And to think it also had a service life of over 40 years in one guise or another and only being retired in the 90's proves how good a design it was.
#M9A1 BLACK GAS MASK FULL#
Maybe with the cold war starting and the Korean war in full swing that another all out war may have been in the thinking of the top brass in the US department of defence and government and a large stock of masks would be needed. These are still frequently turning up in sealed tins so did they make far more than were actually issued or needed. I wonder how many of these masks became surplus compared to how many were issued.
#M9A1 BLACK GAS MASK SERIES#
The M9 series is easily one of the most iconic and one of the most successful masks used by the US and is one I'm glad to have in my collection.Īmazing to think that a lot of these M9A1's were packed and sealed in there tins almost 70 years ago and emerge looking factory fresh as though they were packed yesterday. There's also a special purpose bag, which features a different marking on it, though these are fairly uncommon. The interior has 2 pockets, one for the Protective Ointment Kit and one for the M1 Waterproofing bag. It was made of a water-repellent canvas and was fastened by 3 "Lift-The-Dot" fasteners. The bag was the sole difference between the M9 and M9A1 kits. The final piece of the kit is the M11 carrier. Mine was produced on May 6th, 1952 and was weighted at 262.5 grams. Instead of the common 40mm thread, this filter has a 60mm thread. This filter was issued with the M5, M8, and M9 masks.
The M11 filter has an unknown manufacturer, with what appears to be WB as the makers mark. If anyone happens to have any info on this, I would greatly appreciate it. This one has the additional feature of storing the filter in it as well. As far as the function goes, it works much like any other face form, filling out the mask while it's in the container. It seems to have been made by L&M, though what maker that would be I have no idea. I can't find any information on it at all. The face form is the biggest mystery of this kit. The mask itself was made in the 3rd week of April 1952 by Firestone, and the valve cover was made in the 1st week of April 1952 by either Daytona Tire Company or Dryden. The kit was created around 1951, and mine is dated 1952.
My M9A1 was produced not long after they started being produced.
The M9A1 kit was identical to the M9 kit, with the only difference being in the bag, along with the M9A1 no longer being packaged in a cardboard box. The C48R1 would have been paired with a C15R1 carrier as opposed to the M11 carrier of the M9A1 (which I'll get to later), though the kits themselves remained the same. The mask also saw the change of the Universal size to the Medium size. The C48R1 mostly saw minor changes from the E19 series, with the most notable being the shift from black butyl to a white rubber, C15 valves, pull tabs for easy removal (present on later models), and a C8 harness instead of the earlier C4 harness. This series of experimental masks went through 49 revisions up until 1947, where it became the C48R1, which was the first form of the M9 as we know it today. The development of the M9 series of masks started off with the experimental E19 masks, which came about due to the need for an assault mask to replace the M5 and M8.
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