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1.
Accept Your Limitations. Seriously.
We
are not living during the 1940s. We are not soldiers fighting in WWII.
With this in mind, it is 110% impossible to be completely and totally
accurate in one’s impression. When a living history unit takes the field
for a weekend – either for a tactical or a public display – they are
not experiencing anything close to the true conditions that the average GI
lived under. One 29th Division veteran told a local newspaper
that he wore the same pair of wool pants from the D-Day landing to
September of 1944. No one in the re-enacting community is truly
re-creating the GI’s experience through a Friday to Sunday event.
In truth, we should be thankful that we don’t really have to go through
what the average GI did in WWII. We are not in this hobby to detract from
the real veterans who lived through WWII. We are around to help teach the
public in the U.S. a little about what these guys went through.
2.
Read. Don't Base Your Impression on a Movie or Miniseries.
This
isn’t the Franco-Prussian War we are re-enacting. We are not suffering
from a dearth of information on the time period we are portraying – or
the
US
paratrooper. In fact, you’ll find shelves of subject material available
at your local library or Barnes and Noble on WWII and the Airborne. If you
don’t have the chump change necessary to buy a Donald Burgett
paperback, there is this wonderful beast called the internet. When you
join a unit, get online and "Google" the regiment or division
that is being re-created. Do a search for books on your unit on Amazon.com.
Chances are you will find ten or twelve suitable books on the subject
matter at hand. Since you weren’t at Ste. Mere Eglise
or
Nijmegen
, you need to actually have a general sense of what happened there if you
wish to expound on these events to the public. There are plenty of other
ways to learn about this, but the cheapest and easiest way is to read
about it.
Many
deem themselves
experts on WWII history because they've seen “Band of Brothers” a
dozen times. There are many re-enactors out there who think this HBO
miniseries is the pinnacle of accuracy. Sure, most WWII enthusiasts find
this series enjoyable and exciting (including myself), but Google Albert
Blithe (the hysterical blindness guy) and you will probably find that he
didn’t die in 1948 -- as the producers state at the end of episode 3 --
but actually lived into the 1960s and fought in
Korea
. Oops. So much for the “total accuracy” of this so-called infallible
source! The sad truth is that “history” – in the abstract -- is a
big, ugly puzzle, and it takes a lot more than reading one big book or
watching a miniseries on a subject to call yourself an expert in any
field. In fact, a progressive NEVER calls himself an expert, because there
is always one more book or first-person account out there that he
doesn’t know about yet.
Remember all of that crap you heard as a kid about how reading will take
you places you can’t go in real life? Well, that “crap” was gospel
truth.
Pick up a book, and it may go a long way to improving your
impression.
3.
Talk to a Veteran.
Since
I have been portraying a WWII GI, I have yet to attend an event involving
the public without meeting a veteran of WWII. They are out there, and you can
and will meet them. You want
the real story? Then ask one of these guys (or gals). Even if you are
portraying a D-Day paratrooper and you are talking to a senior citizen who
was a replacement draftee in 1945 and served as a quartermaster clerk, HE
STILL KNOWS MORE ABOUT WWII THAN YOU DO AND STILL DESERVES YOUR RESPECT.
If a veteran tells you that you’re not wearing your hat right, then you
should probably take his word for it. If two veterans provide
corroborating evidence, then it’s time to fix the old piss-cutter,
buddy. Be sure to thank each and every one of them you meet for taking the
time to talk to you, and especially, thank them for what they did. NEVER
press them to talk about anything unpleasant, like “How many Germans did
you kill?”. Re-enactors constantly get a bad
rap because of disrespectful behavior while wearing the historical uniform
of a soldier. This behavior is what the progressive should avoid, and when
speaking to a WWII vet, he should always speak clearly, politely, and
respectfully.
4.
Don’t “do what feels good”. Do what is representative of the
“outfit”.
This is a big one. There is usually a reason why most serious re-enactment
groups say “don’t buy any stuff without asking us first”. Simply
put, you want to buy stuff appropriate for the time period you are to be
portraying and the unit you are joining. If you have done number 2 on our
list, you have probably come across a few photos in books of the unit you
are representing. If not, use the internet, but don’t go to other
re-enactor group sites. LOOK AT THE ORIGINAL PICTURES. LOOK CLOSER. It
doesn’t matter how many times you see a paratrooper wearing a first aid
pack on his helmet in a movie – if you don’t see it in the period,
taken-on-the-spot photographs -- then you can pretty much infer that the
movie you saw was wrong. Big surprise. I
can’t count the number of times I heard excuses over my time re-enacting
as to why an item – which was being worn incorrectly for the overall
impression – was “perfectly correct”. I even once heard a re-enactor
claim he uncovered a secret stash of photographs (which, surprisingly,
could not be procured) that showed a particular item being worn a
particular way, which didn’t “jive” with the published photos of the
unit and their gear.
Again, if you are joining a decent unit, you’ll get some guidance as to
how to wear your gear and what you need to buy that is unit-apropos. If
the unit you are joining is “getting it wrong” and you are afraid to
tell them otherwise, then look for a better unit.
5.
Getting it dirty means getting it right.
What
can an aspiring progressive do to push his airborne infantry impression
“over the edge” just enough to look and act like the real deal?
Simple.
Go outside and get some dirt on your uniform. In the words of our
authenticity officer: “don’t just rub dirt all over everything.” As
crazy as it sounds, go outside after it rains and low-crawl through mud
puddles in your ‘43’s and web gear. Gardening? Perfect
time to put on your uniform and get it filthy. Sure, the neighbors
may think you’re nuts, but it’s a practical way to get those clothes
worn, sweaty, and dirty. Don’t wash your uniform, either, unless washing
it consists of dousing it with water every now and then. If one wants to
portray a WWII GI on the move through the
Ardennes
Forest
or
Holland
, where fighting was sporadic but time on the line was constant, one is
not going to be wearing clean clothes. Period.
Yes, we all paid a great deal of money for our gear, but in the end, it
behooves us all to ask ourselves just what we bought it for. Getting it
dirty is the first step to getting it right.
Now, if you are planning on doing a pre-invasion impression, for example,
a dirty uniform would not be correct.
However, 95%
of what you will be re-enacting as an airborne infantryman will be
post-jump. Whether or not you own a spare, clean combat uniform is a
non-issue, in my opinion.
6.
Don’t be afraid to discard.
Did
you find out that the M2 helmet you bought with the custom paint job
isn’t correct for your impression? Get rid of it. Sell it on E-Bay or
take it to the flea market at next year’s Gap.
Many re-enactors tend to buy tons of period stuff and haul it all out to
every event, whether it would have been there or not. Often times, rooting
through your stuff and selling off some superfluous gear is a great way to
make a little bit of cash, which you can then use to buy items you
actually need to improve
your impression. I fell victim to the “hoarding” instinct
myself when I joined Item Company, and by the end of my first year, had 5
helmet shells and three liners. Two or three I had painted NCO hashes on,
and one even had red crosses on each side (which I later found was
incorrect for a 505th medic – the 82nd pics
I had seen for this paint scheme were actually of 508th medics mislabeled
as 505th). I realized from looking at the pictures of the 505th PIR that a
lot of soldiers – regardless of rank or specialty -- just had plain
helmets. I sold off three of the shells (one with liner) on E-bay and used
the money to buy much needed medical gear. I kept a plain M2 and a plain
M1C. I decided that owning “generic” helmets only would give me
considerable leeway if I wanted to change my impression.
The point of this tangent is elementary: as you re-enact and attend
events, you invariably discover that some of the stuff you own is
unnecessary and perhaps incorrect for your unit impression. Someone else
out there would probably like it, so sell it off at a low price. One
man’s trash is another man’s treasure.
7.
Carry the correct weapon(s) for your impression.
Look
at the WWII Tables of Organization & Equipment for the 82nd
and 101st Division Parachute Infantry
Regiments (not the respective divisions). What is the predominant
weapon carried?
If you said the M1 .30-Cal. Semi-automatic rifle, then you are correct.
Folks, if you want to do a “joe sixpack”
Airborne infantryman, leave the folding stock carbines and the replica Thompsons
at home and just bring your M1 into the field. A .45 in a
time-period-correct holster is an acceptable backup or display weapon with
your kit. Make sure you at least have a WWII-dated receiver on your M1 as
well – and if you can, replace any visible post-war parts.
Now, it would be wonderful if all Airborne
units could have at least one M1919A4 .30-cal. Machine gun. Use of the
light MG to lay down a base of fire for advancing riflemen was
part-and-parcel of standard airborne tactics in WWII. However, locating
one that actually fires blanks and is legal to own without reams of Class
3 paperwork is, in the words of Capt. Miller “like finding a needle in a
stack of needles.” There are semi-automatic reproductions out there, but
even they cost a pretty penny, and often do not come with such necessities
as, oh, let’s say, a TRIPOD. You would do much better to spend your
money on a decent M1 or M1911 .45.
Unless you are portraying an officer, a high-ranking non-com, a member of
a crew-served weapon team, or rear-echelon support (which more people need
to do, as there were three support personnel for every one combat
soldier), you probably wouldn’t be carrying a carbine. Regardless of
what any so-called “Airborne Expert” tells you, the full-stock carbine
was used in the Airborne –
not just the folding stock variety. I have fired both, and in my opinion,
the full-stock carbine has a better “feel”. If you have a folding
stock carbine, and it is right for your impression, make sure the receiver
says “Inland”. All carbines should have a flip sight and NO BAYONET
LUG! Blank-adapting a carbine is a veritable nightmare, so again, it is
best to carry an M1 when you plan to “bust caps”.
If you absolutely HAVE to have a Thompson, make sure it is at least USGI,
as this was the most common. If you don’t know what a USGI Thompson is
or what it looks like, see point number 2 above. It’s damned hard to
find one, and again, you’ll have to shell out for it.
Last point: if you are wearing the Geneva cross in any way shape or form
and carrying a firearm for your ETO impression, you need to ditch the
weapon.
Bottom
line, you can’t go wrong with an M1.
8.
Wear the correct kit for the correct period.
This
is self-explanatory. Don’t carry a letdown rope or wear a chin cup on
your helmet’s A-yokes at a
Battle
of the Bulge event. Don’t wear a reinforced M-1942 jumpsuit for a
Sicily
event. Try to wear more OD #3 than OD #7 colored web gear at a
Normandy
living history event. See where I’m going with this? At the Gap a few
years hence, it was not uncommon to see paratroopers looking like they’d
just jumped in from a C-47 for the obligatory “Defense of Bastogne”
tactical. There were '42 jumpsuits, invasion flags, chin cups, helmets
with scrim, etc. All of this was wholly inappropriate for the historical
weather conditions and for the
time period in the ETO. Not to mention that by many accounts, most '42
jumpsuits were either left in a footlocker before Market Garden; or
completely trashed after the fighting at
Normandy
. Think about it. If you had been at the Bulge, you would have been
wearing layer upon layer of anything you could find to just keep warm.
Most photographs of Airborne troops in and
around the
Ardennes
depict them as indistinguishable from “leg” infantry, owing to the
piling on of random uniform pieces, overcoats (when available) and
underclothing.
As an aside, when you wear you wear, wear it right, for Pete’s sake!
This is doubly stressed for living history events. If it’s blazing hot
on the day of your
Normandy
living history, be a man and keep your M42 jacket zipped and buckled. If
the real guys had to do this while running around under enemy fire, it
shouldn’t hurt you in the least to do so while standing around talking
to the public – especially if you hydrate properly. You want to show
visitors to your display the uniform and gear on
the soldier, not laid out on the ground ambiguously.
Inversely, don’t fall into the “everything khaki” web gear trap for
your ETO impressions. One veteran reported that before the D-Day assault,
the troopers in his outfit all wanted OD #7 gear,
as it was the “hip new thing”. It is perfectly OK to have SOME OD# 7 gear
from
Normandy
on, at least according to my research.
9.
Take into the field only what you can carry.
When
attending a tactical or even a living history event as an airborne
infantryman, you shouldn’t have to back up a truck to offload your gear
at the respective site. You are depicting spearhead light infantry, and
these guys didn’t drop in to occupied territory with everything but the
kitchen sink. A good rule on gear is what I call the “Two Trip”
theorem. Basically, if you can’t walk to and from your car twice and get
all of your gear to your location, you are carrying too much stuff for an
airborne infantryman – especially if you are doing a “just-dropped”
display or tactical. If you read about famous jumps such as
Normandy
, you’ll hear Airborne soldiers reporting –
for example – that their “mess kit” for the drop consisted of a
spoon and their canteen cup. No knife, fork, or meat can. These guys
traveled light and almost always dumped the crap that didn’t need from
the drop – such as chin cups, letdown ropes, “Mae Wests”,
the parachute (of course), Griswold bags, dust goggles etc. Some even
ditched their leather gloves and gas masks. Any extra weight was
prohibitive. If you’re lucky, your hosts will let you dig -- and your
foxhole is a more appropriate centerpiece for an airborne display than is
a wall tent or shelter half. If you are setting up an aid station or CP
display, you should, of course, bring more gear, but at least 90% of the
time, what you are carrying should suffice to set up a correct airborne
display. Sure, other WWII units at the same event will have more
“toys” to show off to the public, but when you speak to visitors or
attendees, you can explain to them why “those guys have” and why you
"have not”. If you want to have the most toys on the block, join a
leg infantry or armor re-enactment group. Understatement is the key to a
good airborne display or tactical impression.
My rule of thumb is this. Portraying a medic, I have my “carried gear”
(Musette bag, web gear, aid pouch, pockets) to
store stuff, a wooden folding stretcher and an A4 Aerial delivery
container for my Aid Station display items (blanket bag, shelter halves,
blankets, extra supplies). Poles and foliage cover for my
"lean-to" are cut on site from saplings and branches –
that’s one reason why 505th medics dropped with a hatchet on their
pistol belts. I can get all of my gear to do an Aid Station setup in two
trips. If I am just showing up as a front line aid man, I ditch the
stretcher and the container. If it doesn’t fit, I don’t take it.
10.
Look the part.
The
last, and in my opinion, most important point here is going to ruffle some
feathers.
If
you can’t at least make a concerted effort to cultivate a period look,
don’t do the Airborne uniform a disservice by
wearing it.
Age and weight are the two big offenders here. If you are 45 and can pull
off the look of someone in his early 30’s, then don’t sweat portraying
an Airborne infantryman. Ernie Pyle famously
described “dogfaces” in Italy
as looking “middle-aged” due to incredible combat stress and the
rigors of constant warfare. It’s okay to look haggard and worn-out.
However, I have never seen a picture of an obese paratrooper. Ever.
If you are overweight and portraying a paratrooper,
and you're offended by this, you’d be better served to start exercising
and eating less than getting angry at an "opinionated" guy writing a web
article. Aside from improving your impression, losing weight will do
wonders for your overall health, well-being, and lifespan. You could have
the most accurate kit in the world from the best vendors, but having a pot
belly pushing out your M42 coat unnaturally is the ULTIMATE
impression-killer.
Judging from pictures, hair should be anywhere from shaved,
high-and-tight, or tapered on the sides and back. If you wear a mustache,
it must be of the “pencil-thin” variety.
Lastly, even if you never served, at least try to act with a modicum of
military bearing – especially around the public. Speak with confidence,
look your visitors in the eye, and show that you have researched your
topic of discussion thoroughly. Demonstrate that you know the function of
your gear, and your role as if you were a real paratrooper in WWII.
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