamped during late-1917 and 1918 did NOT have the one or two-digits numbers, but had the following “Heat/Lot/Batch/Cast Code” letter. The first letter (i.e. ‘Z’) indicates the SUPPLIER of the steel. The second letter (i.e. ‘D’) indicates the COMPANY that pressed and actually made the helmet. UC, YJ, XH, ZA (Crosby Co.), ZB (Worcester Pressed Steel Co.), ZC (Edward G. Budd Mfg. Co.), ZD, ZE, ZF, ZG, ZG, ZH, ZJ (Columbian Enameling & Stamping Co.), and ZN. This is the model helmet worn by USMC, Army, and Navy of the A.E.F. in France and the Siberian Expedition as well troops during the interwar years. Aboard USN warships the M1917 helmet was left in in the flat O.D., or painted “battleship gray”). It was worn stateside during the first months of the war as well with the modified Liner and Chinstrap introduced in the mid-1930s. ***** ++ This recognizable “tin hat-shaped” Helmet Shell was what was worn in the trenches of the Western Front as well as during the Siberian Intervention of 1918-1919 to rescue the Czechoslovak Legion in Vladivostok (at which time the Helmet was painted snow-camouflage white) in the midst of the Russian civil war in support of the ‘White Russian’ forces. ++ This was the Helmet shell worn by the “China Marines” of the 3rd Battalion, 4th Regiment (who had been biding their time aboard the USS Chaumont in the Shanghai estuary) when they marched ashore on Shanghai’s waterfront Bund in 1927 in response to the plea for protection issued by Stirling Fessenden, the American chairman of Shanghai’s International Settlement’s Municipal Council. Chang Kai Shek’s Nationalist Army forces in their Northern Expedition were attacking warlords, communists in Northern China, but also European, Japanese, and American citizens. ++ Photographs exist of U.S. Marines wearing this M1917 shell (with both the Matte Sawdust finish as well as the glossy finish) with the Leather Chinstrap during clashes with Japanese at Soochow Creek and the Sinza Bridge as late as 1937. ++ This is also the Helmet shell worn by the American Regular Army garrison (Infantry, 26th Cavalry, Coast/Harbor Defense of Subic and Manila Bay, etc.) and the Philippine Scouts of the Philippine Department in the 1920s and 1930s before the introduction of this modified M1917A1 ‘Kelly’ Helmet with the improved Liner and Web Chinstrap. ***** + This well-preserved M1917A1 appears to be unissued. ZERO signs of wear or prior MARINE or soldier ownership! + As mentioned above, this is NOT the “Brodie” Mark 1 shell which was made of the lighter British 21 Gauge Steel, but the heavier American M1917 model made of heavier 19 GAUGE non-magnetic Manganese Steel), which was turned in to the Ordnance Depot and fitted with the ‘new’ Leather and Steel-frame LINER and the WEB CHINSTRAP and given a ‘new’ coat of O.D. paint with cork or sawdust for ‘texture. + The Chinstrap Bails (or Loops) are NOT the lighter wire British “Brodie” bails, but the heavier 12 Gauge Iron Wire used by American contractors. Also the bails are attached with steel Harness Rivets and NOT British “Split” Rivets ***** PARTICULARS OF CONDITION: + ZERO dents or rust!! + ZERO significant paint loss! + ZERO cracks or tears to the light colored tongues of the natural-colored Leather LINER. Clean! + ZERO names, serial number, or markings anywhere. + The original, depot-applied, rough-textured flat “SAWDUST” EXTERIOR PAINT is excellent condition, showing only the gently ‘patina’ of careful storage and minor “flaking” of the secondary Ordnance Depot repainting revealing the ORIGINAL finish beneath it. + The iconic MUSTARD-KHAKI WEB CHINSTRAP is complete, free of fraying, ‘writing’ or major staining! + The internal horse-hair filled LEATHER CROWN PAD is present and correctly laced to the steel Frame.+ The INTERIOR PAINT is PERFECT! + The “Heat/Batch/Lot/Cast Code” number, “202 /ZD”, stamped on the underside of the rim is clearly visible upon careful inspection beneath the O.D. paint. + The steel TRIM on the Brim is secured at the seam with a single punch mark on the overlapping ends. + The original gray WOOL-FELT BAND is still present and free of deterioration.+ ZERO corrosion to the unique CAST STEEL CHINSTRAP BUCKLE. + The hemispherical ‘domed’ NUT and its LOCK-WASHER are present and correctly installed. ***** Background: The artillery and small arms fire of World War I caused disproportionate head wounds that awakened the need for a steel helmet for Allied troops. The first to issue helmets were the French forces followed by the British and Americans. The first US Army protective helmet was the British Mk I, the shallow-dome British helmet designed by John L Brodie and issued in 1915 to British forces. The Mk I was adopted by the U.S. since the British could furnish helmets while the U. S. was still setting up production. The Mk I, with an American modification to the suspension system and a different metal alloy, was designated as the US Model M1917 steel helmet, issued to U.S. Soldiers and Marines serving in France as the AEF. The M1917 helmet was made of manganese steel with a fixed liner and leather chinstrap with sliding buckle. The leather/felt/netting liner had an integral suspension that separated the wearer’s head from the steel dome but did not provide much comfort. The M1917 was painted lusterless olive drab, with a sawdust anti-reflective texture. Individual units permitted other color schemes, paint and markings, although drilling the helmet to attach insignia was prohibited after drilling was found to weaken it. By February 1918. 700.000 American made M1917s had been delivered. By the end of WW I, on 11 November 1918, more than 2,700,000 American M1917 helmets had been produced. In 1936, the M1917A Transition Helmet was produced by refurbishment and retrofit of M1917 models. The M1917A used the M1917 steel shell and incorporated suspension and chin strap changes that were later standardized as the M1917A1. ***** Donovan Webster, from the SMITHSONIAN MAGAZINE, May 16, 2017 How the Military Helmet Evolved From a Hazard to a Bullet Shield No area of military technology might be more indicative of how change has come to war than the American military helmet. “In 1917,” Blazich says, “when America entered World War I, we used a variation of the British helmet of the time, called the Brodie Helmet, or Mark 1 helmet.” The American helmet was called the M1917. Effectively an overturned metal dish weighing about 1.3 pounds, with a basic liner to keep a soldier’s scalp from chafing against the helmet’s manganese-steel alloy shell, plus a solid chinstrap that cinched tight, it was a primitive tool at best. As a protective device, Blazich says, it didn’t do much more than keep explosion-driven rocks off the tops of soldier’s heads while they were in the trenches of France. “Though it could also be protective against shrapnel, which was also a big concern in that war,” Blazich adds. Yet with no real face and side-skull coverage, it left troops wide open to facial and cranial injury, and lasting disfigurement from shell fragmentation was an enormous problem in World War I. The Brodie Helmet also had other inherent dangers. The chinstrap, which once tightened down, was hard to release: so if a Doughboy’s helmet got trapped or lodged between objects the situation could prove fatal, as the soldier would have a difficult time getting the helmet off and would therefore be trapped and immobile on the field of battle. Still, despite the M1917’s liabilities, innovation remained slow. In 1936, a slightly more protective version was rolled out, called the M1917A1, or “Kelly” helmet. It had a more comfortable helmet liner and an improved canvas chinstrap. The intent of these changes was to improve the helmet’s overall balance and performance. But it still didn’t provide the kind of protection from side assault that the War Department desired. ***** Helmets and Body Armor in Modern Warfare by Bashford Dean PH.D., Curator of Armour, Metropolitan Museum of Art U.S.A. and formerly Chairman of the Committee on Helmets and Armor, Engineering Division of the National Research Council U.S.A., page 130, “The manufacturer was required to demonstrate that his product was proof to shrapnel ball, forty-one to a pound with a striking velocity of 700 foot seconds. This test was given to ten helmets in the first thousand, three helmets in the second and third thousand, and two helmets in each succeeding thousand. No requirement was given as to the depth of indentation or the deformation allowed, the decision in this regard having apparently been left to the discretion of the inspecting officer. All helmets, however, were to bear the initial of the manufacturer and the heat number of the steel…” So, just what are these heat numbers and how do they work? The internet has the following entry under ‘Heat Numbers’: A ‘heat number’ is an identification number that is stamped on a material plate after it is removed from the ladle and rolled at a steel mill. Industry quality standards require materials to be tested at the manufacturer and the results of these tests be submitted through a report, also called a Mill Sheet, Mill Certificate or Mill Test Certificate (MTC). The only way to trace a steel plate back to its Mill Sheet is the Heat Number. A heat number is similar to a lot number, which is used to identify production runs of any other product for quality control purposes. The same article also carries a photograph of a modern day heat number in situ on a steel plate – a long and fairly complex string of information which clearly means something to those inside the industry, but as far as I can tell, this number will be imprinted onto the initial rolling of the sheet of steel concerned. ***** NOTE: Any overage in postage will be refunded.

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Frequently Asked Questions About Pre-WWII M1917A1 ‘Kelly’ Helmet (“202 /ZD”) Complete Liner, C/S. NOS Unissued! in My Website

What are the best-selling Pre-WWII M1917A1 ‘Kelly’ Helmet (“202 /ZD”) Complete Liner, C/S. NOS Unissued! on www.fibusfamilyfoundation.org?

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