British Boots and German Jackboots

[PhilB]

I was intrigued by this from JS:-

"In 1914 the Geman infantryman would have been wearing what we would call jackboots. The superiority of boots and puttees, especially for troops moving or assaulting through thick mud, became clearer later. Even then, as far as I know, the wearing of boots and puttees was frowned on officially for a long time. It was not until probably 1917 that warm British boots, not to mention the owner's woollen socks, became prized finds amongst German front line troops"

I`d never considered British boots as "warm" - was the jackboot really so unpopular?

[Old Tom]

Seem to recall that it was a matter of the quality of the leather.

Old Tom

[bob lembke]

QUOTE (Phil_B @ Mar 5 2010, 09:14 AM)

I`d never considered British boots as "warm" - was the jackboot really so unpopular?

When my father entered the German Army in mid-1915 he was 18 1/2 years old and the boots he was issued were older than he was (The date of manufacture was stamped into the boots.) The hob-nails (32 nails on the sole, and an iron horse-shoe in the heel) prevented much wear, but the old leather hardened and the nail-holes widened and the nails then tended to fall out.

In 1916 he joined a storm unit, and they wore half-boots and puttees. This made the men more nimble in the attack. They generally only entered the trenches for an attack so they did not have to live there (one advantage of the jackboot would be if you had to live in a deeply muddy trench for several days), but of course the half-boot allowed the use of less leather, which, like everything else (except possibly turnips), was a scarce item.

I read an interesting book by a young American studying in Paris who in 1914 volunteered to work for the American Embassy. He entered occupied Belgium on a diplomatic mission. He noted, as the long columns of Germans marched into and across Belgium, they had horse-drawn wagons with several cobbler's work-stations installed on the bed, and with wide running boards on each side. When a soldier's boots broke down he swung out of the march and waited, and when one of these wagons came along he swung up on the running board, took his pack off, and gave his boot to a cobbler, who repaired it as the wagon traveled ahead. Then the re-shod soldier would stay on the running board until the wagon reached or passed his unit, and then he swung off the running board and waited for his unit. The author was strongly pro-French but marveled at the efficiency of the German Army, and was rather dismayed at various signs of disorder in the French Army. (He visited a military hospital on the other side of France, and inspected wounded, and some of the men had wounds tags still tied to them, and were wearing the original field dressing put on by their comrades on the battle-field. They had been evacuated hundreds of miles, but no one had cleaned their wound or changed the dressing in five weeks. One reason why the French had three times the number of deaths from gangrene as the other combatants.)

Bob Lembke

[MartinWills]

I have come across a number of accounts reflecting that Germans often recovered boots from dead British Soldiers. This seemed to happen moore towards the end of the war and I would surmise that serious shortages and the use of "ersatz" products meant that the quality of German footwear declined as the war went on. I think we too easily forget that almost everything was in short supply in Germany as the war continued. Although some items were on ration on the home front some things weren't simply because there were not even adequate supplies to be rationed.

[David B]

Why would the Germans be short of leather towards the end of the war ? Surely they had just as many animals to take hides from or was there a shortage

of those as well or had they cleaned out the tanneries for personnel to feed the front line.

[Andrew Upton]

Why would the Germans be short of leather towards the end of the war ? Surely they had just as many animals to take hides from or was there a shortage

of those as well or had they cleaned out the tanneries for personnel to feed the front line.

Lots of Germany's leather was imported before the war, from Argentina for example. With the British Navy blockading supplies it couldn't reach Germany. It was the same with rubber amongst other things.

[bob lembke]

Why would the Germans be short of leather towards the end of the war ?

I have about 50 letters from my family during the war, mostly from my father and grand-father from the front. I wish that there was a lot more of military matters, but even fairly early in the war much of the letters were explicitly or implicitly about shortages, of course especially food. I have a letter from 1916, and my father was in a Prussian Guard storm unit, who supposedly got superior rations, and he complained that for some dinners he was only getting two spoon-fulls of awful synthetic jam, probably made from turnups, to eat with the bread ration received in the morning, if the soldier was had any bread left, and many evenings there was no food at all. The bread ration was getting smaller, and ersatz materials like sawdust began to replace more palatable material, like flour.

I am currently reading the memoirs of Knox, the Brit military attache to the Russian court, and early in 1915 he remarks that the Germans have captured a town in the north of Russia, in early 1915, and he comments that the Germans had captured a lot of leather, which he knew that the Germans badly needed. This was in early 1915.

As the war went on everything seemed to be in short supply, as there were all sorts of ingenious substitutions (probably including truck tires made of turnips), until almost everything was in very short supply, or simply unobtainable.

My father captured luxuries like coffee and soap on raids on allied positions, and mailed them home to both his mother and father, so they could sell the luxuries and buy stapled to feed themselves. (They lived apart.) My grand-father resisted this, he was a staff officer, a Hauptmann, but his health had been broken on the Russian front by malaria, and he could not serve at the front, so he did staff work in Germany, mostly. In a letter he wrote to my father that in order to get a meal he would wander about and see an army unit feeding the enlisted men; he would join the enlisted chow line and get a bowl of whatever they had and enjoy eating with the men. (He was a former Prussian heavy artillery NCO from 30 years before) As he was at the rank that would command a battalion or sometimes a regiment the mess sergeant was not in a strong position to refuse him food.

I think if the UK had had the sort of shortages that the Germans had almost for the entire war by 1916 or 1917 there would have been a revolution, and the mob would have caught the Royal Family, boiled them, and eaten them with turnips.

Bob Lembke

[David B]

Thanks guys,

I was of the feeling that as leather, being a natural product would not have been subject to as many restrictions as other commodities.

One lives and learns.

David

[Old Tom]

Bob

As a second course after Asquith and Churchill!

Old Tom

[PhilB]

So is the unpopularity of jackboots in the later war years simply a matter of poor leather? And were British socks popular because of German wool shortage? Jackboots don`t seem to have been used so much in WW2 for active service?

[Chief_Chum]

On a really simple level it's worth asking yourselves what type of footwear would be ideal in thick, sticky mud; one which was tied firmly to your foot or one which was pulled on!

Jackboots must have been a real joy in trenches and shellholes half filled with water...

[PhilB]

Army boots filled with water once it was deep enough to reach the first eyelet - about 2 inches. Anybody worn jackboots in water/mud?

[wainfleet]

QUOTE (Phil_B @ Mar 13 2010, 09:29 AM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Army boots filled with water once it was deep enough to reach the first eyelet - about 2 inches. Anybody worn jackboots in water/mud?

No they didn't, not in WW1 anyway. The tongues of army boots were "gussetted" up to the lower puttee edge level to prevent precisely that occurrence.

[PhilB]

Yes, I wondered about that. I was reminiscing about boots of the 50s - were they gussetted too? So it`s 4 inches of water to go into WW1 boots!

[Chief_Chum]

50s boots had a similar gusset arrangement.

Our Christmas Truce commemoration in 1999 was a steep learning curve in waterproofing kit. My boots kept my feet dry in pretty awful conditions for almost two days but, once they were wet, the only relief was in putting drier socks on every morning. Needless to say, after the third day it was just a case of putting on a pair which were not quite as wet as the ones you had just taken off.

"So it`s 4 inches of water to go into WW1 boots!"

Actually the puttees keep a lot of it out too.

I still think British boots must have been more practical than jackboots.

.

6am Christmas morning, Plugstreet, 1999...

[eparges]

I just like add that yes, good boots were becoming a rarety in the german army as the war progressed: at the end of the war even part or entire papercloth (Papierstoff) ankle boots were distributed (but rarely worn at the front). 'Captured' boots, especially british one's, were very popular amongst german troops. If one examines german period photos, especially of 1918, of killed allied troops, one notices that they often don't have boots any more. I have a german photo taken on the 21th of march 18 by a member of FR73, to the north of Noreuil and possibly showing killed 2/5th Sherwood Forresters in Pontefract-trench. One taken of the same trench just before this one, from the other end, shows the same soldiers, but still with their boots on; It took apparently a very short while, the time for the photographer to move from one end to the other, for the boots to disappear..(After consideration, I didn't place the photo, so as not to offence or shock any members)

[Nigel Marshall]

I'm with Taff on this.

I've worn pull on boots (wellies) and in cloying mud they get pulled off with ease. A boot tied with laces doesn't get pulled off, although pull it and the foot it is tied on to can be a tall order.

My granddad told me that he soaked his WWII gaiters in petrol at regular intervals to waterproof them. Would a WWI Tommy be able to get hold of petrol to do his puttees?

Would he get away with doing it, or was the Army very much 'worn as issued'?

Cheers,

Nigel

[PhilB]

How would petrol make WW2 gaiters waterproof? And what would be the good if the water can go under them or through the overlap?

[David B]

Phil B,

If someone tosses a match downward and the petrol goes up in flames I'd guess the wearer would jump right out of the trench onto dry land

in a effort to escape. Otherwise no idea at all, petrol is lighter than water and would just float off.

David

[PhilB]

The only time I saw petrol used on gaiters was to get old greasy blanco off.

[paulowen]

My grandad (8th Army) said that in North Africa they used petrol to wash clothes. (being more plentiful than water!)

[Nigel Marshall]

QUOTE (Phil_B @ Mar 27 2010, 08:47 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

How would petrol make WW2 gaiters waterproof? And what would be the good if the water can go under them or through the overlap?

No idea, Phil, it's just what I was told by him. He also told me that they used pertol for cleaning clothes in the desert, as Paul said. I never understood why he needed waterproof gaiters in North Africa......

Cheers,

Nigel

[bob lembke]

Lice and lice?

Bob

[RobL]

One member of the Leicestershire Regiment mentions that when captured, him and his mates had their boots pinched off them by the Germans and replaced with wooden clogs! He also recalled that when he was on the train home back in the UK (I think at York) he threw them out of the train window across the platform - and, in his own words "Eeeee they did clatter!"

[bob lembke]

Giving the POWs clogs clearly had two purposes; providing a pair of boots in short supply, and also making mis-behavior by the prisoners (escape attempts, etc.) much more difficult and therefore less likely. I do not study WW II, but recently saw a funny event; some Allied prisoners had escaped, and had thoughtfully made some sandwiches to bring along; they were standing in a German train station, waiting for a train. Hungry, one or more took out their sandwiches and started eating, and suddenly the German civilians turned angrily on them, not for being escaping POWs, but for seemingly being some sort of war profiteer or breaker of rationing regulations. It then became obvious that they were not Germans, and were held for the police. The POWs had made sandwiches with white bread from their food packages, while German civilians had not seen white bread for years. Again, not a student of WW II, but I believe one problem controlling western Allied POWs in WW II was that they often, with their packages, had much better food than their guards, and sometimes could corrupt them.

Bob