Description
Product Description: This Tropical Kriegsmarine Cap is an nice example of a very hard to find cap. The exterior of this Tropical Kriegsmarine Cap is made of nice tan cotton twill fabric, and displays light patina and soiling evenly throughout the exterior of the cap. Two painted air vent grommets on each side of the cap. The front of the cap displays as a tropical Heer cap eagle and cockade in BeVo. The tropical heer eagle is hand applied to the cap, with some separation of the eagle from the cap itself, and displays heavy wear matching the cap’s overall appearance nicely. BeVo woven style cockade neatly hand sewn to the cap with the same threads as the eagle, with matching soiling and patina matching the cap itself. Both of these insignia are restored/replaced, as the cap itself is a Kriegsmarine example due to the interior green lining. Inside, this Tropical Kriegsmarine Cap displays green cotton twill, as seen on Kriegsmarine examples of these M41 caps. The lower rear seam of the cap has separated and a hasty repair job was attempted at some time, otherwise only light signs of wear on the interior. The interior lining is marked for the producer “Franz Ritte 1942” and is size “55” marked as well. This is a nice cap overall that will display nicely.
Historical Description: Even before the outbreak of WWII, the designers of German military equipment had begun tests to engineer uniform items for wear in tropical climates. In 1940, with the German invasion of North Africa imminent, the German military quickly instituted a wide variety of tropical uniform and equipment items. Tropical uniforms were used in Africa, as well as other parts of the “Southern Front” including Italy and the Mediterranean, the Baltics, and southern Russia. The soft headgear used in the tropics took various forms. There was a tropical version of the M34 “overseas”-type cap, which lacked a visor, but the cap which came to be most widely associated with the Afrikakorps was the billed M40 type field cap, which was based on the cap issued to German Army mountain troops. The German Army M40 tropical cap was made of a lightweight fabric, in shades that ranged from tan, to brown, to olive. The interior of this cap was lined with a red fabric, which German engineers believed would help the interior of the cap stay cool. Other branches of the German military, including the Kriegsmarine, utilized this same pattern of cap for their tropical uniforms. Early in the Afrika campaign, some Luftwaffe troops were issued the M40 caps from Army stocks, but by 1941 the Luftwaffe had its own tropical cap, known as the M41. The insignia used on these caps featured the national eagle specific to each military branch, manufactured in special tropical colors, as well as the national cockade. Army caps were additionally adorned with a branch of service soutache, over the cockade, though this was deleted and ordered to be removed in 1942.
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