Unit Marking Help

[Perry Floyd]

I've got a helmet with a very faint unit marking. To the best of my ability I think at the most I may be off two characters but 80% I'm very sure of.

WI.T.Fl.A.RGT.31

Any help appreciated, thanks.

[Perry Floyd]

I want to add the letters I'm unsure of are, the I after the W and the I or L after the F.

[Luftm40]

Perry...my guess would be Flak Artillery Regiment 31...the other characters are probably sub unit designations of some kind....is it a Luftwaffe?

[Perry Floyd]

Yes it is, it was the one marked Jena WH=13 on the leather. When time permits I'll try to capture the unit marking at a better time of the day, the sun is going down now and I can't get a good picture of it.

I'll post the pic I have now and pictures of the liner which I have posted before.

[Ian Thomson]

Hi Perry, when I read your post, I to like Andy thought it was the 31st Flak Artillery Regiment, but could find no trace of a "Flak " part of the 31st Artillery Regiment. When the 31st Infantry Division was destroyed in June 1944 it was reformed as the 31st Grenadier Division and again just the 31st Artillery Regiment and had the 31st Flak Company attatched, which was taken from the 1550th Artillery Regiment. Unless I`m missing something and there was an inbuilt flak part to the artillery regiment. I`m sure someone will quickly correct me if I`m wrong.

Cheers
Ian

[Perry Floyd]

Here's a better pic guys..

[Perry Floyd]

2

[Perry Floyd]

And the liner markings which I have posted once before. This helmet is just loaded with markings.

[Perry Floyd]

3

[Chris Stewart]

Flak was more commonly abbreviated via FLA, fla or simply Flak - I'm thinking this may be Fliegerabwehr or something along those lines. There was no Flak Regiment 33, but there was an Artillerie Regiment 33 and Artillerie Ersatz Regiment 33. You say this is a Luftwaffe lid though - so those are out of the question.

There was also a Flieger-Ausbildungs-Regiment 33 (which would be a training Regiment), which may explain the markings. It is much easier to tell when the markings are on documents or dogtags, as they used fairly common markings and abbreviations. Something like this is a bit harder, as you don't know who would have stamped it or why.

Hope this helps a bit Perry.

Chris

[Perry Floyd]

Thanks Chris and Ian, so far it's still a enigma

Looking at the stamp could it be I have the two letters wrong?

[Chris Stewart]

Well, just using the facts of it being a Luftwaffe unit and it being Regiment 31 would lead me to believe that my conclusions are probably correct. Looking over any Regiment labeled 31, I see this as really the only possible unit.

This is me thinking, and nowhere can I pull information to back it up but:

Perhaps this is the reason why there are so many markings in the helmet. It could have belonged to the training unit, not a specific soldier, and only used when doing certain training procedures, or parades/marches etc. It could explain why there are various names in the helmet and why it was stamped in the way it was. These Flieger units probably wouldn't have any need to have a personal steel lid except in training.

Other than that, I can't really help you. Even in terms of deciphering what the letters are, I don't think I would come to a different conclusion.

Chris

[Luftm40]

Perry, can you post the whole helmet?

[Perry Floyd]

Sure, it's the DD Luftwaffe with early smooth overpaint.

[Luftm40]

Might also be that it was reissued to a Heer unit given the finish...