Escape and Evasion / Survival aids - Silk maps and Escape Compasses + more!

**Truebrit** · 02-25-2018, 07:18 PM

Thanks for tat. I had forgotten the PAL entries, so as you say, they certainly existed back then. That also supports the 1942 timeline. But I have never seen an X or Y in tissue...

All the best.

**Grimebox** · 02-25-2018, 07:35 PM

by Truebrit

Thanks for tat. I had forgotten the PAL entries, so as you say, they certainly existed back then. That also supports the 1942 timeline. But I have never seen an X or Y in tissue...

All the best.

Nor have I, but then again I have only seen about four of the fabric version!

**Truebrit** · 03-15-2018, 08:58 AM

Hey folks, this forum seems to be struggling, posts have slowed down and no one seems to be sharing much? Please share your thoughts, items or collections, keep the forum active and interesting...

Thanks

TB.

**Grimebox** · 04-13-2018, 10:26 PM

Not Mi9 or Soe but equally as useful for Prisoners of War.

One former prisoner at Stalag Luft III, Charles Huppert, told how prisoners became expert at turning tin cans into tools. Huppert said, "We used Klim tins for everything that we made, because you could cut the ends out, and have a large piece of tin to work with. You can straighten that out flat, and make a ... join them together in a locked joint, such as this, and take your wooden mallet and hammer them down. Then you take your backside of a knife and bear down on that, with a lot of pressure on both sides of that crimp, so that the tin will not separate, in order to make the tools that are used in the tunnels: the digging tools, the funnels, and the lamps to give light."

**Chopperman** · 06-08-2018, 04:57 PM

My wife collects buttons. This is one we found while going through some of her stuff.

It is made by the Liberty button company. According to some button collector books,
it was mainly worn by some ww2 US air crewmen and is supposedly a very uncommon item.

This one has pieces of embossed paper inside and my guess is that it probably was last worn as a
locket and had a sweetheart photo inside. We have not tried to remove the paper to see what else
might be there.

---sorry for the poor pictures. i scanned it on my photo scanner instead of taking the time
to take proper photos.

**Grimebox** · 06-09-2018, 02:02 PM

Very interesting piece. I agree that it is likely to be a vanity / locket piece as opposed to escape and evasion, however, it does appear to be very well made with almost invisible joins. Definitely unusual and doesn’t look like the normal locket pieces.

**Chopperman** · 06-09-2018, 02:19 PM

This one has the post for putting through a button hole while the more common
one is identical except that it has the loop for sewing on to the uniform.

**Grimebox** · 08-04-2018, 11:54 AM

Good things come to those who wait! It’s the school holidays and I now have no money to take the kids anywhere or buy food at the end of the month, however, when something like this turns up for relative peanuts I had to buy it (or so I told my wife).
This is a Royal Marine button compass with a clockwise thread. The top unscrews to reveal a four hole compass inside. The base of the compass is either stuck (soldered/glued) into the back of the button or is a very tight fit, either way it is not coming out. The compass is missing it’s glass, however, interestingly I have seen a couple of other Royal Marine button compasses with the glass missing so I don’t know if it is intentional or whether the same person made them and didn’t fit the glass very well.

It was a ‘buy it now’ from a dealer of all things on eBay for a very good price and there is more to this story........

**Grimebox** · 08-04-2018, 12:21 PM

.....as with the other button compass I bought it was simply listed as a button compass with no history. In my excitement today I opened the post, took the button out and photographed it. I then went to throw the envelope away when I found the below in it! Totally unexpected as there was no mention of the history in the eBay listing. The hand written note states ‘This button belonged to Capt David Bridges (Royal Artillery) whilst he was serving with V - Force in Burma during the 2nd World War. It has a compass inside! My father was part of the forces at the Seige of Kohima’

I have attached a couple of links relating to Capt Bridges and the Seige of Kohima.

Can anybody explain to me why he would have a Royal Marine button if he was Royal Artillery?

Battle of Kohima - Wikipedia

https://www.thegazette.co.uk/London/.../2737/data.pdf