Blue & Red M1

[MySonsDad]

I've posted this M1 shell before but wanted to pass it by everyone again in case there might be a fresh set of eyes out there that might be able to identify this paint scheme. This is a WWII SB Schlueter relic shell I picked up and removed the re-issued OD paint to find this underneath. The blue is VERY Navy looking.

This is not the only example of this helmet floating around so it must have been purpose painted.

Any ideas?



Russ & Son

[HoovieDude]

Reminds me a bit, of the lid on the crewman kneeling in the foreground. Looks to be multi-colored between the lower and upper??

[aj4010]

Now that's interesting.



If that is the one, then there must be a chance that Russ and Sons helmet came from that ship too, as paint schemes seem to have varied from ship to ship?

Best Regards,

Andy

[MySonsDad]

Great photo Hoovie, and no, our helmet is not multi colored like what looks like in the photo. Ours is just Blue and Red (over the original OD of course). It appears the entire exterior of the helmet was pained blue first and then the red applied to the crown as during the OD paint removal process where I got a little too agressive I went through the red and brought out the blue underneith. Not sure how the blue was applied but the red must have been applied by brush as there are a couple of paint runs that were subsquently touched up with blue after the red dried. The red was not just slapped on either, it is clear that, however cured, there was an attempt to mask off the crown portion to get some uniformity in the paint.

Hoovie, do you know what the purpose of the multi-colored paint was, worn by the sailor in the photo you provided?

Thanks,

Russ

[HoovieDude]

Russ, I would say the blue and red of yours is "multi-colored" As for purpose, no clue. But I thought the old black and white photo might lead to more ideas.

[MySonsDad]

Russ, I would say the blue and red of yours is "multi-colored" As for purpose, no clue. But I thought the old black and white photo might lead to more ideas.

Yea Hoovie...I guess red and blue IS "multi"...LOL . The photos looks to me actually like 3 bands of color, it could just be the picture.

The one idea (and this is very remote) I had was that the red crown might be covering up a pervious marking. I ran across a photo of a US Navy lid that was a near exact color match, from the PC screen anyway, which also had a very high setting red cross, so that got me to thinking. Has anyone ever seen a navy corpsmans M1 that had the red cross painted just on the crown? If so then possibly they were painted over one no longer used for that purpose, but then again why wouldn't they just paint the hole damn thing navy blue again?

So, I guess it still remains a myster but it was good to find a second example so I know that this one isn't just the handy work of some deck ape goofing off in the paint locker.

Russ