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Discussion: “A Better Fighting Garment…” - A Beginner’s Guide to the US Navy’s WWII-era and later Intermediate Flight Jackets
- Thread starter Lord Flashheart
- Start date
mulceber
Moderator
Just posted the AN-J-3. Not many pictures, but it contains the section I thought was so important to understanding flight jacket contracting. @33-1729 really cleared up the relation between Drawing and Specification, and how it relates to the attempt by the AAF and Navy to collaborate on a jacket.
33-1729
Well-Known Member
I don't know where the false rumor started about the ANJ3-ish jackets we see being ex-military issue. The only reference we found about the bi-swing back goatskin jackets without an inside pocket was in Aota-san's Full Gear (thanks to Jan for the translation).
The same type of knit as the M422A and zippers from WWII are used, giving the impression that they are for military use, but they are commercially available jackets. Most of them do not have labels, and even if they do, they are labeled "SILVER WOODS" or "ABERCROMBIE & FITCH". Since they are commercially available, there are many variations. For example, there are ones without a placket or epaulets. By the way, it seems that the use of zippers on commercially available clothes was greatly restricted during WWII, and the types of zipper materials were also limited. We cannot unconditionally say that they were for military use based on the type of zipper.
Can't say who made them, but if it looks like a Willis & Geiger or Monarch there is no reason to doubt that. Certainly may have been used by civilian flight instructors. And made after the war when rationing ended.
The same type of knit as the M422A and zippers from WWII are used, giving the impression that they are for military use, but they are commercially available jackets. Most of them do not have labels, and even if they do, they are labeled "SILVER WOODS" or "ABERCROMBIE & FITCH". Since they are commercially available, there are many variations. For example, there are ones without a placket or epaulets. By the way, it seems that the use of zippers on commercially available clothes was greatly restricted during WWII, and the types of zipper materials were also limited. We cannot unconditionally say that they were for military use based on the type of zipper.
Can't say who made them, but if it looks like a Willis & Geiger or Monarch there is no reason to doubt that. Certainly may have been used by civilian flight instructors. And made after the war when rationing ended.
mulceber
Moderator
It may be significant that the company whose (civi) AN-J-3 is identified as having Air Force features is Willis & Geiger. A company like Monarch, if they wanted to make a jacket to sell to personnel or flight instructors for the AAF, could just dust off their A-2 pattern, but W&G never had an A-2 contract, so the easiest thing for them to do would be to adapt their M-422A pattern.
Total speculation on my part.
Total speculation on my part.
33-1729
Well-Known Member
"Great job" to Jan for the work he's done getting examples of all the different contracts!
The AN-J-3 & AN-J-3a story line is much more interesting than previously believed. The AN-J-3 specs show it was an update to the M-422a spec with a leather instead of mouton collar: A trivial change. And in "Hell Bent for Leather" (HBfL) they mentioned almost 30,000 AN-J-3 jackets were made before Oct '43 and the introduction of the mouton collared AN-J-3A. There are so many errors in HBfL it's best to enjoy the pictures and scratch all the text (they had no references, bibliography, or any other sources listed). Still, this doesn't appear to be a random number. If true (big ? mark), maybe the AN-J-3 shipment to the Front didn't make it.
The big news is that the AN-J-3a was the first to be called a "G-1", but we also saw the last AN-J-3a contract, N383s-1035, was into 1949 after that spec was superseded by 55-J-14 on 31-Oct-1947 (the 55-J-14 being the first contract with "G-1" on the label). We saw something similar when nearly 100,000 A-2 jackets were purchased by the Air Force after the AN-J-3 officially superseded the A-2. We didn't find what constraints pushed the Air Force to using previously approved specifications either. More will be in the next posts.
We have leads on more AN-J-3/3a government docs, so we hope to add to what we have now in the future. It's been nearly eighty years and we're still learning something new.
The AN-J-3 & AN-J-3a story line is much more interesting than previously believed. The AN-J-3 specs show it was an update to the M-422a spec with a leather instead of mouton collar: A trivial change. And in "Hell Bent for Leather" (HBfL) they mentioned almost 30,000 AN-J-3 jackets were made before Oct '43 and the introduction of the mouton collared AN-J-3A. There are so many errors in HBfL it's best to enjoy the pictures and scratch all the text (they had no references, bibliography, or any other sources listed). Still, this doesn't appear to be a random number. If true (big ? mark), maybe the AN-J-3 shipment to the Front didn't make it.
The big news is that the AN-J-3a was the first to be called a "G-1", but we also saw the last AN-J-3a contract, N383s-1035, was into 1949 after that spec was superseded by 55-J-14 on 31-Oct-1947 (the 55-J-14 being the first contract with "G-1" on the label). We saw something similar when nearly 100,000 A-2 jackets were purchased by the Air Force after the AN-J-3 officially superseded the A-2. We didn't find what constraints pushed the Air Force to using previously approved specifications either. More will be in the next posts.
We have leads on more AN-J-3/3a government docs, so we hope to add to what we have now in the future. It's been nearly eighty years and we're still learning something new.
Last edited:
Lord Flashheart
Well-Known Member
It's reassuring to see that the Navy were just as clear, and confusing, about what the AN-J-3A was as you could hope from a government service 
