Roger S

A Maurice Soupart died in a POW camp ( at least I think it was a POW camp) on July 10, 1945. He was a Major d'Artillerie. BW Roger Soupart (yes, related)

Yesterday I revisited the museum and inspected the jacket. On the entire jacket, there is not a single blue spot. The 3 layers of the jacket, the outside, inside and inner liner are all white. The inside of the pocket is white, and the letter the pilot had inside this pocket, aswell as his Soldbuch, are preserved and clearly readable. The jacket, and the pilot, were preserved by the toral lack of oxygen in the soil that sealed them off from the outside for 55 years. When found, the pilot was still preserved inside the jacket. Not a nice sight, and it was even more grim to remove the body from the jacket. The stitching , apart from the grey thread used on the eagle, is done in white. All leather on the jacket is brown. The inside of the jacket, being in contact with a decaying body for so long, is badly stained and not very inviting for a close inspection. However, I inspected the collar and there is grey wool at severall places. The quality of the jacket is very high, and looks much better than many of the examples shown in the pics which looks a bit cheapish. I have been with many aircraft from WW2 that were salvaged, and I have seen many uniforms, either Britisch, American or German, which were underground for decades. Sometimes they rotted, got darker or just fell apart. However the German uniforms seem to survive better than the Allied ones. But I have never seen a dark blue jacket that faded to a very white colour, all over without a single blue trace left. So, I m clear , as were 2 other Luftwaffe collectors who were with me and inspected the jacket, that is was, and still is a white one. The pilot who wore it for 55 years died in 1943. So the jacket is an early one. Best wishes, Roger