D-1

Once I was offered a rugged looking jacket with furry collar and matching cap. When asking the seller what he knew about it it turned out to possess quite a story

This rugged jacket turned out to be an original D-1 flying jacket, issued by the US Air Force to their pilots in 1937. He told me that the pilot this gear once belonged to used to be a crew member of one of the six B-17 bombers that crashed in the Alblasserwaard area after being shot down by German anti-aircraft guns in 1943.

This very pilot somehow survived the crash and escaped the plane before being captured by the surrounding Germans and sought shelter in a nearby farm. It’s not clear what happened to this American pilot after these events but he left his flying jacket and cap in this Dutch farm where it was kept save, even up to 75 years after the war had ended!

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