Description
Object description
1941 pattern Royal Air Force 'Mae West' life preserver, used by Royal Air Force wireless operator Sergeant Arthur Willshaw, during Operation Longcloth, the 1943 First Chindit Expedition in Burma.
Physical description
1941 pattern Royal Air Force 'Mae West' life preserver.
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. This example is an early production type, lacking the later modifications added throughout the war.
History note
This is a Royal Air Force 'Mae West' life preserver. It was acquired from RAF stores at Drigh Road, Karachi by Sergeant Arthur Willshaw, a wireless operator who had volunteered to serve with Orde Wingate's First Chindit Expedition, which operated behind enemy lines in Japanese-occupied Burma, February to April 1943. Willshaw was part of Wingate's headquarters column, and was responsible for signalling with friendly aircraft, particularly in connection with the air dropping of essential supplies. Willshaw appears in the only known film of the First Chindit Expedition, an Indian Army production entitled 'Into Burma', held by IWM under AYY 444.
According to his 1967 memoir, Willshaw used this Mae West throughout the expedition, wearing it as a waistcoat, using it as a pillow, and on 29 April 1943, using it to cross the River Chindwin during his column's escape and evasion back to India. Willshaw believed that this Mae West saved his life, and that of the column interpreter and propaganda officer Captain Aung Thin DSO of the Burma Rifles.
Willshaw retained this Mae West after being repatriated to Britain later in 1943. His two sons, Tony and John, would later use this life preserver as a plaything. The Mae West was presented to IWM by John Willshaw in September 2017, in the presence of his children and grandchildren, during a family visit to the museum.
