Home Front helmets of WWII
 

I have a few home front helmets in my collection, some of the more common sorts, some a bit rarer and I thought I would post them here.

First up is one from fairly local to me, a Senior fire Admin or training officers MKII from Sketty in Swansea, NFS district 21, and the rank/position make it an uncommon example.

Also uncommon is it being a Briggs Motor Bodies raw edge shell, which were only made in 1941. Of note is the clear indicator that there was another insignia above the badge, perhaps a pip or star for rank, that is now missing, perhaps he was promoted and removed it.

Hi Jerry,

Thanks for sharing. This one has a lovely look to it, well done, a great piece.

Cheerio,

Roy

Blue banded helmets for Admin staff are not common. White banded examples for Women Officers are probably equally rare.

Jon

Yep, I'm with Roy, great to see, and interesting to hear about them

Thanks Jerry

Slightly off topic-can someone tell me if there was a common Army helmet colour for troops in the UK post Dunkirk. I had it in my head that black was common but when I recently tried to find info to back this up I could not, so wondering if I have imagined this or read or heard some duff info at some point. Regards, Paul.

Army helmets, at home or abroad were post Dunkirk in textured khaki green or khaki brown, and I include the Home Guard in this, and an example from the HG is shown below.

Black was used for home front units, especially Wardens but not by the army or any of the armed forces as far as I am aware.

Sorry to 'stretch' the topic a little chaps,

But has anyone ever seen an example with the RWAFF insignia on it?

That's one I wouldn't mind owning.

Cheerio and again, sorry for my slight diversion.

Roy

Was black not used on RN helmets at one time?

Is the NFS helmet in the original post Kings Crown ? from the picture it almost looks like it could be post 1952 Queens crown?

Rob

Definitely KC but a little of the crown at the top has been rubbed off. The NFS disappeared in 1948 so there never was a QC version.

Jon

What Jon said.

Another NFS helmet, this time with matt black over paint and an unusual placement of the district numeral being below the NFS decal but still on the dome rather than lower down on the brim as is the norm. The district number is 26 for Liverpool.

a list of NFS, Fire Force Regional Numbers of WW2.


England and Wales.


1. Gosforth.

2. Middlesborough.

3. Rotherham.

4. Leeds.

5. Bradford.

6. Hessle.

7. Derby.

8. Nottingham.

9. Leicester.

10. Louth.

11. Southend.

12. Stevenage.

13. Hethersett.

14. Durley.

15. Taplow.

16. Lyndhurst.

17. Bristol.

18. Exeter.

19. Yelverton.

20. LLanishen.

21. Sketty.

22. Colwyn Bay.

23. Worcester.

24. Birmingham.

25. Stone.

26. Liverpool.

27. Cheadle.

28. Bolton.

29. Preston.

30. Maidstone.

31. Brighton.

32. Woking.

33. London ( Administrative ).

34 London ( Ealing ).

35. London ( Highgate ).

36. London ( Ilford ).

37. London ( Eltham ).

38. London ( Wimbledon ).

39. Swindon.

40. Wolverhampton.

41. Warrington.

42. Stalybridge.

43. Kendal.



Scotland.

1. Glasgow ( Western No1 ).

2. Paisley. ( Western No2 ).

3. Edinburgh ( South Eastern )

4. Dundee. ( Eastern ).

5. Aberdeen. ( North Eastern ).

6. Inverness. ( Northern ).

Unfortunately, these are being reproduced too :(

Police used a textured, dark blue, helmet.

Home Front helmets
 

The black helmet was worn by Civil Defence members who were allowed to be members of both CD and Home Guard. I believe that camouflage nets were worn over them operationally. This was to negate the need to issue them two helmets. I'm struggling to find the source of this info now though.

Stephen.

Great helmet! ! !

Phil,

I have seen quite a few POLICE helmets over the years including barn finds and I do not remember them having textured paint. The example I own is smooth and relatively shiny.

I've only ever seen black, untextured police helmets, & post war Mk IV & V's in a medium blue, untextured
.

All the wartime MKII's I have seen have been dark blue, such as the one I showed, same for the post war MKIII's and MKIV's, though perhaps not as dark as the wartime examples.

That said, a serch shows some were black as well as the blue examples and also I had forgotten that senior officers wore white with a badge of rank insignia on it

My mistake - wartime dark blue, ( I didnt think Id imagined black), but the post war ones I've seen were a lighter colour.
Perhaps they varied due to individual police forces painting or repainting them. In Cambridgeshire Constabulary they were still part of "panda car" inventories in the 1980's, possibly 90's.

AFS helmet, many of these were shipped during the war to Ireland for use there, most were then repainted and have the extra large AFS letters added over the original smaller AFS letters as can be seen on this example. This example also has a form of rank insignia, three dots, about which not much is known but an officer helmet perhaps.

I love the Home Front helmets. I'm always on the lookout for a yellow Gas Identification Officer but they're quite rare, it seems.

Thanks for confirming black helmets not used by the Army. Regards, Paul.

Maybe ive just seen rusty ones then? Quite possible :)

Phil,

home front lids seem to have such a variety that anything is possible and I would not claim to have seen anything other than a % of them.

Another, black with a large E to the front, thought to be either Electrical or Engineer (Repair), no one knows for sure, it is not on any of the lists that I know of.

It is named to (Mr) G. Kipling underneath and has a small K on the front probably his initial.

'Kipling'? Then the 'E' surely must stand for 'EXCEEDINGLY' :D:D

EXACTLY :D

Warden Fire Guard, a white helmet with a slight variation on the markings for this position, usually they are W/FG, rather than in this case W(FG), also these are usually on a grey helmet, so doubly unusual.

Gloucestershire Home Guard MKII helmet. It has a Glosters badge on the front with H & G to either side and a small back badge. Both appear to be painted, possibly sprayed over a stencil.

Here's another, I don't remember seeing them with the name on other than this one, it was taken out of the window of a shed in 1973 when I was 10, AFS was the transfer as I remember but more has since come away over the years but was never ecomplete.

Nice to see one with his name on it. The AFS decal is much less commonly seen than the NFS. I note from the holes in the rim that it is a MKII no2 1B showing it is made of steel of insufficient quality to be used by front line forces, made of mild steel strip.

First Aid Nursing Yeomanry (FANY) badged example, which on its own makes this rare (I only know of one other which I could have doubts about) but also because it is a re-furbished WWI Raw edged Brodie shell fitted with a WWII MKI liner. This type of helmet is known as a MKI*, though most you see are not rimless as many were retrofitted with rims during the great war.

Hi Chaps and jerry
heres one of mine a slight gloss finish police helmet with 2 white bands note the police under the police and the last pic is of the more normal type encountered with the white bottom band going all the way round the helmet ATB Steve

Nice Steve.

I was told two white bands was for sgt's, here is mine for the special constabularly

oh lordy lord that is nice.

Some amazing helmets here...My Police examples...

Thanks Michael, it is one of my most prized items in my collection.

An excellent collection of Police helmets.

The shade of blue on the helmets that I remember as part of the equipment in police vehicles during the 1980's - 90's, I'm not sure if "POLICE" was stencilled in white paint rather than applied as a transfer or sticker.

Leigh,

the MKIV's/V's do seem to have been a different shade to wartime examples, as you have shown.

Mr ASR142....can you confirm a couple of things about your shiny blue POLICE one for me please.

1) It LOOKS like the POLICE letter has been painted...by hand??? I think I can make out brush strokes

2) It also LOOKS like it was applied on top of an underlying more traditional POLICE stencil in another type face?


if it's a pain, it's not worth the effort but it may go someway to explain the bluey-ness (?? :-) )

I see the helmet in the opening post was made by Briggs Motor Bodies, does anyone know of a list of manufacturers of these helmets in WW2 ?. I know there would have been several but I'm curious as to whether Vauxhall Motors made them at all. Local history tells that the company made various military items from steel off-cuts etc. such as ammo boxes, jerrycans and the like, so I wonder if they also knocked out helmets. Any help would be appreciated.