This is a model 1941 Japanese paratrooper’s helmet with a leather Imperial Army five-pointed star on the front. The shell is made of steel and is covered in a coarse fabric and string netting with four vent holes at the top. The liner consists of hemp mesh backing, eight rubber prongs to fasten with a string, and six straw-filled pads around the edge. An ear cover folds out and extends into the chinstrap that fastens like a ring belt. In addition, a second chinstrap is secured under the ear cover made of laces. It is hard to make out the symbols, but there is Japanese Kanji writing stamped in ink on one of the rubber liner prongs, which more than likely signifies the manufacturer and date of production.

Japanese Airborne Soldiers: 1940-1944

Japan created airborne units in the midst of World War II. After the proven success of early German airborne attacks in May of 1940, Japan decided to pursue an airborne option. Both the Imperial Japanese Navy and Army began creating their own airborne units by late 1940, performing their first training jumps in early 1941. Much like the United States and Great Britain, Japan based their airborne strategies on the mold of German and Russian forces. The Army airborne task forces (which this helmet belonged) consisted of a brigade size unit made up of “a paratrooper regiment of three rifle and one machine gun companies, one organic regiment of Mitsubishi 112 transport planes, and command, signal, and engineer platoons.”1 The paratroop units were called “raiding regiments” and were flown into battle inside various types of transport planes.2 In the end airborne operations for the Imperial Japanese Military took a secondary seat to other military tactics. The Japanese executed only four parachute drops throughout the entire Second World War, two by the navy and two by the army. Both Navy drops occurred in the Dutch East Indies (Indonesia). The army airborne operations consisted of landings at Palembang on the island of Sumatra on February 14, 1942, and Leyte in the Philippines on December 6, 1944.3

Japan World War II
Infantry Helmet 1941 — 1945
JAH-04-0803