Original Item: Only One Available. Now this is a rare opportunity to add a beautiful mint condition USMC HBT 1st Pattern helmet cover to your collection. This was a late war produced cover and is without the foliage slits as well as buttonholes on the fingers. Both sides have clear EGA stamps.

This would definitely be an example impossible to upgrade from. Comes ready to display alongside your war torn USMC M1 helmets!

Helmet Cover
Unique to the combat marine of WW2 is the use of the camouflaged helmet cover.

Many contemporary photos taken in the Pacific Theater of Operations (PTO) show that 90% of the helmets are covered with this piece of combat gear. The first offensive action fought against the Japanese was on Guadalcanal in a lush jungle environment. On the ‘Canal the marines wore the newly introduced M1 helmet. This helmet was worn stark naked, and produced a shiny glare when wet.

Already before the fighting on the Canal started, the US Army and Marine Corps were searching for a special camouflaged jungle combat uniform. The first garment developed and produced was a one-piece coverall, which was ill suited for a jungle environment. Often ridden with disease, like dysentery, the call of nature was frequently, and, immediately! One would have to shed equipment and strip the coverall before relieving himself. Some men just cut a hole in the seat of the suit. Proven unsatisfactory it was soon replaced with a two piece camouflage suit by the Marine Corps.

The two piece camouflage uniform was based on the USMC’s P41 Utilities, but fully reversible with a dominant green color scheme for jungle and a brown scheme for beach environments. To top this combat uniform a reversible helmet cover was designed. Made from the same camouflage material as the fatigues, this cover was made to fit the M1 helmet.

Its design dates from September 17, 1942. There is only but one design for the helmet cover adopted. This design called for two halves of Camouflaged Herringbone Twill (HBT) sewn together, each half with two rows of 4 horizontal “buttonholes” on the upper half and one vertical hole in each flap. Although not intended to button anything to the cover, these one inch long stitched holes are called “buttonholes” in the original documents.

The first batch delivered and issued is with those buttonholes. It's sometimes hard to tell from pictures, but the early campaigns show mostly, if not all, covers have slits. It has long been thought that the early produced covers didn't have slits and that only later production covers had these added. The document shown above proves otherwise. The base color on the "green jungle" side is of a light pea-green khaki-ish color.

Collectors sometimes refer to these as the “third”type.

It was found that, when in motion, using foliage for camouflage made the user more conspicuous. It is most likely that after further field tests the production of helmet covers with foliage slits was discontinued somewhere in 1943. In later operations (1944 and 1945) a mixed use of covers with and without slits can be observed. The base color of the "jungle" side is of a darker pea-green color, consistent with later produced camouflage HBT.

These are referred to as the "first" type by collectors, although it is really the second version produced.

These WW2 productions were used up after the war during the Korean War.

When the existing stocks were depleted, new covers were ordered. All these covers are 1953 dated. This new production had the foliage slits in the crown again, but were without the vertical buttonholes in the flaps.

Sometimes these covers are referred to as the “second” type. (But this was the third and final version to be produced.)