Pith Helmet Topics

• franco prussian war
• pith helmets
• german pickelhaube
• slouch hats
• european colonial powers
• military counterpart
• casual occasions
• u s marine corps
• south african army
• tagalog word
• afrika korps
• definitive design
• french sources
• colonial troops
• civilian officials
• british empire
• imperial germany
• italian troops
• european origin

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Pith Helmet, Pith Helmet

The Franco-Prussian War had popularized the German Pickelhaube , which may have influenced the definitive design of the pith helmet. Such developments may have merged with a traditional design from the Philippines. The alternative name salacot (also written salakhoff ) appears frequently in Spanish and French sources and comes from the Tagalog word salacsac (or Salaksak).

However, the pith helmet was used by all European colonial powers, and during the 1880s even by the United States Army [2] in the south west. It was commonly worn by white officers commanding locally recruited soldiers in the colonial troops of France, Britain, Spain, Portugal, Italy, Imperial Germany and the Netherlands, as well as civilian officials in their tropical territories. White troops serving in the tropics usually wore pith helmets, although on active service they were sometimes replaced by more comfortable and less conspicuous alternatives such as the wide brimmed slouch hats worn by US troops in the Philippines and by British Empire forces in the later stages of the Boer War.

Included in this category are the sun helmets worn in North Africa by Italian troops, South African Army and Air Force units and Germany's Afrika Korps, as well as similar helmets used to a more limited extent by U.S. and Japanese forces in the Pacific Theater. The entire military of the America's colony the Philippines, which consisted of an army and a gendarmerie, used sun helmets. The U.S. Marine Corps used pith helmets called "elephant hats" in the South Pacific.

The civilian pith helmet usually had the same dimensions and outline as its contemporary military counterpart though it lacked decorative extras such as badges. It was worn by men and women, old and young, both on formal and casual occasions, until the Second World War. Until the 1930s there was a widespread assumption that wearing this form of headdress was necessary for people of European origin to avoid sunstroke in the tropicsindigenous peoples were assumed to have acquired natural immunity over many generations. Modern medical opinion holds that some form of wide brimmed but light headdress is highly advisable in strong sunlight for people of all races to avoid skin cancers and overheating. Another civilian use has been as a form of standard issue headgear for U.S. government employees in warmer climates. For example, in the U.S. letter carriers employed by the postal service frequently wear a government issued white (in some places light blue) pith helmet when delivering the mail on foot in climates such as South Carolina, Florida, Southern California, Arizona, and Hawaii.

Source: Wikipedia > Pith Helmet