Original British WWII Mark V General Service Respirator Gas Mask with 1942 Dated MKVII Haversack Original Items

Original Item: Only One Available. This is an excellent condition British MKV GSR gas mask with hose and filter. All are in excellent condition and the mask has nice pliable rubber. The MKVII haversack with maker marking W&G Ltd and 1942 date! They don’t come any nice than this!

The Mk V respirator, at its most basic level, was essentially another iteration of the Mk IV. First appearing around 1940, the design is not too much changed from the earlier Mk IV respirators – with the notable exception that the facepiece lacks the stockinette. The stockinette was removed for two main reasons. Firstly, it made the Mk V cheaper to produce in a war economy. Secondly, the small fibres of the stockinette were thought to be capable of trapping deposits of deployed chemical weapons, thus stockinette-covered masks presented a potential decontamination issue. Early Mk V respirators still had stockinette on the hoses but by 1941 this had also been removed, leaving the mask in just plain rubber. The microphone port became standard unlike on the Mk IV.

Around the time the Mk V was adopted. Another Variation of the mask was introduced. This Mask was the Mk Va GSR. It incorporated a longer hose about 3 times longer than the regular hose used with the Mk IV and Mk V masks. The reason the mask had a longer hose was than before was because some of the branches of the British military like the RAF found out that the way the mask was chest carried was too restrictive. So they adopted this Mask instead. The Mk Va was essentially a stop-gap replacement for the Mk IVa Which was of the same design, The only difference being that the Mk IVa used the Mk.IV face piece instead.