TALKING ABOUT WW2 USMC P44 CAMOS

"Well ,it seems that,for the last year or so,there's been a new interest for the USMC frog skin's camos, mostly from wanna be designers and vintage newbies all wanting a piece of them,ready to pay crazy stupid prices just to "pretend " creating a new obssesion and most likely moving on to something else next year.....Is USMC camo the new "30's " !!?

today's post is about a nice set of P44 second pattern shirt and pants. Don't expect me to tell you how to tell a first pattern from a second one,or how to detect a fake from the real deal. 

At this point I am sure no one really knows when they stopped with one pattern and brought out the later, nor would it have any significance with regard to their utilization. There is no value difference in either pattern..If you want such an item,do your homework,work for it .. .not everything has to be about instant gratification .... ;-)

 

Yes,i know there's lots of nice setups in collections using the 44 camos, but they are not correct regarding your typical ww2 Marines."the P44's came in use only in the last few months of the war. 

The real issue, is that the only evidence[pictures] of P44's in use during the Pacific campaign,is that picture of a medical evacuation unit on Iwo Jima.

At that point i'm  not even sure if they are Navy or Marines. They apparently operated between shore and ships as some pics show them on ship. Even later on Okinawa, there are no P44 patterns to be seen at all,for now. As far as i known, they never were issued to front line combat units.I might be mistaken though .... 

Examples found nowadays,showing wear,were most likely used in stateside training  or post war for the same purpose. They were also apparently issued to some non USMC organizations such as USCG AND USNR,for training use as well....

Surplus were plentifully  sold to the French Army and can be seen modified on numerous pictures taken during the Indochina war by French paratroopers.

Regarding USMC camos,I think most people are still not aware,that beside a VERY LIMITED use by the Paramarines, and some Marine artillery outfits who were issued some army camo coveralls too in the Salomon's, the only camo the Marines used to any extant in ww2 were the 42 pattern and the helmet ....

Interestingly, there are a lot of pics showing Marine aviation ground crews etc. in the islands that are wearing the 42 pattern. Apparently they continued to use them well after the combat infantry stopped wearing them and switch back to the HBT P41......