"War movies - did you ever notice..." Topic

Americans never wear their chin strap but the Germans always do?

There's a historical basis: there was a widespread FOAF-tale among GI's that if you had a near-miss shell burst, the blast would force your helmet back and – IF you had the chinstrap cinched – snap your neck!

I believe a similar story was why many Tommies wore the chinstrap on the back of their head. It is also a lot more comfortable that way….

irl there are plenty of photos Germans with the chinstrap hooked up of course.

My dad served in Korea in '53-'54 and said that they were trained never to strap their chinstrap in case the helmet snagged on something when they were moving. Better to have the helmet fall off, than to have your head snagged by a branch or something.

The chin strap catching the head in a shell blast is the story I've heard, too. In old war comics, you always see the dogface vet with his beard stubble and dangling chin strap and the raw replacement with his clean face and chin strap buckled tight. It's an artistic convention as well as a cinematic convention!

I'm sure the practice was genuine enough whatever the rationale. The interesting thing to me about old war movies is that so many were made by men who had done actual service -- and they knew what was real and what was not, and they knew their audience would call them out on bonehead flubs, too. So they got a lot of the little things right, the details and ordinary things, that modern filmmakers miss, or have to painfully research to learn.

I think many older war movies have an intrinsic authenticity the modern ones lack due to this, and it's organic, not forced. Plus costume departments could draw on more real surplus clothing and equipment than they have access to now.

You do see them hooked on paratroopers pre-jump for obvious reasons.

I'm pretty sure the story about leaving chinstraps unbuckled due to the shell-blast effect was included in the 1955 movie "To Hell and Back," which starred Audie Murphy and was based on his own memoir of his World War II service. Since Murphy was the most-decorated U.S. soldier of World War II, I can't imagine it making it into the movie, unless it was generally considered to be true. I suppose the only way to find out if it is really true is to go out and stand near a shell burst with your helmet firmly strapped on--any volunteers?

I recently watch the number of pre-World War II and early war movies about Americans. The troops were wearing Montana hats with straps not buckled or behind head but all the officers have them buckled under the chin.

Mythbusters would have been able to show it one way or the other.

I guess times have changed – I can't remember seeing any soldiers in Iraq that did not have their helmets buckled on securely despite all the explosions. (However, we did not use seatbelts). I suspect the dangling helmet straps comes more from the desire in war movies to have the helmets tipped up to see the star's faces vice neck popping helmet accidents.

Mythbusters would have been able to show it one way or the other.

"And for the finale, we'll use 500 pounds of ANFO and see if the helmet survives."

I read, years ago somewhere, that GIs also like to wear the chin straps because if the helmet was blown off the chin strap could tear off their nose.

Chin straps? Watch some old movies were they just wear the helmet liner. If your seeing rivets around the bottom it's just the liner. I have my 70's era and before helmet. I use to were it while in the military and it wasn't a problem then. But now it feels like it weighs a ton.

On a lot of old timey photos, it looks like the straps are not present altogether.

I read accounts of men in Exercise Tiger (D-Day dry run) jumping from their sinking ship with their helmets still buckled and getting their necks snapped by the force of the water catching inside the helmet. That might have started the rumint that blast could kill you with a buckled helmet.