Original Item: Only One Available. Now this is a somewhat rare Imperial Japanese Army sun helmet and the first we have had the pleasure of offering. This helmet is a little worse for wear but was not intended to have the same “shelf life” as the regular massed produced Type 98 “Sun Pith Helmets”. This one does show the perfect amount of service use and wear with a solid suspension system as well as chinstrap. There are faded labels on the interior which is correctly attached directly to the “wicker”. The exterior features the same khaki cloth on the Type 98s and is padded slightly underneath with wool.

A lovely example that comes ready for display.

In December 1941, the main depot printed a manual on Tropical uniforms and equipment. It shows that by this time a variation of shell material had been approved for sun helmet production.

It described the current model (Type 98 V.3) as having a “bamboo shell” and no air vents. It also adjusted the previous models by saying those models had “felt shells” and existed with a combination of both top and side air vents (Type 98 V.1) or only with a top vent (Type 98 V.2).

It explained further that as “reduced spec substitutes”, there were shell material choices of thin wood sheets/tape, Sanada, combination of flax and Sanada, chocolate vine, Willow, Straw and Pandanus.

The Army’s official spec book refers to these substitutes as “B-specs and records show that the Sanada and flax combination was established as “B” Spec on 26th March 1938 followed by chocolate vine on 6th February 1939 and Willow on 6th May 1941.

The Straw version as mentioned in the Dec. 41 manual also exists in the spec book as a Simplified Spec Sun Helmet like this example, which suggests a simplified construction. For instance, the star emblem specified for this model was the type punched out from yellow wool, like those on the field cap or from artificial leather though it is no longer present on this one. Though no drawings are given, it is likely referring to examples without any cloth lining inside (this example), as the materials listing excludes the typical green lining cloth.

This spec was established as early as May 29, 1939 and at that time only assumed straw shells or shells woven out of wood tape, but surely other “B-spec” materials were also employed for this design towards the end.