Found on Runway RAF Manston Sept 1944

[seebee1]

Last evening I was talking with an 88 year old RAF veteran friend, one of the places he served was at RAF Manston with the 54 MU. His job there was salvage and recovery and spent much time at the end of the emergency runway, an area called "the loop". Many years ago he gave me a few things he no longer wanted and one of which was this Helmet Net. He told me that he picked it up off the Manston Runway once all the tugs and gliders had left for Arnhem, he could not recall if the 17th,18th or 19th September, probably after the 19th I think. Though a fairly common item and with little value the history of it is not. Makes you wonder what became of the Paratrooper who dropped it and not long after was in Arnhem. Regards, Clive.

[seebee1]

Image 2 - Fitted to Helmet

[seebee1]

Image 3 - final - another angle

[AK101]

Very cool, thanks for sharing

[SMP]

Now that is lovely !

Can you take a close-up of the weave ?

[Jean-Loup]

I think its a pretty cool item and story! The most surprising to me is that the vet picked up and kept this rather "worthless" item for so many years.

JL

[grip3846]

Nice

Looks to be the same sort of netting that is on my Para helmet. Very nice item,don't you just love things like this,honest as the day is long,not monitarily valuable but priceless historically.
Regards,Ivan.

[seebee1]

Close-up of the weave for SMP. Jean-Loup I have met many veterans who have collected and kept the strangest of things. Possibly just a British trait, I do not know. My feeling is that they picked-up items that had importance to them at the time. In this instance the veteran had other things such as the fin from an Incendiary Bomb, a German broken Aircraft Clock, a piece of a German Landmine and many other seemingly "trivial" items. Regards, Clive.

[SMP]

Thanks for the close-up Clive. There are lots of small variations in weave for those early British nets, but the mesh size stayed the same. According to Marcus Cotton it depended on the supplier.

Nice net !

Steve

[gertje]

Very nice item,don't you just love things like this,honest as the day is long,not monitarily valuable but priceless historically.

Second that!
Is the draw string broken (like a shoe lace)?

regards,
Marcel

[jelle]

Very nice item,if you ever want to part with it....

[seebee1]

The draw-string IMO is not broken Marcel, just un-tied, perhaps this is how it was lost in the first place. Thank you for your interest Jelle but I have no plans to part with it. Regards, Clive.

[jelle]

Thank you for your interest Jelle but I have no plans to part with it. Regards, Clive.

I knowI wouldn't either

[SMP]

I wanted it too, but knew it wasn't even worth asking !

Great item.