SHELTER HALF, TENT POLE, ROPE & PINS

Each soldier was issued half the equipment needed to make a two man (pup tent) shelter. This effective little light cotton tent was just long and wide enough for two men to lay down in with their gear. The tents most commonly used during the war were little different from the WWI type and carried over the same flaw in that one end of the tent was completely open to the elements. Soldiers had to improvise a fly in wet or cold weather by throwing their raincoats, blankets, or whatever they could manage in front of the opening, leaving themselves with one less blanket or coat that they could use in their bedding. It was not uncommon for the soldiers to wrap their blankets, sleeping bags, tent pins and pole in a roll with the shelter half rolled around that outside and with the tent rope tied on each end to make a carrying strap. This practice kept all the soldier’s sleeping equipment in one bundle that he could easily carry or conveniently toss on his halftrack.

The WWII shelter half is either khaki or light green with blackened brass or steel hardware, The buttons are riveted on and have a smooth flat face. The buttons run parallel to a row of button holes which follow the top edge of the shelter half to form an overlapping rain tight seam when buttoned with another shelter half. Short ropes are looped through the grommets along the ground edge of the shelter half through which the tent is staked down with wooden pins.

The pins and pole are also hardly changed since WWI. The jointed tent pole folds three ways. The three parts of the pole are hinged with a small flat piece of steel pined through at the ends where one pole butts with another. A sliding collar of phosphate coated steel (plain brass in WWI) slips down over the joint to keep it straight. Poles are ink stamped with the contractor and the year of manufacture on the side of the bottom pole.

WWI & WWII tent pins are indistinguishable. There are slight variations in detail but all pins are wooden, approximately 7" long, and patterned after the illustrated example. The 1/4’ wide tent rope is a soft cotton with one end folded over itself to form a loop and sewn in place with a zig-zag stitch. The other end of the rope is also sewn with a zig-zag stitch to prevent it from fraying. The stitching is white and the rope itself is usually white but age and dirt have often turned it light brown.

Avoid the late war tents which are easily identified by their dark green color. They also have a fly, an improvement over the open WWI and early WWII types.

Each soldier was issued five pins, one rope, and one shelter half.