British Paratrooper Paint Scheme Qs

[Maple Creek]

I've been studying up on British WWII paratrooper helmets and recently bought two from an eBay seller named Ruud Folman in Holland. One thing I've been wondering about in particular is what kind of paint schemes these helmets had originally. My most recent purchace appears to have been repainted mustard-green at some point (see photo below). It also appears to have had black rectangles with white paint over the second paint job. I've seen this scheme before (see second photo of a helmet sold on eBay). Does anybody know the significance of these markings (black rectangles with white numbers?). Are these post war markings? The final photo shows the first British paratrooper that I bought from the same eBay seller. Most of the paint is gone, but a bit of green paint remains. Same question... Is this consistent with WWII vintage paint color schemes, or is this post war? I know these helmets were used for a long time after WWII, so I presume they tended to get repainted.

Thanks in advance for your help.

Regards, Mark

[Maple Creek]

What's the meaning of this number?

?

[Maple Creek]

1st purchase

Is this paint WWII era, or post war?

[Adrian Stevenson]

The numbers I strongly suspect are post war "P" Coy training numbers.

Cheers, Ade.

[Maple Creek]

"P" Coy

Adrian, Thanks. What is "P" Coy training?

Here's another eBay offering. This one has a rough finish similar to a dispatch rider helmet in my collection. Does anybody know if this an authentic war-time finish?

I haven't found any good documentation on British WWII paratrooper helmets and their variations. There are a lot of post-war variations and some pretty good fakes that are starting to seep into the market. It's difficult to sort out the wheat from the chaff.

Cheers,

Mark

[Adrian Stevenson]

Hi Mark, when a new recruit joined the Parachute Regt he was assigned to "P" Coy. "P" Coy was a training company designed test the soldiers physical fittness and nerve. It is a tough course. Soldiers had a paint their number on the side of the helmet.

From here that E Bay helmet looks good.

As a rough rule of thumb, earlier helmets are a grey-green shade of paint. Late war the colour seems to have shifted to a darker shade. As you have already mentioned, these helmets had a long service life and often they got several coats of paint, which mostly was done to the exterior. Always check inside the dome, as the original paint can sometimes be found there.

Cheers, Ade.

[Maple Creek]

Another Q

Hi Adrian,

Thanks for stepping up and answering my questions about British paratrooper helmets. I haven't yet found any good, detailed published information about these helmets, so what I've learned has come from collectors like yourself. The first "WWII British paratrooper helmet" that I bought turned out to be a WWII Canadian dispatch rider helmet that had been converted for paratrooper use by the Canadian armed forces in the early 1950s. They did this by removing the leather flap in the back and adding a first model leather paratrooper's chin strap. The orientation of these helmets was changed so the front became the back. It was an interesting and actually very rare helmet, but not a WWII paratrooper's helmet. I figured out what it was by directly contacting Roger Lucy who wrote a book on the subject of Canadian steel helmets.

At any rate, here's my question... Were the P "Coy" units all post war, or were they pre-war as well?

Which helmet should I keep? The 1943 marked helmet with P Coy remnant flashes and yellow rubber padding, or the 1944 marked helmet (third helmet in the thread series)? Any opinion?

Cheers,

Mark