Jim, you have all the good stuff!!

Chanbers: nice quote----ASK THE INFANTRY AND ASK THE DEAD.

Jim, you have all the good stuff!!

 

Hello Brooke-

It only seems that way. I can't afford to keep the really 'spiffy' pieces like that tunic. All my Axis stuff (like that tunic) gets consigned to a Militaria Dealer. The only uniforms I keep are my WWII Navy (in honor of my Dad) and one WWII Army dress uniform. The rest of my collection now consists of photos, posters, shoulder flashes and some 'Homefront' odds and ends. I live in a small 1-bedroom house now, which is crowded enough with a big dog and me already

Dogdaddy

I have to laugh because when I first started doing laundry in the 60s, my father still had a pair of WWII issue long johns and wore them until the elastic wore out. Who knew I was washing a collectors item!! He also had his army jacket that he wore hunting and when he worked with the dogs in the kennel. Eventually the zipper went on that.....

My Dad was like that too... When he came back from the war he still wore his Navy jacket and that included while he worked on the house..or on cars..or painting! I think you get the picture! The blue wool pullover and bell bottoms stayed in a white duffel bag in his closet until the moths got them, but I still have that old coat! It has repairs that you normally don't expect to see on clothing, such as two rips that have been repaired with Hot Glue. That was my Dad to a "T" and I still smile every time I look at that coat, for those little quirks were a part of his personality that we all loved...

Dogdaddy

My grandpa's uniforms didn't survive his divorce

My BF wears his combat boots he wore in Desert Storm to cut grass and his desert camo pants to hunt in. He's lucky he can even still wear those pants, that was 18 years ago. I just sigh when I see the bleach stains on them.

Really nice photos in this thread, thanks for sharing those.

/Marcus

This is a Neckerchief/Dickie which once belonged to Obergefreiter Erich Radtke, an NCO aboard the German Panzerschiff (Pocket battleship) Admiral Graf Spee, injured during the Battle of The River Platte in Dec. 1939. He and the remaining crew spent the rest of WWII as "guests" of the Argentine government before returning to Germany in 1946. He survived the war and died in Germany in 1970. I got this on ebay recently when the owner of a huge collection of Graf Spee items auctioned some of them off. I don't normally buy German items to keep anymore, but this piece of WWII history was too much to resist and it was relatively inexpensive. I have chatted by email a bit with the man who sold it to me and he told me that Radtke sent him many items from Germany because his grandmother was Radtke's girlfriend during the war. I am also posting a picture of the section of the crew list with Radke's name on it.

Dogdaddy