Tores Tuesday.
Yes, I know my postings are few and far between these days. It should not be like that, but the consequences of my injury still take their toll. Sorry.
But, to the point…
I am sure that you all can see what this is. It is a British helmet MkI (Brodie) that was introduced in 1915. Quite a standard helmet, with the WWI liner and made before 1917 as it does not have the rubber donut in the crown of the helmet. So far just a standard British helmet, eh?
Well, it’s not that simple. All is not as it looks at first glance.
The thing is, our neutral Norwegian army did look at the experiences of WWI and were aware that artillery bombardments led to a huge number of head injuries. So, we ordered these helmets from Britain, 10.000 of them to be exact, to conduct trials with them. Testing started in 1916.
So, though we did not fight in WWI, we did form a military neutrality watch and did follow the events closely to learn from them.
So, these helmets were ridden hard during testing. They were then used during the interwar years. A newer, and better, helmet was introduced as the M31 (1931 model), but these helmets were still in use. During the German invasion in 1940 these were still used, and, needless to say, many were lost or destroyed. After WWII the remaining ones were used by the brigades sent to Germany. Then used by our army. So, given their very long service and hard use, there are very few of these left in existence.
Not boasting, be assured of that, but I have two of these now. Both used through many decades. These are really hard to find.