31. WWI Helmet

This World War I helmet was issued to Edwin Dolston Burdette (1896-1977), a county native who lived in Hyattstown at the time of his enlistment in the National Guard at the armory in Silver Spring in July 1917. His initials “E.D.B.” are found inside this American-made helmet.

Discharged in June 1919, after returning from combat in France, Edwin joined with his brother W.L. Burdette to found Burdette Brothers, a car dealership in Hyattstown (still operating at 1909 Urbana Pike).

Burdette served in the 29th Division, known as the “Blue & Grey” for uniting Guard regiments from New Jersey, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, and the District of Columbia. The regimental history cites: “In this division, probably more than others, the sons of the men who fought against each other in the Civil War, fought with each other for the common principles of the nation.”

The division, part of the American Expeditionary Force, saw combat in France in the fall of 1918, suffering 30% casualties in the Meuse-Argonne offensive that helped bring the war to an end.

By the end of the war, U.S. companies had produced more than 2.7 million “doughboy helmets,” as the M1917 American adaptation of the British Mark 1 was often called. The helmets were made of steel pressed into a bowl shape at factories across the country, then assembled and painted olive drab at a Ford Motor Co. plant in Philadelphia. This helmet retains its cotton-twine mesh lining, designed to distribute the two-pound weight and the force of blows, as well as its adjustable leather chin strap.

Company K of the 115th (Maryland) Regiment was commanded by future Montgomery County politician and land developer E. Brooke Lee. Considered a war hero - winning the Distinguished Service Cross and the French Croix de Guerre - Lee was always thereafter called “the Colonel.”

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