I've looked around the web without much success in finding color reference material for the U.S. D-Day boat crews (specifically Omaha beach) that ferried the troops to shore. I've referenced the Warriors LCVP crew, but I was hoping to find info on the ETO boat crews.

I'm now leaning toward a grey life preserver, tan/khaki shirt and pants, dark brown shoes, GI helmet with a grey band. How close is this guess??

Thanks,
Wolfe

Hey Wolfe,
Trumpeter make a set of figures for their LCM-3 (item # 00408).
The box art shows them wearing olive drab helmets. khaki jackets and pants, sea blue life jackets and brown shoes/boots.
I'm not sure about the colour of the life jackets; seems to me they were always a grey blue colour in all the WW II naval movies I've watched.
And Navy helmets always looked a light shade of grey in those movies.
Not sure if that helps.
Cheers

jjumbo

Gday Wolfe
I'm not sure what help these can be (ie. B/W?!) but they can at least show you the exact uniform during the Normandy landings...





Cheers
Brad

The Navy's landing craft were manned by both USN and Coast Guard sailors. During the Normany landings these men wore a combination of Army green fatigues and Navy (blue) dungarees; many wore all-Army clothing but most had their helmets and jackets stencil painted 'USN' or 'USCG'.
Many D-Day coxwains wore the Navy issued rainjacket, which IIRC was sort of an olive colour. It was common for D-Day sailors to have a broad grey-blue stripe painted around the helmet - used to identify sailors.

HTH

Rudi

p.s. Osprey's Elite Series 'The US Navy in World War II' has some very nice colour plates of D-Day and ETO sailors...

Hi the life jacket I have is grey/blue more to the grey , jackets can be a mixture of standard issue and waterproof types as to helmets most I have examined are navy grey , with stripes in various colour from white , yellow, red and light blue , it seems the colour depended on the ship they operated from . shoes were standard and a few wore wellington boots . cheers ian