Summer Weight Puttees?

**Vpep** · 10-28-2018, 06:37 PM

I was at a small military collectors show and saw what was listed as Army summer weight puttees. After looking in my copy of Heitai, I saw that the author claims that there are a summer weight version of the Army puttees that were in a light cotton material. Are these real army issued puttees, or just lighter models made for the civilian market. Maybe Nick with his vast amount of archival information would be generous enough to shed some light on this subject. Thank you in advance. and I look forward to hearing other members input.
Vic

**Type4** · 10-28-2018, 09:03 PM

I have 2 pair this is one

**Vpep** · 10-28-2018, 09:41 PM

Very nice. Thanks for the response. Do you know if the color varies greatly? The pair that I saw today at the collector show were a darker green. They were also half the size when rolled up, which would indicate the use of a thinner material

**Type4** · 10-28-2018, 10:22 PM

mine are decolored from use before probably are green or khaki green, it are more long and large respect at the wool type

**Nick Komiya** · 10-30-2018, 02:46 PM

No, there was no such thing as summer version gaiters. The WW2 German version of that book series, which I have, is full of fakes and fantasy items, so I would trust a Japanese version even less.

Officially they were supposed to be in wool, but after 1937, material shortages required the army to compromise and allow other fabrics so long as the color was correct. Gaiters needed to be elastic, so cotton would not have been ideal for use.

On the other hand, almost every civilian man wore gaiters during wartime, so many such cotton ones purporting to be army summer gaiters would probably be civilian versions.

The important thing is to see whether it has proper army acceptance markings (Not the A & B type markings, but the marking format for smaller items with the year indicated in Arabic numerals, not in Kanji). These markings need to be present at the end, where the tie tape is attached.

Shown below is a marking example, color variations and wrap instructions.

**MAP** · 10-30-2018, 02:50 PM

Now will need to pull my wool example out of a box to see if they are properly marked. Thanks Nick!

(Didn't realize that the Heitai book was full of fakes

)

**Nick Komiya** · 10-30-2018, 03:01 PM

To be fair to the author, I only said the Wehrmacht version of his book was crap, though the artwork was quite fabulous. I did not want to waste further money, so I did not bother with the "Heitai" book, with its really dumb title (at least to a native speaker).

**Vpep** · 10-30-2018, 08:23 PM

Nick, thank you for responding and for the clarifying information. When you explain it like that, It would just seem obvious that sturdier puttees would be required for combat conditions and that something lighter would suffice on the home front.