Kees Smulders sent these very clear pictures from a Canadian made luminous disk in his own collection. He bought it 30 years ago at an army surplus store in Arnhem. It’s a Canadian disk, marked R.L.I. 1942 (RLI stands for Radium Industries Limited). It is still complete with its brown nubuck leather pouch with a brass press stud, and a tie down cord. I had never seen one like this in such good condition and with a pouch.
Read the complete article about all types of luminous disks
Bob Esposito kindly sent me this picture of the pillow cover that his father in-law Cosmo Barbieri sent to his parents while training at Ft. Bragg. He was a paratrooper with the 101st Airborne, serving in WWII during the years of 1944 to 1946.
This is one of several Ft Bragg souvenir pillow covers featured in my ever growing overview.
Camp Bragg was renamed Fort Bragg, to signify becoming a permanent Army post, on September 30th, 1922. Mainly paratroopers from the 82nd Airborne trained at Bragg (although apparently also Bob’s father in-law). Fort Bragg is still the home of the Airborne and Special Operations Forces today.
It’s an interesting moment to bring this up, as Fort Bragg is soon to be renamed to Fort Liberty. Fort Bragg is currently named after Gen. Braxton Bragg, a Confederate general associated with being a slave owner and losing battles during the Civil War. It is one of nine Army installations slated for a name change. More info on that here.
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This picture is from a WWII manual about aircraft survival equipment. It is dated 23 November 1943, and it clearly shows a Superior Magneto wrist compass with a canvas wrist strap. That’s much earlier than the earliest-dated Superior Magneto compass that we have found so far. Marcel Struijk sent me these pictures. The second picture shows more detailed photos from the kit. The color photo is from https://www.wwiisurvivalequipment.com/life-rafts-usaaf. This predates the earliest date I have seen on this type of compass by at least 6 months.
View the complete article about paratrooper wrist compasses
If you own a TL-122-B flashlight, chances are you noticed white residue on the olive drab plastic body. Maybe you even tried to wipe it off, only to find that after a while this white sheen reappears. What causes this?
The TL-122-B was replaced by the TL-122C and later the TL-122D because of the problems it had with a wax build-up on its surface and a bad smell.
Dan Navarro contacted me because he was doing some research on one of the four manufacturers of the TL-122-B, the Gits Molding Company. Gits made small portable chess sets during the war. It appears they used the same plastic material to make the flashlights. The chess sets had similar results. See photo showing an affected chess piece and one cleaned up.
Dan and I exchanged some thoughts about this, and I also asked my son, our scientist in residence. The white residue is probably paraffin wax. For injection molding in the 1940s, e.g. for flashlights, it was used to easily separate the molds from the plastic.
We are not sure though, why the white residue reappears a while after wiping it off. Probably because of the excess use of paraffin, followed by long exposure to heat or sunlight.
Dan’s understanding from the literature on the internet is that the U.S. government had the four contractors re-configure the formula to eliminate the problem with the flashlights. Most likely they substituted another chemical that performed the same function as the paraffin but without the bad effects.
So, for collectors of Gits flashlights and chess sets from 1942, we will just have to give them all a nice cleaning every two or three years to keep them presentable, or to leave them untouched.
Announced in the media worldwide today, Col. Ed Shames passed away on Friday at the age of 99. May he join his brothers and rest in peace.
We all know Ed Shames from the epic HBO series ‘Band of Brothers’, based on the book of Steven Ambrose.
Shames jumped into Normandy on D-Day, participated in Operation Market Garden and the Battle of the Bulge. He was among the first US soldiers to enter the Dachau concentration camp.
At Berchtesgaden, he would ‘liberate’ a bottle of cognac that was labeled to be ‘for the Führer’s use only’. He would later use it toast his oldest son’s bar mitzvah, according to his obituary.
Shames was the last surviving officer of Easy Company. With his death, there is only one surviving enlisted member: 97-year-old Bradford Freeman.
You can read a lot more facts and see pictures and videos in this article from the Daily Mail.
Timothy Brown is the author of the very interesting story “When West-Point’s Football Helmets Went to War“, which was published last week. He used some of my own research, which is how I heard from him. Timothy has uncovered a lot about these helmets that was unknown to me and that I’d like to share with you, so be sure to read his article.
Apparently, the plastic football helmet we all know was a new invention from 1940 and the West Point football team ordered them in 1941. Cadets lent their helmets to the paratroopers for testing, and that’s how it all started. But there’s lots more to discover in the article.
I myself am the proud owner of one of the prop Riddell helmet replicas especially made for the first episode of Band of Brothers, as well as a number of original photos from early parachute training at Fort Benning, some of which were used in this article. It is such a fascinating history and a turning point in modern warfare.
It’s been a long while since I got any new WWII magazines with parachutists or glider troops on the cover. These 3 were sent to me by Darren from the UK and are very nice. The New York Times magazine is actually one you may have seen before, but I never got a decent picture of it. The two other ones are really new to me.
As for the one from the Times, the photo caption seems strange, given the magazine is from September 1944 and no paratroops had jumped on Germany at the time.
Check out the complete overview of period magazines with parachutists
Thorsten Becker sent me photos of this minefield marking chest he found. It’s dated 29 September 1944, and it’s in great shape and it still has the packing list on the inside:
200 batteries (compartment B)
42 flashlights TL-122-C (compartment C)
40 flashlights TL-122-C (compartment A)
164 bulbs (one in head and one in base) 2 in each flashlight
34 filters, amber for flashlights, in flashlight
48 filters, green for flashlights, in flashlight
This case was empty, but imagine finding a full one with 82 flashlights…
Read the complete article about TL-122 flashlights
There has been quite some debate about how dangerous it is to keep these luminous disks in your collection. So I was very glad to finally get some concrete scientific advice on this.
Jon Korsmo finally provided a clear and conclusive explanation that I can share with you here. He is a certified nuclear medicine technologist and works with radiation all day as a job.
Jon isn’t really worried about the radiation of one disk or two on display, but it depends on what you do with these disks and the condition they are in.
Read all about it here, in the updated article about luminous disks
These photos were sent to me by a collector called Mathieu. This flashlight is probably post-war, but I think it’s an interesting variation to inlcude anyway. AB-BL stands for Armée Belge – Belgisch Leger. Mathieu still has an open question that I can’t help him with: is it possible to date this flashlight to a certain era based on the ‘AB-BL’ marking? When did the Belgian army stop using this marking and changed it to ABL?
Go to the full article about TL-122 flashlights