Alexander & Sons Restoration
An Experiment on the Northern Front As the Great War raged across Europe in the winter of 1916, a steamship named St. Peter docked at Arkhangelsk, a northern sub-arctic port town in the Russian Empire. The ship had come from Brest, France and carried in it’s hold 15,000 French steel helmets. These helmets were part of an experiment, destined for the Russia’s Imperial army. Like all …
U.S. Marines in China On the 21st of March 1927, Stirling Fessenden, the American chairman of Shanghai’s International Settlement’s Municipal Council, issued a declaration of emergency. Generalissimo Chang Kai Shek’s Nationalist army was marching toward Shanghai. For several years China had been experiencing spasms of violence as the factions of warlords, gangsters, Nationalists, and Communists …
A Helmet for the Far Side of the World During the Second World War, the Pacific Theater of Operation (PTO) covered a wide swath of the world. From the icy Aleutian islands to the steaming jungles of New Guinea, to the black sands of Iwo Jima. The steel helmets the American fighting men of the Pacific would …
A New Helmet for a New Soldier The Second Word War was a war full of “firsts”. Many new tactics would be pioneered during the conflicts. Notable of these was the use of airborne paratroopers. As the U.S. army developed uniforms and equipment for their new airborne troops, one piece of equipment that would need a complete …
Not All Americans Donned a Soup Dish On the rare occasion that images of American troops in the Great War are conjured up, most often a soldier wearing a soup dish style P17 helmet is what is pictures. The stereotype is not far off the mark. Thousands of American troops serving on the Western Front wore these …
It seems to happen frequently. Whether it be a small antique shop, militaria show or even an online auction. A soup dish style helmet from the Great War, offered for sale is labeled incorrectly. The seller’s description may read, “American WWI helmet” or “British WWI helmet”. Yet more often than not the seller …
