"Shemya"
Posted: Sun Feb 07, 2021 3:19 am
This is the story of a helmet and my attempt to find out the somewhat cryptic message on the inside of it. It started with me looking for a fireman's helmet to paint up to auction off at one of our charity auctions. I had painted many different types of helmets including race car and pith helmets but had never done a fireman's helmet.
At the local flea market one day I spied one of them in a friend of mine's booth and asked if it was for sale. He said yes and I picked it up to examine. It looked to be in great shape and fairly old.On the inside someone had hand lettered(with paint)an inscription that said:"To the,"Collector's Item" "From Mike Snyder and the Chemya Fire Department" and on the front outside was lettered,"USA FD".
My friend said he had got it from his grandfather's estate and said he had collected fire apparatus. He thought it might have come from a town in Indiana. I was intrigued with the inscription and bought the helmet for $10 and decided that before I re-finished it I would see if I could find out what it meant.
At home I punched the name,"Chemya" into my computer and the sole entry was about the Chemya Island Air Base located at the extreme western end of the Aleutian Islands.In fact it is the 6th island from the end of the Aleutian chain and approximately 1,200 miles southwest of Anchorage Alaska. It was used as a refueling stop for aircraft during WWII on their way to bombing Japan. After the war it became somewhat of a secret base allegedly for spying upon the Soviet Union. Although it is no longer an official military base there are still occupants there although their purpose is not generally known. If you are interested further you can Google the name and read about it.
Despite a prolonged effort to find out who Mike Snyder was and who the,"Collector's Item" might have been, I still have no clue. I assume that he was either a fire fighter or possibly the fire chief there. As to exactly when is still a mystery and I don't foresee finding out anytime soon.I am also curious as to how it made the journey from Shemya to Michigan.
The pictures show the helmet and also I downloaded a couple of pictures of uniform patches of the Chemya Fire Department;one of which shows the location of the island. I decided to leave the helmet as is rather than possibly destroying a part of history. Hope you enjoy the pictures and the story.
At the local flea market one day I spied one of them in a friend of mine's booth and asked if it was for sale. He said yes and I picked it up to examine. It looked to be in great shape and fairly old.On the inside someone had hand lettered(with paint)an inscription that said:"To the,"Collector's Item" "From Mike Snyder and the Chemya Fire Department" and on the front outside was lettered,"USA FD".
My friend said he had got it from his grandfather's estate and said he had collected fire apparatus. He thought it might have come from a town in Indiana. I was intrigued with the inscription and bought the helmet for $10 and decided that before I re-finished it I would see if I could find out what it meant.
At home I punched the name,"Chemya" into my computer and the sole entry was about the Chemya Island Air Base located at the extreme western end of the Aleutian Islands.In fact it is the 6th island from the end of the Aleutian chain and approximately 1,200 miles southwest of Anchorage Alaska. It was used as a refueling stop for aircraft during WWII on their way to bombing Japan. After the war it became somewhat of a secret base allegedly for spying upon the Soviet Union. Although it is no longer an official military base there are still occupants there although their purpose is not generally known. If you are interested further you can Google the name and read about it.
Despite a prolonged effort to find out who Mike Snyder was and who the,"Collector's Item" might have been, I still have no clue. I assume that he was either a fire fighter or possibly the fire chief there. As to exactly when is still a mystery and I don't foresee finding out anytime soon.I am also curious as to how it made the journey from Shemya to Michigan.
The pictures show the helmet and also I downloaded a couple of pictures of uniform patches of the Chemya Fire Department;one of which shows the location of the island. I decided to leave the helmet as is rather than possibly destroying a part of history. Hope you enjoy the pictures and the story.
or maybe there was a Marine Corps air unit there). Next time I see him I’ll ask if he knows anything about Shemya. BTW after he left active duty he was in the reserves and went several times to fight wildfires in California, Arizona, etc. Dangerous work. He’s now employed at a local fire department.