This helmet is painted completely red with white stencils used in order to create the red cross. These crosses can be found both on the front and back of the helmet. Letters that spell "REP" and the number "5" can be found on top of the helmet stenciled in military block lettering. The helmet is a Korean War Era M-1 made sometime between 1951 and 1958. This can be determined by the clasp used for the chinstrap, which as a ball end instead of a "J" hook as used during WWII. The name "Larson" is written on the chinstrap.¹

Historical Context

Aboard every navy ship are Damage Control (DC) parties. These parties are tasked with keeping the ship afloat and in working order before and after it has sustained damage in battle. The parties handle several jobs that go along with this task including firefighting, damage control, and chemical-biological-radiological (CBR) warfare defense. There are two branches of damage control: the DC Administrative organization, which tries to prevent damage before it has happened, and the DC Battle organization that handles damage once it has occurred to the ship.¹ Within the two organizations, there are a number of different parties that are split up among the various parts of the ship. These parties are most commonly identified by the tag Repair followed by a number to show what part of the ship they oversee.² Repair-1 handles main deck repair, Repair-2 does forward repair, Repair-3 handles after repair, Repair-4 covers Amidship repair, Repair-5 covers propulsion repair, Repair-6 handles ordnance repair, Repair-7 oversees gallery deck and island structure repair, and finally Repair-8 handles electronics repair. These are by no means exclusive and a ship may have additional teams depending on its task such as aviation fuel repair.³ Within each repair party, there are a number of specialized technicians such as electrician’s mates, hull technicians, and hospital corpsmen.⁴ It is the job of the hospital corpsmen to provide on-scene first aid while also making sure that critically injured sailors are moved to sick bay for further treatment.⁵

Country: United States	War Period: Cold War
Garment Type: Infantry Helmet	Year Made: 1941 — 1988
Identification: USH-132-0109