These Boots worn by US soldiers in World War II the m43 boot were some of the highest quality Boots the US military ever made but there's one severe problem that caused thousands if not tens of thousands of unnecessary casualties which led to the force development and evolution of one of the most successful feared and longest tenur military boots of all time the iconic jungle boots so we're going to cut this thing in half to really figure out why it was so successful why it's so Lov and why it took until 2005 for it to be
retired so what was it about this m43 boot that caused so many C because it's a very highquality traditionally made boot with lots of leather through the sole construction and the upper which made it extremely durable but not very breathable at all especially when the soldiers would put that dubbing wax over top to try to prevent as much water from getting in as possible which made these boots a little bit more water resistant but the downside of that is if you can't let water in there's no way for the water to get out and all
that water pooling and all that moisture just sitting in Boots day after day in the trenches and warfare it eventually caused a terrible condition called trench FL it's a skin condition caused by all the moisture and bacteria that essentially make your foot just rot and fall apart inside of your boots and that was mostly due to the fact that there was no way for moisture and water to get out or even to dry overnight because these were basically dress boots because in the' 40s during World War II there really wasn't such thing as this modern
combat boot that we know today but just a couple decades later when a conflict started up in an even hotter and wetter climate with harsher jungle conditions the US military knew they had to do something about this issue they needed a jungle boot and most people don't know that the development of the Jungle blue actually started in early 1945 because at the time people weren't so certain that after World War II the fighting was actually going to end and even if it did there were serious concerns about the conflict continuing with the USSR so the
US Military and their Outfitters went to work modifying this m43 design to handle wetter conditions and what they came up with was basically this exact same boot but with a cotton upper and a lugger soulle rather than this like literal dress out soole and the reason they switched to a canvas upper was as more breathable for venting trench foot let them dry faster the new lugged out soole was better grip in the mud and wet conditions but water was still pulling on the inside of the boot and as strong as leather is it can become
very hard and brittle when it's constantly getting wet and drying and all those conditioners and all the oils and compounds inside the leather get leeched out to a point where you can literally just crack a piece of leather in half and and that boot had the exact same issues as the Regular m43 Boot where that thread and all the nails and stitching and the wet conditions would eventually rot and rust and start falling apart to a point where this good your weal that is time tested and honored and still one of the most durable ways
to make boots just did not farewell in that wet condition and even more so at the close of World War II you would expect tensions to lower but with the looming concerns of the spread of the Iron Curtain and fear of Communism taking over the entire world just 5 years later the US entered a conflict in Korea where the same issue became very apparent leading to the development of the warmest boot ever made the bunny boot or the Mickey Mouse boot designed to battle the bitter cold Korean Winters that saw temperatures as low as -30°
below zero with that cold Siberian Arctic wind blowing down through the north they were forced to design a boot that was nearly impregnable impregnable impregnable which forced them to develop a boot that kept water out at all costs because if any water got on the inside here it would immediately freeze giving the soldiers frostbite and taking them out of the action and they solved this problem really well but it is not made for hot wet humid jungle conditions but just 2 years later in 1955 a conflict started in Vietnam it would eventually become one of
the most cly and divisive Wars in US history the Vietnam War and in the first few years of the Vietnam War the US was heavily involved indirectly but they saw the writing on the wall even if they wrote it themselves that war was coming so in 1962 testing and development began on the true jungle boot that took a whole other approach to this military boot style in this new war climate they knew it would be completely impossible to keep water out so instead of trying to make the boots more waterproof it took the opposite approach
of basically if you can't keep water from getting in you might as well make it easy to get out and this would also allow the boots to dry faster and keep fresh water in and more importantly prevent less trench foot and to achieve this they fix some of the problems with the previous boot by simplifying the upper to reduce weight and increase breathability they also reformulated the tanning process to make the leather more water resistant more similar to Modern Chrome tan leathers and the biggest change was instead of like the m43 where you have nails
and thread holding all these layers together they poured liquid hot rubber into molds that held the upper of the boot and as this liquid rubber was poured into the mold it would fill and bind every single nook and cranny of the boot creating a nearly Inseparable Bond but before completing the jungle boot on August 2nd 1964 the very controversial Gulf of tonet incident dragged the us into the full-fledged Vietnam War and in the early days of America's involvement in the Vietnam War most of the US soldiers were given those M45 tropical combat boots that we
talked about that suggest modified m43 and it became apparent almost immediately that they had to finish this jungle boot design and so before even the version one was finalized they started shipping boots over to Vietnam in as many quantities as humanly possible while they finished this design to become the version 2 so in 1965 the second version of the Jungle boot labeled the m1966 jungle boot first saw action co-developed by the US military natic Laboratories and others in the shoe industry this boot was a vast Improvement on the previous World War II versions and even
over the V1 version in basically every single way better grip with this new vibrant pattern outsole switched the canvas from cotton to it's prone to rot to nylon that it doesn't rot as much they put Port holes on the medial side of the boot to let water in and more importantly let it out and a revolutionary concept that I'm not convinced does or doesn't work of using an insole as a water pump to circulate stagnant water by combining several layers of this Saran mesh which would pull the water into the insole and as you step
down it would push it out hopefully through those little Port holes but this new design in the V2 was not without its flaws because the canvas kept ripping away from the leather the the new lugged outo though was really aggressive just held on to Mud like nobody's business and the US soldiers quickly learned a new term puny sticks which are essentially just sharp bamboo and what other sharp instruments they could find that they put into a pit that's disguised with a false ground over top so when the soldier stepped down they would fall onto those
sticks puncturing up and through their boots into their feet completely putting the soldier out of commission so in 1966 they went back to the drawing board to make what would become the ultimate and best version of the Jungle boot that featured reinforced nylon strap that prevented that ripping of the canvas a fulllength anti-puncture plate through the inside that we found on the previous version that sandwich between two layers of leather that take several hundred lounds to puncture through and the one change that was the most important thing that made this boot what it is the
most successful military boot of all time one of the most Lov boots and arguably the boot that changed the war this Panama outsole this outo Still Remains one of the most grippy and aggressive sols ever made because it's specifically designed to dislodge the glue like mud that comes from the jungles of Vietnam and as you can see from this previous Vibram pattern the lugs are several times bigger than the previous version the lugs are also sharply angled to allow the mud to release and they put the most aggressive lugs for grip on the perimeter while
keeping the inside flat and with lower shallower angles which allowed the soldiers to have plenty of grip around the outside of this boot basically huge teeth digging into the mud while in the middle it still remained flat to allow that mud to not be caked on and dis Lodge as easily as possible this outsole was so loved and so successful that it literally changed the war for the soldiers on the ground and it was night and day difference from this previous version to this final Panama Soul version and there stories of soldiers bartering with food
or anything else they had of any value to try to get a pair of these boots even if they're the wrong size that's how impactful this outsole was and through the stories of some of these soldiers we found that it wasn't just that they grip better and all these things but because mud didn't get stuck on the bottom of the boot it essentially made these boots several pounds lighter because of how much mud would just get stuck on the previous versions and this outsole was so successful that you can still get several different boots from
several different makers to this day that featured this exact outsole and it was in standard use and standard issue up until 2005 that alone shows you how effective it was and really the only critique I've heard of this outsole is that it wears out faster because of how big the lugs are and how big the gaps are between them but I'm not convinced that that's anything more than just for BS rumors so let's cut this thing in half see how thick this outsole really is and maybe for the first time in Internet history let's cut
this boot in half and see what's inside the real jungle Boot and thanks to Rose Anvil for sponsoring this video because a lot of people don't know that 5 years before this channel started and the way that we got so much information and expertise with leather is by making handmade leather goods for the last almost 10 years now and I think we make some of the highest quality leather goods they're all handmade here in the shop our wallets are hands sewn no sewing machines two needles one thread saddle stitching these together our micro adjust belts
allow you to split that Gap between the one hole it's too loose the one hole is too tight you want that Goldie Lock Zone that's what this allows you to do and we also have a kilties have been really popular people love getting these little kilties cuz we have a lot of different color options it protects your investment in the boots that sometimes like 600 700 bucks you can get some wacky colors do some two toning but more importantly it is going to protect your boot and it's not going to be as obvious cuz it's
a little no-show or we've got The Fringe too so check them out below we hand make them all here in the shop it's what I love doing most I love designing the products and it's what's made this channel possible so check them out below and thanks for considering checking out our handmade leather goods [Music] [Applause] [Music] all right we got it cut in half and if you're not subscribed consider doing it it's just one free little click and you'd be surprised at how impactful that is for this business and our ability to make these videos
at this high of a level just take the mouse do a little click for us but now let's get to the real show let's see what's [Music] inside so they might have been right about the out soole looking like it would wear out faster but now that we have it cut in half you can see how thick this out soole really is it's literally twice as thick as even the most durable modern logging boots with their big luggy outsoles but more importantly you can see now what's inside of this boot and what made it so
special because it combines the strength and durability of the leather insole from its World War 2 grandfather that's also naturally antibacterial that prevents trench foot and you can see that direct injected molded out soole that fuses to everything that it touches including that heavy shank and you can even see that anti-puncture plate between those two leather players so with all that that we found on the inside with the things that we talked about previously it makes it not just one of the most iconic combat boots of all time but also one of the most successful
and just like the bunny boot this Innovation was driven by the horrors of War when lives are on the line it's astonishing what people can do with such a short amount of time but with a very dedicated purpose this boot is the definition of function over form and I love this boot I just love the fact that it ended up looking so cool and so unique because it was put through the lens of functionality and saving lives Taking Lives I guess too but I just absolutely love this boot for that reason and because of how
much of an impact this final version made on the soldiers that were on the grounds actually fighting the war so thank you for watching this video through this military boot series we've been able to document and show tens of millions of people part of history that might not have ever been told before and since we're doing it through the lens of these boots it allows us to view conflicts through the individual soldiers perspective which actually represents the hores and the hell of War so thanks for watching this video and supporting it these are some of
my most favorite videos to do so if you want to see more I'll put links in the description of all these other military boots that we mentioned and if you're not subscribed consider subscribing cuz it's a free way to support these videos it's what makes it possible to pay our awesome editing team to make these videos as high quality as they are so thank you guys see you got get some good OS and some good employ like I have never ever
