Original Item. One-of-a-Kind. It isnt often we are able to offer items from the Jarrett Museum of World War History, started by George Burling Jarrett who traveled along the battlefield of France picking up artifacts that would eventually fill his museum, which was housed on the Steel Pier in Atlantic City from 1930 to 1939.

This is a phenomenally preserved M1917 Steel Helmet with a grainy sandy finish and a beautiful camouflage pattern that mimics the style utilized by German soldiers from July – November 1918. The helmet retains its complete original liner and chinstrap, which has been tied down with the liner nets string, with a piece of wire carefully tied to both chinstrap bales, which is certainly how it was displayed for many years. Thanks to the helmets previous owners carefulness, this helmet is in fantastic preserved condition! The Jarrett museum tag reads US World War I Steel Trench Helmet has Original Painted Camouflage Colors with a museum catalog code following it.

The shell is maker marked with a stamping on the underside of the rim that reads YU 166. This maker marking indicates that this is a U.S. produced shell, which is further indicated by the solid rivets used to retain the chin strap bales.

The George Burling Jarrett Museum of World War History

The tone, one of respect and admiration for Colonel Jarretts accomplishments, tempered by the veiled acknowledgement that he was not always the recipient of everyones wholehearted support, is set right off the bat by the following introduction to an article in the Ordnance Journal by Robert J. Icks, a fellow retired Ordnance colonel, which was published shortly before Colonel Jarretts death in 1974: There probably is not a single individual, military or civilian, who is interested in matters concerning guns, ammunition and other items of ordnance equipment or a single military or historical museum curator who does not know the name of Colonel G. B. Jarrett he is representative of those unassuming but dynamic citizen soldiers whose attainments represent a degree of professionalism not exceeded and seldom equalled by professional soldiers in the same fields.

According to his obituary, published in the Harford Democrat on July 3, 1974, George Burling Jarrett was born in Haddonfield, New Jersey, on October 14, 1901, the son of Joseph Roberts and Laura Burling Jarrett.

Col. Ickss article, begun above, continues as follows: As a boy, young Burling grew up among Civil War guns and trophies belonging to his grandfather, an officer in the Union army. His father was an understanding man who permitted him to find out for himself how everything worked.

A more colorful embellishment of the exploits of the young Jarrett (who incidentally was known to his friends and family as Burling rather than George), is found in an initial excerpt from a lengthy and very well-researched article written by an Arch Whitehouse titled The Junkman Who Stopped Rommel, published in the December, 1957 issue of Cavalier magazine: For George (the collectors mania) had burst into full bloom one Fourth of July when he was five years old. To celebrate the holiday properly, his grandfather had fetched out his Civil War rifle, choked with rust and cobwebs, and fired a blast that nearly rattled the old gentleman apart. Not to be outdone, Georges father brought out his Colt .31 cap-and-ball revolver and nearly blew off his hand when he used more powder than caution. George was delighted. These were just the kind of lethal toys to delight his mind, and when he begged for a chance to restore the relics to perfect working condition, the senior Jarretts raised no objection. They thought the weapons were beyond repair, and not until they caught their five-year-old heir gunning for woodchucks with both toys in prime condition and loaded for bear did they lay down the law. By that time it was too late. George had the bug.

An initial excerpt from the draft of an article written and typed out by Jarrett himself, dated May, 1971, provides an early inkling of the purposeful nature of his seemingly random collecting interests:

The effort to gather curios of a military nature can require fascinating and exhaustive study as well as gradually to acquire a collection worthy of note. While the art itself has personal rewards for the individual there are times when such an endeavor might be of great technical value to ones country.

For many years I have been interested and fascinated by weaponry, starting with the story of the Civil War. From childhood, when my grandfathers relics from that war hung on our staircase wall, they had intrigued me. Gradually as I grew older, I added other pieces of that era and the whole war became apparent to me.

World War I caught Jarrett short by a couple of years, a frustrating circumstance he partially relieved by commissioning all his older friends to bring back all the souvenirs they could get their hands on. Fortunately, by 1918 he was big enough, if not old enough, to get a job with the New York Shipbuilding Co. By spending his days at the yards, and his evenings at nearby Camp Dix, he was able to buy up hundreds of trophies brought back from the front by returning soldiers that included machine guns, belts of cartridges, Mauser rifles, helmets, trench mortars, Mills bombs.

Jarretts own July, 1937 article in Flying Aces continues as follows: The summer of 1922 found me wandering with a watchful eye through the battlefields of the Western front. In order to get better acquainted with the shell-hammered sectors and to come closer to their spirit, I rented a bicycle, and pedaled about the country. My entire equipment mainly a toilet kit and a blanket was carried on the wheel. I often spent nights with peasants of the section in crude shacks they had built from leftover military supplies sheet iron, ammunition boxes, and the like. And curios of every kind were mine for the taking, as they lay in indescribable confusion on the deserted battlefields. In the early fall of the year of my battlefield tour, I returned to America and to school.

Jarretts 1970 article contains the following tongue-in-cheek recollection: I had all this displayed in my home bedroom and the cellar. When I moved to Atlantic City (in 1930) it is possible that my mother welcomed my exit.

Arch Whitehouses excellent article in the December, 1957 issue of Cavalier picks up the thread as follows: By 1930 Jarrett was back in the United States, the proud owner of more workable items than could be found in any other military collection in the world. Other ordnance experts might know more about their highly select fields, but as the man who had restored Russian, German, French, Italian, British and American equipment to working order, he knew more about ordnance in general than did all the experts of Krupp, Woolwich Arsenal, and the Aberdeen Proving Ground combined.

His timing was perfect, and a fortunate thing that was for his exhausted bank account. Ten years earlier the veterans of World War I wouldnt have paid a nickel to tour a military museum, and the major part of them had sworn, in fact, never to look at a gun again. But by 1930 nostalgia had set in, and with wives and children to impress, they came in increasing numbers.

The original typescript Foreword to Jarretts memoir West of Alamein, published in 1971, begins as follows: From 1915 to 1930 I had managed to gather a large curio collection and to keep it in an ordinary dwelling such as my home in Haddonfield, N.J. In 1930 I had at least 3,000 items, which weighed between three and four tons.

By 1930, Jarrett had become completely familiar with all kinds of ordnance used by both sides during World War I and had collected more war material than most museums. He contracted with the Pier authorities to set up on the Steel Pier at Atlantic City The Jarrett Museum of World War History. The collection began with some 3 1/2 tons of curios.

During the 30s I joined hands with a Mr. Frank Gravatt who then operated the Steel Pier, an amusement center in Atlantic City, New Jersey and known the world over. He had several sections of the Pier which had space adaptable to static displays of an educational nature. He gave me a home for my Museum collections, which at that time numbered more than 3,000 pieces and weighed over 3 tons. I displayed the Museum on the Pier from 1930 to 1939.

Several flyers and brochures among the documents collected by Charles Yust were handouts and catalogs procured over the years during visits to The Jarrett Museum of World War History, Steel Pier, Atlantic City, N.J. One such is a double-sided orange card and the reverse reads as follows: This Museum is the effort of G. Burling Jarrett, O.R.C., who has spent more than fifteen years assembling it. The collection from the Great War numbers over 6,300 pieces with a total weight of over sixteen tons.

The Museum is divided into nationality groups and specimens are exhibited from all branches of the various services. In this exhibit are several airplanes, most prominent of which are a Sopwith Camel and a Fokker triplane. By 1939, the collection had grown to 75 tons, and over nine million persons had seen the exhibit.

As World War II drew near in 1939, Jarrett had to close the exhibit to the public as he was called to duty as a reserve officer. Colonel Jarrett\’s assignments included the U.S. Army Ordnance School at Aberdeen Proving Ground (APG), Chief Foreign Material Branch, APG, and Technical Advisor to the Zurnig Mission in the European Theatre of Operations. He assisted the British in North Africa by orienting them to U.S. equipment. He also collected enemy equipment for allied use.

Much of the history in this description came from an article put together by Small Arms Review in 2011.