[David Dunlop]

It was these two assemblies that suddenly grabbed my attention with the Type 10 Headgear, and even then, this only happened after my looking at them in the Master Parts Lists for the 52-Set countless numbers of times, but the information only now sinking in.

For close to 40 years, I have blissfully assumed these two Stirrups, one on each side of several types of wartime wireless headgear, were identical each side. As long as the side slot and locating pin for the headband were at the front half of the Stirrup, everything was OK.

It was only last week, while working on the Type 10 Headgear for my 52-Set, that I suddenly realized two of these Stirrups are illustrated in the Master Parts List and both have different names and ZA-Numbers. Even reading the descriptions was not enough to understand what was different between them. So I dug out an intact Headband and Stirrup assembly to have a closer look at the real thing.

After making certain I had the assembly correctly oriented, I marked an ‘L’ and an ‘R’ on the inner face of each and carefully removed them from the Headband. I then placed them in the same orientation, side by side on the page illustrating them from the Master Parts List. With this visual check in front of me, what the designers were saying in the two descriptions finally made perfect sense. The key to it all is being able to clearly see the pivot ball location on the side of each Stirrup, as in the first photo. I have now marked ‘LEFT and ‘RIGHT’ on the page in the Master Parts List to avoid any future confusion. So to summarize the descriptions:

STIRRUPS, Receivers Headgear, No. C1 ZA/CAN 0696, is the Left Side Stirrup.

STIRRUPS, Receivers Headgear, No. C2 ZA/CAN 0695, is the Right Side Stirrup.

When they are both properly installed on the Spring Steel Headband, as in Photo 2, the top edges of the Stirrups are at and parallel to the top edge of the Headband and about 3/16-inch of headband is visible below the Stirrup.

Lastly, I have found these Headbands are formed from a very tough spring steel. The easiest way I have found to remove the Stirrups is to slide a slot head screwdriver blade slowly into the gap behind the Stirrup Ball until the two leaves of the Headband are nearly parallel. The Stirrup can then either be pulled out, or popped back in, very easily, and the screwdriver blade withdrawn.


David