Pith helmets

The pith helmet (Spanish: salacot) also known as the safari helmet, sun helmet, topee, sola topee or topi is a lightweight cloth-covered helmet made of pith material. Pith helmets were often worn by European travelers and explorers, in the varying climates found in Africa, Southeast Asia, as well as the tropics, but have also been used in many other contexts. They were routinely issued to European military personnel serving overseas "in hot climates" from the mid-nineteenth to the mid-twentieth century.

The pith helmet became associated strongly with the British Empire. However, the pith helmet was used by all European colonial powers, and for some time even by the United States. It was commonly worn by non-indigenous officers commanding locally recruited troops in the colonial armies of France, Britain, Spain, Portugal, Italy, Imperial Germany and the Netherlands, as well as civilian officials in their territories. As such it became something of a symbol of colonial rule. Helmets of a similar style (but without true pith construction) continued to be used, as late as World War II, by European and American military personnel.

Such was the popularity of the pith helmet that it became a common civilian headgear for Westerners in the tropics from the end of the 19th century. The civilian pith helmet was typically less decorative and more practical, not as tall as the military counterpart, and with a wide brim all round. It was worn by men and women, old and young, both in formal and casual occasions, until the Second World War. After the war, the Viet Minh of Vietnam copied the pith helmet from the former French colonizer, and adopted it as their own. Today it is still widely worn by both civilians and the military in Vietnam; it is similar to the pre-World War II civilian type, but covered in jungle green cloth, sometimes with a metal insignia at the front or back.

In military terms, however, helmets of this type had begun to prove clumsy and conspicuous in the field, and after World War II they ceased to be worn on active service. Outside Vietnam the pith helmet is now worn mainly by certain units of the British, Tongan and Thai military, as well as the Compagnie des Carabiniers du Prince of Monaco, on ceremonial occasions. Similar sun helmets are still worn today by some mail carriers of the U.S. Postal Service (USPS). The pith helmet has also seen use as a form of identification by U.S. Marine Corps marksmanship instructors at Parris Island, San Diego, and fleet ranges, similar to the Campaign hat worn by drill instructors. These Marines wear black metal USMC insignia on the front of their pith helmet if they are marksmanship coaches, or gold if they are marksmanship trainers and block NCOs.

...
Wikipedia