Fall 2026 Militaria and Aviation Auction
Lot 322:
Description
WWII U.S. Navy Bureau of Aeronautics Type M-445 Heavy Winter Flight Jacket by Monarch Manufacturing Co. of Milwaukee, Wisconsin, Size 38, retaining its woven BuAero contract label, paper size tag, and under-collar USN stencil. This lot presents a scarce, contractor-identified example of the U.S. Navy’s heavy winter shearling flight jacket, produced under Bureau of Aeronautics specification M-445 by the Monarch Manufacturing Company, one of the earliest wartime prime contractors for the pattern. Original surviving jackets of this type are considerably harder to find today than their Army Air Forces B-3 counterparts, and this example is unusual in retaining both its woven maker’s label and legible size tag together. No named wearer or service history accompanies the jacket, and its story rests entirely in the surviving markings and its documented pattern of manufacture. The Bureau of Aeronautics developed the M-445 specifically for the punishing cold faced by naval aviators, PBY Catalina flying-boat crews, and air gunners flying long over-water patrols into sub-zero, high-altitude environments where exposure was as real a hazard as enemy action. Designers distinguished the Navy pattern from the Army’s B-3 through dual-button flap exterior pockets, bi-swing shoulder gussets for freedom of movement at the gun or controls, side waist-adjustment straps, and recessed worsted-wool knit storm cuffs sewn inside the sleeve ends to seal out arctic wind at altitude. Jackets of this pattern outfitted crews on convoy escort, anti-submarine, and search-and-rescue duty across both the Atlantic and Pacific theaters through the war years and into the early Korean War period, when remaining service stocks continued to see issue. The jacket is constructed of seal brown shearling-lined leather with a full fleece collar and body lining. The front carries a working zip closure flanked by two dual-button flap pockets, with bi-swing pleats visible at the rear shoulders and buckled adjustment straps at the lower sides, all consistent with the M-445 specification. Sewn at the interior neck is the black woven gold-lettered label reading
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