Description
Physical description
Waistcoat-style stole-inflated life preserver of yellow cotton twill, featuring a front fastening of three black plastic buttons with two pairs of khaki webbing tying straps, a vertically-arranged khaki webbing 'grab' handle to either side of the front opening, two horizontal webbing reinforcement tapes stitched across the rear waist and four khaki webbing leg ties stitched to the front and rear of the inner waistband. To the lower right side of the life preserver are two cylindrical pouches for a battery pack and floating lamp that share a top-opening box-type flap with two snap-fastened closure straps. Protruding from a slit in the left breast and partially covered by a flap is a rubber manual inflation tube, the upper portion of which can be housed in a fabric tunnel to the left of the collar, with a brass eyelet placed adjacent to this to enable the attachment of a metal whistle and lanyard. Further to the left of the slit for the inflation tube is a patch pocket with a vertical opening closed by a single snap-fastener, originally intended to house the yellow skull cap. To the lower left side is a pouch containing a package of green fluorescine dye, over which is fitted a length of khaki webbing tape that when pulled releases the dye into the water. To the front-right waist is a flap closed by three snap-fasteners and fitted with a pull-strap, which when opened gives access to the chrome lever for triggering inflation. The internal stole bladder can be accessed through a vertical zipper found at the left-inside opening.
Label
Introduced in July 1941 and a marked improvement on its orally-inflated 1932 pattern predecessor, the 1941 pattern 'Mae West' life preserver (official nomenclature: Waistcoat, Life-Saving, Stole Inflated; stores reference 22C/445-447) was inflated by a carbon-dioxide cylinder and was made of yellow cotton fabric which enabled the downed airman to be more easily detected and therefore rescued if he should bale out of his aircraft at sea. The 1941 pattern was constantly modified, and this example has several features that indicate mid-war production; for example, the lack of the rear flap, webbing 'grab handles' (introduced January 1942), a brass eyelet for attaching the whistle and lanyard (introduced February 1942) and extra pockets for housing the floating lamp and battery pack (introduced July 1943). Later additions included the addition of a whistle pocket and line connectors for the K-dinghy pack.
Inscription
[King's Crown]
A.M
SIZE MEDIUM
CONTRACT 5526
Inscription
615
17