I’ll try to keep this as to-the-point as possible. My uncle died recently and in his stuff we found a belonging of his step-great-grandfather (or something like that), I’ll call him grandpa Eddie.

It’s a stahlhelm from WWI. Grandpa Eddie was an American soldier in WWI, and found it. It’s rusty and scratched up, without any clear signs of trauma to it. In the helmet was a sort of collar-looking thing. This collar looking thing was clearly leather, now it is so old it has basically petrified. It almost seems like the leather strap was soaked with something like blood, and that dried it permanently. Sure enough, in this strap there is a hole that seems something burned through it, and a hole that looks the same directly on the opposite side of the strap. Attached to the strap is a thick fabric badge, that has large red letters stitched onto it that say “242”. Grandpa Eddie attached a note that says, “German helmet found in Belleau Woods -Grandpa Eddie.”

Can anyone tell me about this badge that says 242? Can anyone tell me anything significant about this helmet or anything I should know? It’s a long shot, but do you think I could ever find out who it once belonged to?