UBB.threads Forums Uniform & Accessories SS & SA Uniform Forum Well Worn SS Insignias

Here's a 4th motorized inf rgt board, acquired at Bastogne by a prisoner interrogator. Although Rgt 'Der Fuhrer' was actually twenty or more miles to the NW, this was either a liason guy or a former member of DF, still wearing his former unit insignia.
But this discovery caused 101st G-2 to assume that DF was among the units opposing them and that the 2nd SS Pz Div was also closer to Bastogne than they actually were.
The gothic DF slipon is so rare, it does not even appear in LTC Angolia's SS Cloth book. He does have a pen & ink illustration of this style lettering, embroidered directly to the surface of a shoulder board.

Note the chain stitching in silk thread on this detailed close-up of the slip-on.
I'm glad Kursk has joined-in on posting here.
I was starting to feel like the Lone Ranger.
Some of you other guys have great insignia, taken from or with part of the uniforms.
Start sharing it with us and get this thread going again.

The LAH slip-on on this infantry EM board is the only one I've ever acquired from a veteran
(in this case, a 2nd Armored captain).

Here's a detail of the embroidered cypher on the slip.

Thanks to Denny G., for telling me how to re-size images, so I can post them larger on this forum.
This is a detailed shot of the only OFFICER's LAH cypher I've ever obtained directly from a veteran-in this case a prisoner interrogation captain of the 502nd Parachute Inf Rgt.

Wow! I'm having fun with these larger images.
Here's a feldmutze skull, of a type not commonly seen. It's neither the narrow version, nor the extra wide version.
This came from another 2nd Armored Div veteran, who served in the 92nd AFA Bn, the 41st AIR and the Div MP Co.

Yes, I've showed this one before, but never could do it this LARGE.
Cut from a body SW of Arnhem by a 501st PIR Lt. in fall, 1944. The Detroit Police crime lab verified in 1994, that there is a veneer of human blood across the face of the tab.
Viewing it thru an electron microscope revealed tiny bird feathers embedded in the blood, suggesting that birds pecked at his face before the collar corner got cut-off.

go ,go ,go Mark,,,BIGGER IS better! keep it going...thanks , G.

This inf sgt board was removed from the same body-note the Luftwaffe style nco tress on both the edge of the collar and on this board-proof that this style tresse was used on W-SS uniforms and boards.

Last post for today (11-3-07)-
This set of officer cutoffs belongs to a friend of mine and has also changed hands several times in the past few years.
To a W-SS collector, eye candy for sure.

blows your mind when you think that if the tunics a lot of these items were cut from still existed, we would be talking in the hundreds of thousands of dollars..but, as it was, it was just a tunic of the period, nothing special..

Worn, but not 'well-worn':

A grouping of insignia, all taken from a single Gruppenfuhrer encountered at the Obersalzberg in May, 1945.
Courtesy of a 506th paratrooper, 101st Airborne Division.

Yes, I've shown this one before as well, but never this large.
Taken in the Bois Jacques woods near Foy, Belgium during the Bastogne 'winter sports'.
January, 1945, c/o a member of the 501st PIR.
The victim was "frozen like a popsicle" and had evidently just been issued a clean, new uniform at the start of the Ardennes offensive.
Note the more common diamond pattern NCO tresse on the collar edge.

Posted expressly for John F., who used to own it and wants it back.
Don't worry John, if it goes, your name is first on the list.

Here's the reverse

Mark, those are great looking pieces. I am always impressed with your cut-off insignia.

I am posting two items that were given to me years ago by a 29th Div D-Day veteran who went in to Omaha Beach in the 2nd wave. He is still living at age 87. Their colonel was killed that night a short distance inland. He was Colonel Warfield of Maryland.

Other side

Here's the counterpart to the pristine eagle of the same type posted on another thread. 'Pee Wee' Martin G/506th PIR, found this damaged adler with powder residue and blood traces, blowing along the ground the same day, same area. Whomever had it in their pack or pocket didn't make it that day.

Hello Don B. Nice job, documenting the historical provenance to these items as well as the SD artifacts in your book. Regards, MB

Cutoff front of a late war SS M43 cap with 'Pirate Skull'. This is a contrast to the barely-worn trap on the other thread.
As you can see, this one was heavily machine-sewn. It's liberator started to cut it off, then decided it was easier to just cut around it and take part of the cap with it.

Part of sleeve w/factory-sewn eagle, hand sewn lance cpl chevron and hand-sewn field promotion, to Rottenfuhrer (2nd stripe).

This was liberated by S/Sgt Ed Prusa of 2/501 PIR. Possibly salvaged from a Frundsberg casualty, outside Veghel, Holland in September, 1944.
I have to take a break from the forum for awhile. Will post more stuff when I return from Florida. Regards to all, MB

Now for some M43 cap fronts with separate insignia. This example I purchased from a dealer in 1976, for $60-. I remember at the time, the dealer stating "Getting SS insignia like this is the only way I'd believe it was right..."
I also recall some of the 'expert' collectors at that show passing on the piece, because they thought the insignia should have been 'machine-sewn'. They regarded the fact that the insignia were obviously hand-sewn as cause for alarm.
In retrospect, having seen vet bring-back 43 caps and overseas caps, I would now feel the opposite is true...at least on caps of this type.

Very similar skull on this one. This is the exact specimen illustrated in LTC Angolia's classic book on SS Cloth insignia.

2nd AD vet-acquired M43 cap with the larger (wider) type skull I referred-to earlier.

Very nice guys! The camo piece is sweet.. Everyone's different in collecting as some prefer minty mint, but I'd rather have them like this than some off the shelf depot stored piece anyday..
A real treat, thanks for showing them...,G.

Yet another confirmed variant of the field cap skull. This is from the collection of my friend Jim Slaw. historian of the 44th Inf Div.
It was probably liberated from the 'Nord' mountain division.

Cut from the top front and foldup portion of a W-SS overseas cap. A member of Co. F, 501st PIR, 101st Airborne Div. cut these off a cap on a hill east of Bastogne, where US fighter bombers had strafed and killed a number of 12th SS Pz Division grenadiers from the 26th Rgt,
in a patch of woods.
We discussed this piece several years ago when I first posted it and people seemed to agree that the worn-off detail on the eagle resulted from the cap being worn under a steel helmet and rubbing repeatedly against the liner.

Forgot to mention on the overseas cap insignia posted above- note again the narrow format skull and also the obviously hand-sewn method of stitching-on the insignia.

A very salty set of Rottenfuhrer tabs, again from the Nord Division, courtesy Jim Slaw. collection.
This is evidence that even low-ranking NCOs could and did wear officer quality runic insignia at times.

From a page in the scrapbook of a 101st Airborne M.P.
He told me he removed this from a cap at Bastogne.
SS units in the area included LAH, 19th SS Pz Gr Rgt,(9th SS Pz Div), and 26th SS Pz Gr Rgt (12th SS PZ Div).
This info doesn't identify the wearer's unit, but does narrow-down the possibilities.

Many thanks to all for posting this exclusiv material.

I'm posting a reprise of Lt. Siegfried Held's collar corners from the 17th SS Pz Jager Abt.(KIA 13 June, 1944 SW of Carentan, France)
These deserve to be shown in a larger format.

The reverse side of Held's collars make an interesting study.

The gimp cord is much thicker than usually seen on SS Pz officer wrappers.

Both of the tabs are crudely sewn-on with long (1/2") stitches. The stitches on the rank tab are more difficult to see, because they were done in black thread.

The different style pip in the center of the rank tab suggests that Held's rank might have been upgraded in the field, from Standartenoberjunker to Untersturmfuhrer.

I have a few photos taken from Held at the time of his death and he is probably shown in one of them-identifiable by his rank and the odd pip.
I'll also show several shots taken at the road junction where he was killed-after the battle.

Forgot to mention on the post above-it is significant that ALL pips come right thru both the tab and the collar material. This might explain why far more runic tabs were salvaged from the battlefield than rank tabs, with pips.

This was taken circa 9 June, 1944 in the French town of Partheny. The 17th SS Div was enroute to the Invasionsfront from Thouars and paused to confer with an Army general(?) Standing to the right (as you view the photo),in foreground is an Untersturmfuhrer, who could be Siegfried Held. The center pip on his rank tab appears to be different from the other two.
He is wearing an Army-style panzer overseas cap with scalloped front; you can easily see the difference from the boat-shaped 'schiffchen' worn by the officer in the left rear of the photo.
The IPW officer for the 501st PIR got an undeveloped roll of film from Held's possessions when he was KIA, and this is one of the photos that was on it when it was developed.
Of course it's possible that Held 'took' the photo and is not in it himself-perhaps we'll never know for sure.

The Brigadefuhrer in the photo could be Werner Ostendorf (?)

This is where Held probably met his Waterloo on 13 June, 1944. The camera faces N, back toward Carentan, which is less than 3 miles distant.
The 506th was to the left (west of the road) and the 501st to the right(east of the road).
This is the road which connects Carentan to Periers and the junction is one of several intersections known as 'la Fourchette'.
Curiously after being hit by the 6 pounder (57mm)AT gun shown, the StuG IV went past it and made a 180 degree turn around, facing back south, on the west shoulder.
This incident is described in my latest 101st book (see Amazon.com) and the names of the AT gun crew members are listed (I interviewed 2 of them). Two StuGs were KO'd by this crew on that day, but the other is not visible in this photo. It is probable that the one seen in this shot was commanded by Lt Held. The French house w/ orange slate roof is still standing at this intersection. The 506th battle of Bloody Gulch (shown in Episode 3 'Band of Brothers') took place the same day, about 1 mile to the NW of here. It was a rainy afternoon.

The US troops wasted no time in clearing wrecked vehicles from the roads near the beaches. This was taken by an engineer of the 326th AEB a few days after the StuG was KO'd. It was hauled up off the verge of the road and dragged into Carentan for display. Then it was moved to the German vehicle graveyard illustrated in the book 'Panzers in Normandy-Then & Now'. The vehicle graveyard was situated a few miles south of Isigny, France.

This photo was made perhaps a week after the battle at la Fourchette. It ends the story and you can see the same French house in the back, but the StuG IV is now missing.
You can see where the tracks ground-up the dirt on the shoulder of the road as the vehicle was being recovered and dragged away.
The machinegunner was a member of 2/506th PIR
I love these last two photos.

In 2005, I made a pilgrimmage to Lt Held's final resting place, the German military cemetery at Orglandes, France (NW of St Mere Eglise).
Not wanting to chance losing the original collar corners, I took a color Xerox of them, to be photographed where he lies with 2 other fallen German soldiers.

Since American Graves Registration people probably recovered Held's remains, it accounts for the discrepancy in the date of death (14 June)-they probably waited until the line stabilized here, before venturing forth to collect bodies.
Also, I failed to state the obvious about the last photo at la Fourchette-the AT gun crew had been deployed elsewhere, being replaced by the light machine-gun. By then, elements of CCA 2nd Armored Division had taken-up defensive positions even beyond la Fourchette.
The 'Hell on Wheels' tankers were capable of stopping local German attacks, with flexible armored deployments.