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Pith Helmet, Pith Helmets

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.

Source: Wikipedia > Pith Helmet