Last of the last. "M44-M45" jacket?

[derspiess63]

Very interesting info, dear friend Manny! In these huge piles of rags were they also any finds of mint Luft tropical tunics??

Great Regards

Thank you for your kind words Tony !Yes...there were Luft tropical khaki tunics as well,but they weren't as common as Austrian-made Luft khaki tropical shorts ,which were found in bundles!Afaik only a handful of blue ribbed cotton Lufty trop tunics have been found,one of them, with original eagle and trousers(found in 1999) is in yours truly's collection....no HBT ones to speak of though...but "rag diggers" had to rummage thru decades of rags and....first in last out;i.e. rags brought there in the 50s/60s were under tons of newer rags!Who knows what is still hiding there...the most recent additions to my collection are a GJ three pockets jacket and a mint third model WH HBT tunic with paper tag!
Cheers
Manny

[wurfmine]

m45

Hi, I have one as well, mine has shoulder straps sewn on and late war stamped type pebbled buttons. I have seen footage of this pattern in use by V2 launch pad assembly crews; interestingly they have no insignia nor on their caps. I will get stills of the footage and post them at some point. I do consider this a seperate pattern and not simply a variant m44. I base this off of the crude pointed styling of the pocket flaps, which on my example are closed by very crude brass snaps. This feature was supposedly an attempt to more accurately emulate brittish battle dress jackets.


Rare tunic, Mark

[TONY Q.W.]

Thanks Manny

[Ben]

Wow Mark, very interesting.
Would love to see the pictures you mentioned.

Hi, I have one as well, mine has shoulder straps sewn on and late war stamped type pebbled buttons. I have seen footage of this pattern in use by V2 launch pad assembly crews; interestingly they have no insignia nor on their caps. I will get stills of the footage and post them at some point. I do consider this a seperate pattern and not simply a variant m44. I base this off of the crude pointed styling of the pocket flaps, which on my example are closed by very crude brass snaps. This feature was supposedly an attempt to more accurately emulate brittish battle dress jackets.


Rare tunic, Mark

[derspiess63]

Hi, I have one as well, mine has shoulder straps sewn on and late war stamped type pebbled buttons. I have seen footage of this pattern in use by V2 launch pad assembly crews; interestingly they have no insignia nor on their caps. I will get stills of the footage and post them at some point. I do consider this a seperate pattern and not simply a variant m44. I base this off of the crude pointed styling of the pocket flaps, which on my example are closed by very crude brass snaps. This feature was supposedly an attempt to more accurately emulate brittish battle dress jackets.


Rare tunic, Mark

I think that we should be very careful before judging something by some old b/w footage for two simple reasons;from 1943 onwards the HJ units detailed to man flak guns and to help at missile launch pads were issued with two styles of jackets 99,999999%identical to the M44 jacket,with standard pattern Luftwaffe eagles,with Flak Helper's eagles or deprived of insigna whatsoever if not for the HJ armband,often removed,the second reason is that many of this movies have been taken by British troops at the end of WW2, when the british searched across Germany for technical information on German"secret" weapons.Virtually all completed V2 missiles had been expended or destroyed(and the German themselves,although ready to register the numbers they murdered in their camps weren't that keen on shooting films of the delicate phases of the V2 assembly stages on the launch pads!);the US troops occupied the Mittlewerke underground V2 assembly plant in Nordhausen and removed enough material to build 200 V2s in the US,while the British troops only managed to build 8 and found enough components to fire four to six.The British V2 test program was called"Operation Backfire" and was conducted in October 1945 in Altenwalde,in the British Occupation Zone.Some of the 8000 plus POWs taken from missiles units and the Peenemunde facility were detailed to re-enact the preparation and firing of V2 missiles for the British Army.As the German wore their wartime uniforms(MOST OF THEM HAVING BEEN STRIPPED OFF OF THEIR INSIGNA AS WAS THE RULE AMONGST THE COMMONWEALTH FORCES AFTER THE CAPTURE OF GERMAN POWS),the photos and movies taken during "Operation Backfire" appear to be wartime German footage.
Ben's jacket is but one of the many "a quarter-to-last-ditch"(gotta be very careful here when using some terms !) M44s and as such is very interesting.
As I have said in a previous thread,finding and studying WW2 German uniforms in their many "variations on the same theme" and give a reasonable opininion born of years of findings "on the ground" is to the European collector as collecting Navajo arrow points or Shoshonis artefacts is to the American Archaeologist for example....you've got to see with your very eyes and not go by books,magazines and hearsay/deductions alone,or else you(European Uniform collector or American Archaeologist into a field which is not 100% yours) will remain a guy who merely gathers objects!
Ben's Jacket remains a very interesting specimen and collecting these late-war tunics could become a very fascinating part of WW2 German uniforms collecting!
FWIW
Manny