Fall 2026 Militaria and Aviation Auction
Lot 171:
Description
NOS Original WWII Airborne M1 Helmet Chin Cups, Trio, Tan/Russet/Bro. Group of Three M-2/M-1C-Type Molded Leather Airborne Helmet Chin Cups in Tan, Russet, and Dark Brown Offered here is a lot of three NOS molded leather chin cups of the type fitted to U.S. paratrooper helmet liners, presented in natural tan, medium russet, and dark chocolate-brown leather. No named recipient, unit, or maker documentation accompanies the group; such small stamped-leather hardware rarely carries legible markings, and identification here rests on pattern, construction, and comparison to established references on M-2 and M-1C helmet liner hardware. These are original NOS examples, not reproductions. The standard infantry M1 helmet’s chinstrap arrangement proved inadequate for airborne troops, whose helmets were subjected to violent opening shock and prop blast during a parachute descent. To keep the helmet seated through the jump, airborne units adopted liners fitted with canvas A-yoke suspension straps that buckled to a molded leather cup cradling the chin, a feature first seen on the early D-bale (M-2) liner and continued on the definitive swivel-bale M-1C used through the Second World War and into the Korean War era. Early-war cups were sometimes chamois-lined for comfort, while the more commonly encountered wartime and postwar type is the plain, unlined molded leather cup with punched adjustment holes at each strap end, exactly as seen in this lot. These small leather fittings saw hard, sweaty service in training and combat and consequently survive far less often in clean, unissued condition than the helmets and liners to which they were fitted – a point that must be weighed against the fresh state of the present examples. Each of the three cups is a one-piece molded leather chin cup with an unlined flesh-side interior, a shaped concave central section flanked by straight strap ends, and a row of punched prong holes at both ends for attachment to the liner’s A-yoke buckles. The first is finished in a natural, vegetable-tanned tan leather; the second in a medium russet brown; the third in a darker chocolate brown, together illustrating the range of leather tones encountered on this pattern across original and later-manufactured production. A tidy three-color study group of the paratrooper chin cup, useful for restoration of M-2 or M-1C airborne liners or as a compact reference set for collectors of U.S. jump equipment.
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