Why was rubber a military priority?

lining features a re-creation of the survival maps of southern France. A surface of vintage French lamb leather adds to the authenticity.

Features include some of the customizations that pilots preferred, such as the wind flap, front zipper with storm flap, hidden snap-down collar points, knit cuffs and waistband, and flap-top and side-entry pockets. Imported.

Men's sizes M (38-40), L (42-44), XL (46-48).  Click here for price and to view other exciting National Geographic products.

Our B-3 is made from an amazingly soft and supple genuine sheepskin with a classic, aged look and deep-pile natural shearling along the body, sleeves, and collar. With double straps under the collar and straps at the waist that cinch to adjust the fit and keep out wind. Traditional leather welted seams and side-entry pockets are authentic details from the original. Made in U.S.A.

Men's sizes M (38-40), L (42-44), XL (46-48).  Click here for price and to view other exciting National Geographic products.

Whether you've never missed a minute or were absent without leave, THE HISTORY CHANNEL® presents the best episodes from the first seven seasons of MAIL CALL in one easy-access DVD collection. Enlisting a platoon of military experts, the Gunny explodes your non-com notions of military technology over the entire history of the armed forces.

This mammoth eight-DVD set contains:

• Mail Call: The Best of Season One
• Mail Call: The Best of Season Two
• Mail Call: The Best of Season Three
• Mail Call: The Best of Season Four
• Mail Call: The Best of Season Five
• Mail Call: The Best of Season Six
• Mail Call: The Best of Season Seven DVD
• Bonus disc: FREE Mail Call: S.N.A.F.U. DVD

By purchasing Mail Call: The Best of Season 1-7 DVD Collection, you'll save 20% off the individual volume prices and receive Mail Call: S.N.A.F.U. (Bloopers) DVD free!  Best of Mail Call Seasons 1-7 DVD Collection, Click here.

• The Mysterious Death of General Sikorski--Is it possible that the Polish military conspired to kill the prime minister of their exiled WWII government?
• Escape from Hitler's Bunker--While Hitler and Goebbels killed themselves, others decided to make a break for it.
• America and the Mob: Wartime Friends--Did the U.S. government really pay the Mafia protection money during World War II?
• Secrets of the Sea Wolves-- Learn what life was like aboard a Nazi sub in the North Atlantic during World War II.
• Secrets of the "Y" Service--Charged with tracking the enemy at all costs, this WWII operation pioneered electronic warfare.
• Stalin's Spy Ring--Find out why many scholars suspect that there was a communist spy in the highest reaches of the Nazi leadership.
• Tracking Nazi Gold--Follow the decades-long quest to return stolen WWII riches to their rightful owners.
• What Ever Happened To Raoul Wallenberg?--What was the ultimate fate of the man who saved 100,000 people from the Nazi death camps?
• Plotting to Kill Hitler--Examine the failed plots to assassinate the Nazi leader--and explore what might have happened had they succeeded.
• Operation Bodyguard--D-Day Deception--The inside story of how Allied planners fooled Hitler during D-Day.

Dead Men's Secrets DVD Collection, Click here.

THE HISTORY CHANNEL ULTIMATE COLLECTIONS: WORLD WAR II is a comprehensive and intimate survey of this epic war featuring nearly 30 of its greatest World War II documentaries, each packed with original archival footage, interviews with military experts and historians, and gripping reenactments.

There will never be another war like it; there will never be another DVD collection like this.

The essential 10-disc anthology on the greatest war of the twentieth century includes:

• WORLD WAR II: THE WAR IN EUROPE (2 discs): Nine documentaries survey the war's massive scope in Europe.
• WORLD WAR II: THE WAR IN THE PACIFIC (2 discs): Seven documentaries examine the impetus and aftermaths of the battle in the Pacific.
• GENERAL DOUGLAS MACARTHUR: RETURN OF A LEGEND: The great MacArthur helped win World War II with a simple promise: "I shall return."
• OKINAWA: THE FINAL BATTLE: Relive the final engagement of World War II, in which over 250,000 people joined in a desperate fight.
• EMPIRES OF INDUSTRY: WAR PLANES OF WWII: Learn about the birth of America's aviation industry and some of the greatest fighter planes ever produced.
• NUREMBERG: TYRANNY ON TRIAL: Bear witness to the accusations, hearings, and sentencing of Nazi war criminals.
• GREAT BLUNDERS OF WORLD WAR II (2 discs): Eight documentaries expose the fatal errors and bungled opportunities that changed the course of history.

The Ultimate World War II DVD Collection, Click here.

This set includes:

• February 18 - February 24 - The battle for Iwo Jima begins--one of the bloodiest of World War II. Follow the action in this series that details, week by week, the last six months of World War II and explores the high and low points of the march to war's end.
• February 25 - March 3 - In the Battle for the Rhineland, an estimated 8.5 million people are on the move in Germany. The backbone of the Luftwaffe, Germany's once mighty Air Force, has been broken. Hitler is now visibly shaken.
• March 4 - March 10 - As World War II neared completion, the Axis powers tried increasingly desperate strategies in last-ditch efforts to slow the Allies' inexorable advance. THE LAST DAYS OF WWII is a comprehensive, step-by-step account of the crucial decisions and personalities that culminated in Allied victory.
• March 11 - March 17 - The B-29s blitz and the U.S. Air Force's new low-level bombing tactics using incendiary bombs prove deadly for the Japanese. General Curtis LeMay hopes to force a Japanese surrender before American ground forces are scheduled to invade the mainland.
• March 18 - March 24 - In this episode, Allied forces commanded by generals Montgomery, Bradley, and Devers are poised to make their way across the Rhine and head for Berlin.
• March 25 - March 31 - As March of '45 drew to a close, even the most steadfast Germans could see the inevitable end, and thousands of troops surrendered to the Allied forces as they raced from the Rhine to Berlin.
• April 1 - April 7 - By the first week of April, 1944, tensions among the Allies were heating up. When Eisenhower decided to stop his advance at Elbe River, it let the Soviets take Berlin.
• April 8 - April 14 - Berlin lies in ruins. Nearly 120,000 people are homeless. FDR's sudden death stuns the world. Tension among the Allies builds as the gulf of distrust between Stalin and Churchill widens. The Ruhr industrial area west of Berlin is now nearly conquered.
• April 15 - April 21 - As the Red Army's assault on Berlin begins, Hitler passes his 56th birthday in a bunker deep below the city. The Seventh Army captures Nuremburg while the Soviet government starts laying the groundwork for the Cold War in a treaty with Poland.
• April 22 - April 28 - Berlin has been reduced to rubble, setting the stage for the Red Army's entry. Benito Mussolini's brutal murder forces Hitler to consider that his "Thousand Year Reich" is at an end, even though prisoners are still being marched to the death camps.
• April 29 - May 5 - After weeks of battles and political squabbles among the Allies, Berlin finally falls. But Hitler does not live to see his capital overrun, choosing instead to commit suicide in his bunker. While some Nazi forces still fight, the real battle rages in the Pacific, where the Japanese launch a massive counter-offensive at Okinawa.
• May 6 - May 12 - In London, Paris, New York, and Moscow, people take to the streets celebrating victory. Denmark, Norway, and the Channel Islands are liberated. However, in the Pacific Theater there is still heavy fighting on Okinawa and in the Philippines.
• May 13 - May 19 - As the last remnants of the Nazi regime are dismantled, the "Big 3" nations set about the daunting task of rebuilding a continent shattered by nearly six years of war.
• May 20 - May 26 - Okinawa--the last stepping stone on the way to mainland Japan. The Allied High Command deems the island's capture absolutely vital, but the already difficult fight is complicated when the region is hit by torrential rain and the battlefield becomes a quagmire.
• May 27 - June 2 - Fighting on Okinawa intensifies as the Japanese begin their retreat. Enemy forces on the island of Borneo send hundreds of Australian and British soldiers on a death march across the island, while US forces continue to wipe out scattered opposition on the Philippines.
• June 3 - June 9 - U.S. forces make further advances in the Philippines while fanatical Japanese troops continue to hold out on the Pacific Island of Okinawa. With the War in Europe over, King Haakon of Norway triumphantly returns to his country after five years of exile and the Big Four meet to discuss the division of Germany into four main occupation zones.
• June 10 - June 16 - On Okinawa, a U.S. victory is now in sight, while in the Philippines, the Japanese are holed up in the Sierra Madre Mountains. In Germany, Marshal Zhukov confers the Soviet Order of Victory - made of diamond-encrusted platinum - on Eisenhower and Montgomery. Eisenhower is also awarded the Order of Merit--Britain's most prestigious honor--and the Freedom of the City of London.
• June 17 - June 23 - After three months of some of the bitterest fighting of the entire war, the Japanese finally cease trying to defend Okinawa against US forces. At dawn the Japanese commander, Lt. General Mitsuru Ushijima emerges from his bunker in a cave and commits ritual suicide in front of his shocked and demoralized staff officers.
• June 24 - June 30 - In Moscow, more than 200 captured Nazi banners are ceremonially dragged across a rain-soaked Red Square and thrown to the ground in front of Lenin's tomb to the rumble of hundreds of drums. British bombers destroy the bridge over the River Kwai that the Japanese had forced weak and suffering Allied POWs to build.
• July 1 - July 7 - 33,000 Australian troops land in the Great Sundra Islands and win control of Asia's richest oil regions. In Manila, General Douglas MacArthur declares the Philippines free from Japanese occupation. In Berlin, the first US occupation troops arrive as Allied forces hold a victory parade.
• July 8 - July 14 - In Indochina, Chinese forces advance rapidly eastwards and cut the last link between the Japanese army and its garrison, while the US 3rd Fleet joins the attack on Tokyo for the first time. In Berlin, US and British troops take control of their allotted sectors from the Red Army.
• July 15 - July 21 - In Europe, the war's aftermath is gaining steam: the Municipal Council in Berlin confiscates the property of former Nazi party members while President Truman and Prime Minister Churchill arrive in Potsdam for the "Big Three" conference.
• July 22 - July 28 - In Burma, 5,000 Japanese troops, trapped in the Pegu Hills, attempt to make a break east towards the Sittang River. In the Philippines, all organized Japanese resistance in the Sarangani Bay area ends. At the Potsdam Conference, President Truman announces that the atom bomb will be used against the Japanese as soon after August 3 as is possible.
• July 29 - August 4 - As the noose tightens inexorably around Japan, they suffer the indignity of repeated defeats. But with their forces on the defensive throughout the Pacific, a submarine strikes a symbolic blow for the fading empire, sinking the U.S. heavy cruiser Indianapolis.
• August 5 - August 11 - In Japan, massive air raids culminate when the world's first atom bomb is dropped on Hiroshima. Around 80,000 people died in a blast that destroyed 60% of the city. Many more are severely injured, while others will die later from radiation sickness.
• August 12 - August 18 - In Tokyo, the Japanese government at last accepts the inevitable and surrenders to the Allies unconditionally. President Truman declares that "this is the day we've been waiting for since Pearl Harbor."

Last Days of World War II DVD Collection, Click here.