This is a good place to start this topic, which could be rather controversial. The topic is the water proof German WW2 matches. I have a friend who, I trust very much, and who would really know these kinds of things, He says that all of these came from a warehouse of East German militaria and are not wartime. He cant of course prove that statement but he chooses not to sell them for that reason and believe me when I say that this guy is honest and has first hand knowledge of this. He says there is no reason in discussing it anymore as everyone calls them wartime and they are already pictured in books being called wartime. Now, I am not making the claim with full evidence that they are not, but I can say that after 4 years of digging in various bunkers in the Eastern front and buying items from diggers in Russia and emptying hundreds of boxes of miscelleneous items that they had accumulated over the years, I have NOT once seen any portion of the container of these. That in itself is not proof I know, but I have seen pieces and parts for almost everything imaginable and you would think that these would have been used by troops in the field on a regular basis. There are all kinds of holes in my statement, yes but I have also never seen any of these for sale or in any collection of any of the diggers from Demyansk to Kurland and all areas in between. Anyone else have any information on these?
Toomas
Toomas,
Some vets (pilot & crew) I have met remember waterproof matches in red bakelite box - This is all I know and you can be right..as long there's no evidence on these (as far as I know, no pic yet).
Some extra stuff..: spare lenses ,a spare strap and a chin strap used in open planes.
Also a cleaning cloth and a metal punch ..
The goggles have to fit on the nose properly ,so ,if needed a little bit of rubber could be removed with the metal punch.
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