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Army Swim Trunks?


M60 Driver
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They look to be US Army issue but have no tags and seem to be somewhat transitional between the WWII swim trunks and the later "SEAL" style swim trunks. Anyone seen these before? The only mark is the size stamp. These came with the large lot of items that dated mostly from the 1950s into the early 1960s.

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Hi,

 

I haven't seen enough of those to give a super solid answer. But, what I do know is the nomenclature for the ones you show is actually "Athletic Shorts". There were at least two versions; ones produced during WWII with absolutley no pockets what so ever, and those produced near the end of the war or shortly after that had the front watch pocket and one right rear patch pocket. These post war ones show a specification number of 529 and you usually see a contract date like October 1945 or close. I've only seen them in khaki cotton. What I'm not sure of is whether the ones that had no pockets were supposed to swim trunks.

 

CR :)

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They are most commonly seen as Navy or Marine swim trunks and the basic style has been unchanged since WWII. There were some labeled as "shorts, athletic " but the most-commonly seen labels call them swimming trunks:

 

swim30.jpg

 

There have been minor detail changes over the decades (for instance the front "watch pocket" is no longer there and the back pocket has no button. In order to hype the price of these on Ebay sellers often call them Navy SEAL/UDT shorts, but the thrift stores around Camp Pendleton always have a constant supply of them from Marines. Elsewhere on the forum we have another pair with the watch pocket and no label that was ID'ed to a Seal, I seem to recall, and that black stamp in yours looks like the kind of thing seen in special ops gear in the 60's.

 

Here's a modern pair:

 

swim.jpg

 

swimback.jpg

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