Battle damaged M35 - Normandy?

**James C** · 01-09-2013, 08:09 PM

nice relic lebus

**Espenlaub Militaria** · 01-09-2013 08:09 PM

We also buy and trade your items and full collections!

**MD Helmets** · 01-09-2013, 08:16 PM

Normandy, Stalingrad, they are all names that sell. Believe in the helmet, not the story. Anyone can tell a story.

**Panzer trooper** · 01-09-2013, 08:20 PM

I have a German helmet I dug up in Normandy (carentan area) its still has the liner in but has that big split at the back the same as the others on here?

**Sir Payne** · 01-09-2013, 08:44 PM

I'm not saying this accounts for the split on the domes of the shells that have been posted, but I remember hearing something about how captured helmets would be hit with something like a pickaxe or other hard object in order to nullify their usefulness. It was similar to the old military tradition of "spiking the guns" - when one would knock a stake through the touch hole of a cannon and make it useless. You wouldn't want the enemy to capture your cannons and use them against you. Or in this case, an allied soldier wouldn't want to leave usable German helmets laying around for the enemy to pick up. I'm not sure how true this is, but I've seen a fair share of dug up helmets that appear to have been "spiked" before abandoned.

Corey

**lithgow** · 01-09-2013, 08:56 PM

Can't see Allied soldiers being bothered smashing helmets-weapons possibly but not helmets-they were popular as souvenirs as we know...

**Sir Payne** · 01-09-2013, 09:04 PM

by lithgow

Can't see Allied soldiers being bothered smashing helmets-weapons possibly but not helmets-they were popular as souvenirs as we know...

Wouldn't make sense why the Germans would do it either, it's not like the allied soldiers would wear captured German helmets.

**Datrus** · 01-09-2013, 09:14 PM

It could be ground dug even the rim of the skirt looks very good. No pitting. What tells me it's ground dug is the cracked dome. Many believe this is blast cracks. I don't know if there exist any documentation on blast cracks. What i can say is, that in many a case we find helmets on the Eastern Front cracked from frost/expanding soil and water.

Regards, Lars

**Gunny Hartmann** · 01-09-2013, 09:30 PM

From the look of the sellers photo and the fact it's an M 35, it looks as though it was first painted apple green and repainted later with a darker green!...

**Totenhead** · 01-09-2013, 09:54 PM

by cgp1066

Wouldn't make sense why the Germans would do it either, it's not like the allied soldiers would wear captured German helmets.

Maybe not the case for this Allied Soldier ????

Sorry guys, couldn't resist ! .............

**KradSpam** · 01-09-2013, 09:54 PM

I had an M40 with a winter camo with blast or frost cracks on the dome. Dan has it now. That one was not a relic though. I thought that it was caused by someone dropping it onto a hard surface in extremely cold conditions.

It makes sense to me that a helmet in the ground for years would suffer from the repeated freezing and thawing of all those winters.