Para helmet

[phild]

I agree with this possibility. Mark Felton Productions on YouTube posted several scenes of these guys in one video. Would be interesting to see if anyone can extract if the helmets were painted or not.

Jordan

The more I looked at the helmet the more I thought and still think that the paint is period and probably KM in origin. I see that the helmet seems to now be in the Netherlands and I don’t know if it turned up there or not but there was certainly a large presence of the small boat combat units based in that country. The other obvious possibility would be from the FJ troops defending Brest in conjunction with KM troops. It is very unusual I’ll acknowledge, but the paint is very old, I just don’t know if it is from 1944 or 1954 but I don’t think that it is from much later than that

[eubank]

Other than the "naval " colour, the additional problem it has is the very inconsistent outer wear to the worn inner leather liner and straps. It doesn't add up really. Maybe the vet just tarted it up later so it looked neater.

[Willi Z.]

The advantage of painting it a "naval" color would be what exactly? To be stylish?

Yes, I too have seen some helmets worn by crews of those human torpedoes. However, the vast majority of those crews, as seen in videos, wore some sort of crash helmet, as they were enclosed in a very small canopy.

Nonetheless, the paint does not exhibit the proper wear. The underside of the rim would quickly wear like any other camo, or even factory painted helmet.

Obviously none of the bidders thought it was anything other than what it is IMO: a painted shell and an original liner assembly.

Did the KM paint their helmets gray? I once handled a KM DD M35 helmet, which was in the standard "apple green", which came from the Prinz Eugen. After the war as the warship was passing through the Panama Canal, it was given to a staff member of the canal and resided in a collection down in Panama until about 6 years ago. It now resides in the collection of another WAF member.

[phild]

I can not disagree with any of your points other than of course wear, even on the rim, was a result of use and we know there were soldier painted helmets that were captured before any real wear occurred to the new paint job although liner may have been field worn for years prior to the paint being applied.

Most all KM helmets observed by me are in standard factory paint as you note only few sometimes turn up with the sailor applied ship gray paint.

In the end I think it wise to doubt this finish on this helmet for the reasons given, but if I knew 1st hand (from my father for instance) that it came back like this, I would have no problem with it other than not being able to sell for collector price!