thumb|340x340px|US jungle boots with Panama sole, pictured in 1981
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 arches and sometimes a canvas upper to aid in ventilation and drainage of moisture.
Development and use
The use of "jungle" or "hot weather" boots predates World War II, when small units of US soldiers in Panama were issued rubber-soled, canvas-upper boots for testing. Developed in conjunction with the U.S. Rubber Company, a pair of jungle boots weighed approximately . Adopted in 1942, the design of the jungle boot was based on the idea that no boot could possibly keep out water and still provide sufficient ventilation to the feet in a jungle or swamp environment. The Saran ventilating 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 via the boot's water drain eyelets. the 1st Air Commando Group, and the Mars Task Force (5332nd Brigade, Provisional). This style of footwear wore faster than the standard Army Type II field shoes, so they were often carried as a back-up footwear for use in soft mud. After the conclusion of World War II, American interest in jungle equipment lay dormant until their next tropical engagement in 1965, so did the concept of an improved jungle boot using Dobie's Panama sole.
The First Indochina War
The French rubber/canvas jungle boots were manufactured by Palladium during the First Indochina War. Variants were available during the Algerian War. A high top version with buckles was used till the early 2000s. They are locally, in the French Army known as Pataugas, "splashers".
Vietnam War
thumb|300x300px|US jungle boots with Vibram sole
In the early years of the American involvement in the Vietnam War, some US Army soldiers were issued the 'M-1945 tropical combat boot'. In the newly developed improved footwear, the upper was cotton, leather comprised the toe and heel, with improved nylon reinforcements around the throat. Water drains in the form of screened eyelets in the canvas top near the bottom were intended to drain moist mud from the inside of the boot using a hastily modified version of the Bernoulli principle. Later jungle boots used nylon/canvas uppers instead of cotton duck. The footwear received improvements, including Dobie's mud-clearing outsole and nylon webbing reinforcement on the uppers. This included changes in rubber sole composition (reducing the janitorial load by reducing the tell-tale 'marking' on linoleum floors), and use of waterproof Poron linings instead of the left-overs from 1942 Saran ventilating in-soles. British forces use Saran insoles in their footwear because they like its insulating properties.
Increasing use of the jungle boot as a general-purpose combat boot wrought further improvements. To use up left-over stock, the issue boot's Dobie sole reverted to a Vibram sole in the 1980s. Other improvements were made to lower the costs to tax-payers. By the late 1980s, thousands of incidents of field destruction were reported by troopers, including heel blowouts and loss of water drains (screened eyelets) from poor materials/poor quality control.
Today, Altama Footwear and Wellco Footwear are two American manufacturers of American military jungle footwear. Altama began manufacturing boots for the military near the end of American involvement in Vietnam, in 1969, supplying the military with footwear. Wellco gained the first tax-payers contract for boots in 1965. These companies manufacture footwear with waterproof insoles and Vibram or Dobie outsoles with green cotton/nylon uppers and conventional eyelets, and manufacture an improved version with a black Cordura upper and a Speedlace-and-eyelet lacing system. Atalaia manufactures jungle footwear for the Brazilian Army. McRae boots of North Carolina produces the original green cotton boot and the black nylon boot in the US.
In the 2000s, the US Army and US Air Force removed the black jungle boot from frontline service, swapping them for suede desert-style boots after the Army adopted the Army Combat Uniform and the Air Force adopted the Airman Battle Uniform. Some foreign government agencies still issue US-made jungle boots to their forces. One example is in Afghanistan, with soldiers of the former Afghan National Army wearing black jungle boots with American-made combat uniforms.
In 2005, the Marine Corps retired the black jungle boots from front-line military service, and replaced them with two versions of a new tan rough-out leather combat boot. One version, called the Temperate or Infantry combat boot, has an inner waterproof Gore-Tex lining. The Temperate boot is an effort to keep moisture out of the boot because, after the interior is wet, moisture tends to remain there. The lining limits air exchange, limiting its use to environments with temperatures of or less. Another version, the hot weather boot, eliminates the lining while retaining the vents.
See also
- Desert combat boot
- List of boots
- List of shoe styles
- United States Army uniforms in World War II