Monthly Archives: February 2014

WWII F/506th PIR 101st Airborne Paratrooper Dress Uniform And Wool Shirt

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506th PIR Dress Uniform

This officers dress uniform and wool shirt is more of the F Company, 506 PIR, 101st Airborne Division grouping that has been the subject of previous posts.  When I got the dress uniform, it only had the 101st patch and bullion overseas bars on it.  There were clear outlines remaining of where the rank insignia, jump wing, and collar insignia had been on the uniform.  The Veteran had removed these before selling the uniform.

I normally do not restore or replace insignia on uniforms.  If a uniform is missing some insignia, I leave it as it was found.  But in this case, since I could clearly see exactly what insignia had been on it, I did decide to restore the uniform with correct period collar insignia and jump wing.  Additionally, there was a set of loose first lieutenants rank insignia, that belonged to this Veteran in this group, so I was able to use those for the restoration.

The wool shirt has a nice jump wing sewn on to it and is named to the Veteran inside.

WW2 F/506th PIR 101st Airborne Division Group Personal/Mess Items And Combat Field Gear

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F/506 Group Personal Gear

F/506 Group Personal Gear

Here are more items from the massive F Company, 506th PIR, 101st Airborne Division Grouping that has been the subject of four previous posts.  It is fairly hard to find WW2 groupings that retain the quantity of personal/mess type items pictured in this post.   These are the items that made the day to day existence for WW2 US combat soldiers in the field more bearable.

Additionally, pictured is some of this paratroopers combat field gear.  It is very rare to find a WWII Airborne grouping like this with all of the paratroopers original combat field gear.  This is typically stuff that was not brought home or retained after the War ended.  Most of the combat field gear is identified to the paratrooper with his name and/or laundry number.  There is more combat field gear in this grouping, but it will be the subject of future posts.