Jungle boots are a type of combat boot designed for use in jungle warfare or in hot, wet and humid environments, where a standard leather combat boot would be uncomfortable or unsuitable to wear. Jungle boots have vent holes in the instep and sometimes a canvas upper to aid in ventilation and drainage of moisture.
Development and Use
The use of Jungle boots predates World War II, when small units of U.S. soldiers in Panama were issued rubber-soled, canvas-upper boots for testing.[1] Developed in conjunction with the U.S. Rubber Company, a pair of Jungle boots weighed approximately three pounds.
World War II
Field reports from the Panama Experimental Platoon on the new lightweight boots were positive, and Jungle boots were later issued to a number of U.S. Army and Marine forces for use in tropical or jungle environments, including U.S. Army forces in New Guinea and the Phillipines, and in Burma with Merrill's Marauders[2], and the Mars Task Force (5332nd Brigade, Provisional).[3] As jungle boots wore out more quickly than the standard Army Type II field shoes, they were often carried by infantrymen attached to the field pack as a secondary pair of footwear, to be used when encountering heavy, soft mud.[4]
In 1944, the Panama sole was first developed by U.S. Army Sergeant Raymond Dobie , which used a series of angled rubber lugs in the soles to push soft mud from the soles, clearing them and providing much better grip in greasy clay or mud.[5] However, the Panama sole was developed too late to see service in World War II.[6] With the end of the war, all official interest in jungle equipment came to a halt; an improved Jungle boot with the new Panama sole was not produced until 1966.[7]
Vietnam War
In the early 1960s, a jungle boot incorporating most of the improvements developed since the end of World War II was issued to U.S. forces personnel during the Vietnam War. In the improved boot, the upper was made of cotton canvas duck, with leather for the toe and heel, and nylon reinforcements for the neck of the boot.[8] The new Jungle boot originally used a Vibram-type lugged composition rubber sole strongly vulcanized to the leather toe and heel. Water drains (screened eyelets) were added to the canvas top near the sole to quickly drain water from the inside of the boot. Removable ventilating insoles made of fused layers of Saran plastic screen, first invented in 1942, were later adopted for the issue Jungle boot. The insoles trapped air which was circulated throughout the interior of the boot during the act of walking; moist interior air was exchanged for outside air using the water drain eyelets.[9] In 1968, after two additional years of testing with troops in the Panamanian jungles, the Panama sole was finally adopted by the U.S. Army for its issue Jungle boot.[10]
After numerous widely-reported incidents of foot injuries to U.S. forces caused by punji stake traps, issue Jungle boots were fitted with a stainless steel plate inside the boot's sole to protect the wearer from punji stake traps.[8][11][12] Later Jungle boots were given nylon canvas tops in place of cotton duck.
Post-Vietnam Jungle Boot Designs
The US military jungle boot helped influence the design of the famed desert combat boot, which many American soldiers wore during Operation Desert Storm in 1991, Operation Enduring Freedom in Afghanistan in 2001 and Operation Iraqi Freedom in 2003. Despite the introduction of the desert boot at the time of Operation Desert Storm, many American military personnel were still issued jungle boots because there were not enough desert boots to issue to all personnel in the theater.
During the 1980s, some of the improvements incorporated over the years in U.S. jungle boot design were modified or discarded, primarily for reasons of cost and convenience. This included changes in rubber sole composition (to avoid marking linoleum floors at stateside army bases), and use of waterproof Poron linings instead of Saran ventilating insoles. Increasing use of the Jungle boot as a general-purpose combat boot brought more changes; the issue boot's Panama sole reverted to a Vibram sole better suited to use on other types of terrain, such as rocks or sand. By the late 1980s, incidents of heel blowouts and loss of water drains (screened eyelets) were reported.[13]
Today, Altama Footwear and Wellco Footwear are two American combat boot companies who still manufacture the US military jungle boot. Altama began manufacturing boots for the military towards the end of the Vietnam War, in 1969, and is still supplying the military with footwear to date. Wellco gained the first government contract for boots in 1965. These companies manufacture the boots in the original configuration with green cotton/nylon upper and conventional eyelets and an updated version with a black cotton/nylon/Cordura upper and a hook-and-eyelet lacing system.
As of 2005, the United States Marine Corps has retired black jungle boots from front-line military service and replaced them with a new combat boot called the Jungle/Desert Boot.
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