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The fate of most uniforms
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Originally posted by tazpants View PostTop pic shows German POWs with a british officer. Are those outfits German ?
The first man is wearing a fliegerbluse and issue boots, cannot tell on the pants, he second man is wearing knobelbechers and an issue hat, the jacket looks like a beat up civil frock and in black and white who knows what the pants are.
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German POWs arriving in Boston were issued nice new US clothing. Some officers and NCOs retained their jackets-minus insignia. Most US soldiers traded cigarettes and cash for the medals. the uniforms were heaped up on open ground in Charlestown and burned by the POWs. The (MIT draftee) Corporal who oversaw this project-which kept him employed for 9 months in 1945, lives down the street from me. He kept a few caps as souviners. He estimated that they burned @ 25,000 uniforms in all. A few of his friends took uniforms as souviners as did local kids.
In 1947 a film company went to germany to get uniforms for a movie about a german POW who is used by the Americans to get information about the Rhein crossing. They bought @ 300 uniforms in all. Not one SS uniform was sold to the company. The uniforms etc. were in a warehouse until the early 1980s when they were sold off-although rumor is that some are still ins torage somewhere.
I am old enough to remember the great World War One overcoat sell-off of 1984/5 when @ 1000+ original German 1916 overcoats were sold off at $ 5 each. Bill Shea had a few at $80 each in 1990.
Asd an aside, german and Austrian POWs in WW1 and early (up to 1943) were issued with (sometimes) redyed U.S. Civil War sack coats-complete with union army eagle brass buttons and "POW" stitched on the backs. My Grandmother employed @ 10 Germans from the Africa Korps on her farm in Northern Va.. They worked very hard and enjoyed the cigarettes and food.
My Grandmother's neighbors however had "issues" with their foreman being a Black man and complained. A letter was even written in the local paper and she was "spoken to" at her DAR chapter meeting. She stood her ground, refusing to "promote a Nazi" over an American.
Anyway, she said "her POWs" all wore reissued union frock coats from the Spanish-American war and we still have a few buttons and a POW armband.
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Originally posted by McCulloh View PostGerman POWs arriving in Boston were issued nice new US clothing. Some officers and NCOs retained their jackets-minus insignia. Most US soldiers traded cigarettes and cash for the medals. the uniforms were heaped up on open ground in Charlestown and burned by the POWs. The (MIT draftee) Corporal who oversaw this project-which kept him employed for 9 months in 1945, lives down the street from me. He kept a few caps as souviners. He estimated that they burned @ 25,000 uniforms in all. A few of his friends took uniforms as souviners as did local kids.
In 1947 a film company went to germany to get uniforms for a movie about a german POW who is used by the Americans to get information about the Rhein crossing. They bought @ 300 uniforms in all. Not one SS uniform was sold to the company. The uniforms etc. were in a warehouse until the early 1980s when they were sold off-although rumor is that some are still ins torage somewhere.
I am old enough to remember the great World War One overcoat sell-off of 1984/5 when @ 1000+ original German 1916 overcoats were sold off at $ 5 each. Bill Shea had a few at $80 each in 1990.
Asd an aside, german and Austrian POWs in WW1 and early (up to 1943) were issued with (sometimes) redyed U.S. Civil War sack coats-complete with union army eagle brass buttons and "POW" stitched on the backs. My Grandmother employed @ 10 Germans from the Africa Korps on her farm in Northern Va.. They worked very hard and enjoyed the cigarettes and food.
My Grandmother's neighbors however had "issues" with their foreman being a Black man and complained. A letter was even written in the local paper and she was "spoken to" at her DAR chapter meeting. She stood her ground, refusing to "promote a Nazi" over an American.
Anyway, she said "her POWs" all wore reissued union frock coats from the Spanish-American war and we still have a few buttons and a POW armband.
I ditto this statment!
My grandfather who fought in the war and was later stationed at Rhein Main Air Base and flew in the Berlin airlift told me about Germans trading and selling everything so they could to survive.
During his time in Europe, He was offered many hats and uniforms and antiques in trade for food, coffee and of course cigarettes. May of the uniforms were walk out uniforms that hung in a closets and the families simply sold them.
Also, many GIs mostly non-infantry liberated stocks of material much of it went home in duffel bags. As most soldiers do when their service is over they just throw it away or turn them in to work clothes.
Steve
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It always kills me when I read posts like this - my uncle was stationed in Bad Tölz and Munich in 1946-48 at the former Jünkerschule. He said they had helmets in the basement stacked ceiling high behind a locked gate and nobody paid them any attention - the only things he sent home was china for my grandmother... And it's really ugly china.
Don
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Originally posted by DonC View PostIt always kills me when I read posts like this - my uncle was stationed in Bad Tölz and Munich in 1946-48 at the former Jünkerschule. He said they had helmets in the basement stacked ceiling high behind a locked gate and nobody paid them any attention - the only things he sent home was china for my grandmother... And it's really ugly china.
Don
Looking at these were pictures, they could be from the future depending on who wins the next US election.
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