6/30/2023 0 Comments Wwii bomber crew jackets![]() ![]() ![]() (Photo credit: Margaret Bourke White / LIFE Magazine). The initial version was a heavy weight leather jacket, specifically designed for pilots who conducted bombing raids. The waist and cuffs may be made of elasticized material. Fighter pilots especially favored RAF helmets, oxygen masks, and life preservers due to how much more comfortable they were. A bomber jacket is a leather or nylon jacket with two front pockets, sometimes with sheepskin lining, and a zippered front. The use of RAF equipment was common among aircrew, especially early in the war due to either shortages or inadequacies of the issued gear. Both crewmen also are sporting RAF-type MK VII goggles with flip-down sun visors. ![]() It remains one of the warmest and most insulating bomber jackets ever made. These special jackets were necessary because the cockpits in WWI fighter. The bomber was vital to the crew’s comfort as the crimp of the sheep’s wool created insulating air spaces, naturally retaining heat and absorbing excess moisture generated by the body. In 1917, the US Army Aviation Clothing Board created flight jackets for WWI pilots. Aviators in WWII bombers came to rely on their B-3 jackets as they often flew for 8-9 hours in unpressurized cabins, where air temperatures could drop to more than 60 degrees below zero (-53 Celsius). With designs like this, it makes the modern B3 Sheepskin a great everyday jacket. Most companies nowadays strive to produce B-3 jackets, without altering its original design because it does not need any improvement. War I and later World War II pilots needed thick and warm flight jackets. The B-3 sheepskin jackets helped to regulate the body temperature of the members of the crew. It covered the mouth and nose and also had a rebreather bag attached to concentrate the oxygen for enrichment.īoth crewmen wear the famous B-3 type shearling jacket. Bomber Jacket KholsMens Bomber Winter Coats & Jackets - Clothing Kohls. The A-8B was a constant flow oxygen mask, patterned after the original design by Boothby, Lovelace, and Bulbillion (the mask was originally known as the BLB mask). The mask is an early A8-B type used by bomber crews mostly from before the war up to about 1943 when it was phased out by more modern systems. The first crewman is wearing the RAF Type B flight helmet (famously used during the Battle of Britain), and the second crewman is wearing a USAAF B-6 type shearling helmet. Two fliers of the 8th Bomber Command clad in high altitude flying clothes including sheepskin coats & helmets, oxygen masks and sunglass goggles, at airdrome in southern England.ĭuring World War II, the now-legendary VIII Bomber Command (often referred to as the Eighth Air Force) served as the principal American force assembled to attack Germany from the air.įor several critical years in the early and mid-1941s, B-24 and B-17 bombers-the Flying Fortresses-from the “The Mighty 8th”, often in tandem with Royal Air Force fighters, crossed the Channel and hit strategic towns and cities in Nazi-held Europe. ![]()
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