Death Art of WWI_ What's New at the Museum! _ American Artifact Episode 193

Every once in a while here on American Artifact, we like to throw out an episode showing some of the new items that have arrived here at the museum. There are constantly new artifacts that are arriving here at this place. And anyone who knows me knows that I am a real big enthusiast of the history of the First World War. We have a lot of really unique items here at the museum that are connected to the First World War. So today, we're going to show a few artifacts that have recently come in that are just absolutely incredible that are connected to the Great War. We are in the Gettysburg Museum of History Annex Building in my temporary office. We're going to do some World War I, what's new at the museum. We don't get as much World War I stuff as World War II and Civil War, but we got some pretty interesting items lately. And one thing that both myself and JD really like is soldier art. So we're going to show you some things that have some really outstanding soldier art on it. We're going to start over here with this helmet. This is a U.S. helmet that has the Allied Nation flags painted across it. Probably a tribute at the end of the war for victory. But I really like it. It's really colorful. It's different. You don't see ones like this too often. Got the American flag right in the middle there. And then coming over here, this is probably one of the best World War I U.S. painted helmets I've seen. The chin strap's loose, unfortunately, but it's 35th Division. It's painted camouflage, but there's also like a nod here. I guess it's maybe trying to represent the seven deadly sins or something like that, or man's vice. You got, you know, the beer mug, the cigarette, dice, the skull, a woman's shoe, and a hand of cards there. But wow, what a spectacular helmet. And this we just got very recently. And yeah, it's one of my favorites. I think it's probably my favorite World War I painted helmets that I've ever seen. We also just got this recently. This is a German painted helmet, and it has a bunch of different artwork on it, including this skull, just like the other one. Got Munz and some unit painting and various designs. Pretty interesting. I've never really seen one quite like this. Very cool. And then we have this gas mask here that has the 78th Division on here. It has a name and a couple other stamps on the back. But there's some curious stains on here. We believe this is blood stains. We've never tested it, but it's certainly the color of the way fabric turns after a while when it's blood stained. It turns almost like a reddish brown color. Pretty interesting piece. And you don't see as many painted gas mask bags as helmets, but it has the gas mask inside. I'm not going to take it out because it's a little awkward and fragile. And then I'm going to come over here to another really nice painted helmet. This is an 82nd Division helmet when they were just an infantry unit. Of course, they didn't become airborne until World War II. Has the guy's name on here and his liner is intact still. Very nice artwork. But what's great about this is we have the whole grouping that we obtained directly from the family. Here's the guy's photo. This is his uniform. Really nice 82nd Division patch. His name was James Antonelli and he was in 82nd Division, 3rd Battalion, 326 Infantry Company I. And he lived to the age of 101, so he had a long life. He died in 1996. But we have his pants, two hats. He probably wore this as a veteran in parades because he has his victory medal attached to the hat. And just a really nice uniform with the collar disc and a really nice patch right here. But yeah, and we got a couple of photographs of him from the time period. They came with it. They're real photo postcards. This one is French. Actually, it was taken over there, I believe. And so is this one. But yeah, just a great grouping and really great to have a painted helmet. Now, most of these type of helmets were painted at the end of the war when they were coming home. Some, in some cases, even maybe a little bit after the war. You know, they didn't wear them like this in combat. This was probably done on the boat on the way home or during occupation duty. But some really great World War I artwork. Some of my favorite stuff, soldier's art.