Pith helmet
The pith helmet, also known as the safari helmet, salacot, sola topee, sun helmet, topee, and topi, is a lightweight cloth-covered helmet made of sholapith. The pith helmet originates from the Spanish military adaptation of the native salakot headgear of the Philippines.
It was often worn by European travellers and explorers in the varying climates found in Southeast Asia, Africa, and the tropics, but it was also used in many other contexts. It was routinely issued to colonial military personnel serving in warmer climates from the mid-nineteenth to the mid-twentieth century. The headdress remains in use in several military services in the 21st century.
Definition
Typically, a pith helmet derives from either the sola or "pith" plant, Aeschynomene aspera, an Indian swamp plant, or from Aeschynomene paludosa. In the narrowest definition, a pith helmet is a type of sun hat made from the wood of the pith plant. However, pith helmet may more broadly refer to this style of helmet when made from any number of lightweight sun-shading materials, such as cork wood, rattan or fiber. It was designed to shade the wearer's head and face from the sun.History
Origin
The origin of the pith helmet is the traditional Filipino headgear known as the salakot. They are usually dome-shaped or cone-shaped and can range in size from having very wide brims to being almost helmet-like. The tip of the crown commonly has a spiked or knobbed finial made of metal or wood. It is held in place by an inner headband and a chin strap. These were originally made from various lightweight materials like woven bamboo, rattan, and calabash; sometimes inlaid with precious metals, coated with water-proof resin, or covered in cloth.Salacots were used by native Filipino auxiliaries in the Spanish colonial military as protection against the sun and rain during campaigns. They were adopted fully by both native and Spanish troops in the Philippines by the early 18th century. The military versions were commonly cloth-covered and gradually took on the shape of the Spanish cabasset or morion.
19th century
The salacot design was later adopted by the French colonial troops in Mainland Southeast Asia in the 19th century due to its effectiveness in protecting from damp and humid weather. French marines also introduced the early version of the salacot to the French West Indies, where it became the salako, a cloth-covered headgear still mostly identical to the Filipino salakot in shape. British and Dutch troops, and other colonial powers in nearby regions followed suit and the salacot became a common headgear for colonial forces in the mid-19th century.File:French uniforms Tonkin.jpg|thumb|Soldiers of the French Tonkin Expeditionary Corps in 1885, with two soldiers wearing pith helmets and another wearing a conical hat
While this form of headgear was particularly associated with the British Empire, all European colonial powers used versions of it during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The French tropical helmet was first authorised for colonial troops in 1878. The Dutch wore the helmet during the entire Aceh War, and the United States Army adopted it during the 1880s for use by soldiers serving in the intensely sunny climate of the Southwestern United States. It was also worn by the North-West Mounted Police in policing North-West Canada, 1873 through 1874 to the North-West Rebellion and even before the stetson in the Yukon Gold Rush of 1898.
European officers commanding locally recruited indigenous troops, as well as civilian officials in African and Asian colonial territories, used the pith helmet. Troops serving in the tropics usually wore pith helmets. However, on active service, they sometimes used alternatives such as the wide-brimmed slouch hat worn by US troops in the Philippines and by British Empire forces in the later stages of the Boer War.
Within the British Empire
The salacot was most widely adopted by the British Empire in British India, who originally called them "planters' hats". They began experimenting with derivative designs for a lightweight hat for troops serving in tropical regions. This led to a succession of designs, ultimately resulting in the "Colonial pattern" pith helmet and later designs like the Wolseley pattern.Originally made of pith with small peaks or "bills" at the front and back, the British Army version of the helmet was covered by white cloth, often with a cloth band around it, and small holes for ventilation. The definitive military version, known as the Foreign Service Helmet, was introduced in June 1877 after trials in India; it had a metal plate carrying the regimental insignia on the front and could be decorated with a brass spike or ball-shaped finial. Depending on the occasion, the chinstrap would be either leather or brass chain. The base material later became the more durable cork, although still covered with cloth and frequently referred to as a "pith" helmet.
During the Anglo-Zulu War, British troops dyed their white pith helmets with tea, mud, or other makeshift means of camouflage. Subsequently, khaki-coloured pith helmets became standard issue for active tropical service.
''Colonial pattern''
Sun helmets made of pith first appeared in India during the First and Second Anglo-Sikh wars of the 1840s. Adopted more widely during the Indian Rebellion of 1857–59, they were generally worn by British troops serving in the Anglo-Ashanti War of 1873, the Anglo-Zulu War of 1878–79, and subsequent campaigns in India, Burma, Egypt, and South Africa. This distinctively shaped early headwear became known as the Colonial pattern helmet.The British Colonial pattern pith helmet, in turn, influenced the designs of other European pith helmets, including the Spanish and Filipino designs, by the latter half of the 19th century and the early 20th century.
''Wolseley pattern''
The Wolseley pattern helmet is a distinctive British design developed and popularised in the late 19th and early 20th century. It was the official designation for the universal sun helmet worn by the British Army from 1899 to 1948 and described in the 1900 Dress Regulations as "the Wolseley pattern cork helmet". It is named after Field Marshal The 1st Viscount Wolseley. With its swept-back brim, it provided greater protection from the sun than the old Colonial pattern helmet. Its use was soon widespread among British personnel serving overseas and some Canadian units. It continues to be used by the Royal Marines, both in full dress as worn by the Royal Marines Band Service and in number 1 dress on certain ceremonial occasions.''Home Service helmet''
At the same time, a similar helmet had been proposed for use in non-tropical areas. The British Army formally adopted this headgear, which they called the Home Service helmet, in 1878. Most British line infantry wore the helmet until 1902, when the khaki Service Dress was introduced. It was also worn by engineers, artillery, and various administrative and other corps. The cloth of the helmet was generally dark blue, but a green version was worn by light infantry regiments and grey by several volunteer units. With the general adoption of khaki for field dress in 1903, the helmet became purely a full dress item, being worn as such until 1914.It returned to use by regimental bands and officers attending levees in the inter-war period and is worn by regimental bands of British Army line infantry regiments to the present day.
The design of the Home Service helmet closely resembles the traditional custodian helmet worn since 1869 by several police forces in England and Wales. Black helmets of a similar shape were also part of the uniform of the Australian Victoria Police during the late 19th century. The US Army also wore blue cloth helmets of the same pattern as the British model from 1881 to 1901 as part of their full-dress uniform. The version worn by cavalry and mounted artillery included plumes and cords in their respective service branches' colours.
20th century
Military use
Before the First World War, the Royal Navy and other navies had sometimes provided pith helmets for landing parties in tropical regions. Pith helmets were widely worn during the First World War by British, Belgian, French, Austrian-Hungarian, and German troops fighting in the Middle East and Africa. A white tropical helmet was issued to personnel of the French Navy serving in the Red Sea, Far Eastern waters, and the Pacific between 1922 and the 1940s.During the 1930s, the locally recruited forces maintained in the Philippines used sun helmets mostly made out of compressed coconut fiber called "Guinit". The Axis Second Philippine Republic's military, known as the Bureau of Constabulary, and guerrilla groups in the Philippines also wore this headdress.
File:Los héroes de un combate, Mundo Gráfico, 28-02-1912.jpg|thumb|Spanish officers wearing pith helmets and rayadillo breeks in the Spanish protectorate in Morocco, 1912
Before the Second World War, Royal Navy officers wore the Wolseley helmet when in white uniform; the helmet was plain white, with a narrow navy-blue edging to the top of the puggaree. Pith-styled helmets were used as late as the Second World War by Japanese, European and American military personnel in hot climates. Included in this category are the sun helmets worn in Ethiopia and North Africa by Italian troops, the Royal Netherlands East Indies Army, Union Defence Force, and Nazi 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.
In the British Army, a khaki version was frequently worn, ornamented with a regimental cap badge or flash. The full-dress white helmet varied from regiment to regiment: several regiments had distinctive puggarees or hackles. On ceremonial occasions, the helmet was topped with a spike or a ball ; and general officers staff officers and certain departmental officers, when in full dress, wore plumes on their helmets, similar to those worn on their full-dress cocked hats.
George Orwell, commenting on the unproblematical use of slouch hats by Second World War British troops rather than the "essentially superstitious" use of pith helmets, wrote, "When I was in Burma I was assured that the Indian sun, even at its coolest , had a peculiar deadliness which could only be warded off by wearing a helmet of cork or pith. 'Natives', their skulls being thicker, had no need of these helmets, but for a European, even a double felt hat was not a reliable protection." The British Army formally abolished the tropical helmet in 1948.
The Ethiopian Imperial Guard retained pith helmets as a distinctive part of their uniform until the overthrow of Emperor Haile Selassie I in 1974. Imperial Guard units serving in the Korean War often wore these helmets when not in combat.
American naval officers could wear a pith helmet with the tropical khaki uniform. Most often, the pith helmet was worn by the U.S. Navy's Civil Engineer Corps.