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ca. 1892-1910 MILLS .38 CALIBER REVOLVER CARTRIDGE
BELT – BELIEVED TO BE IDENTIFIED TO THE BATTLESHIP USS
KENTUCKY BB-6 – FROM THE ERA OF THE GREAT WHITE FLEET –
EXCELLENT CONDITION:
These Mills Woven Looped
Pistol Cartridge Belts were introduced in 1892 with the
adoption of the .38 Caliber Revolvers – in 1889 by the
U.S. Navy, and in 1892 by the U.S. Army. While both
services adopted their own leather cartridge boxes to
carry the ammunition in garrison or aboard ship, these
looped cartridge belts were a much more practical means
of carrying a combat load of cartridges when in the
field or away from the ship in a landing party.
 
This belt features three characteristics which strongly
indicate it may have been in the arms locker inventory
of the USS Kentucky (BB-6), a US Navy battleship - the
most obvious of the three is the “B 6 B” boldly
stenciled in white paint on the inside of the belt.
USS KENTUCKY
(BB-6)
ca. 1907 GREAT
WHITE FLEET
The USS Kentucky (BB-6) was a
Kearsarge-Class battleship built by the Newport News
Shipbuilding and Drydock Company. The keel was laid
down in June of 1896, the ship was launched in March of
1898, and then commissioned in May of 1900. After
commissioning she was fitted out at the New York Navy
Yard, and in October of 1900 the Kentucky departed from
Tompkinsville, Staten Island bound for China to support
the American efforts during the Boxer Rebellion via
Gibraltar, the Suez Canal, and finally a stop in Manila
in February 1901.
Between 1901 and 1904 she
visited Chefoo, Woosung, Nanking, Taku Forts, Hong Kong,
Xiamen, Nagasaki, Kobe, and Yokohama. In 1902, the
Kentucky became the flagship for Rear Admiral Frank
Wildes and then for Rear Admiral Robley D. Evans. In
March of 1904 she returned to New York City arriving in
May, and rejoined the North Atlantic Squadron. During
the 1906 insurrection in Cuba, she carried Marines to
Havana, arriving October 1, 1906, afterwards returning
to New England. In April of 1907 she participated in
the Naval Review during the Jamestown celebration.
In December of 1907, under the Command of Captain Walter
C. Cowles, the Kentucky joined the Atlantic Fleet which
sortied as President Teddy Roosevelt’s Great White Fleet
on the cruise around the world. In the course of that
voyage, she visited South America, the U.S. west coast,
Hawaii, New Zealand, Australia, the Philippines, Japan,
China, Ceylon and the Mediterranean before returning to
Hampton Roads, Virginia, in February of 1909.
Upon returning to the US in 1909,
she entered a yard period during which she was
modernized, receiving two of the new "cage" masts. She
was decommissioned until May of 1913, transferred to the
reserve fleet until June of 1915, and then returned to
active service in support the Occupation of Veracruz,
arriving in September 1915, staying until June 1916.
Upon her return, she entered New York Naval Shipyard
until the US entered World War One. During the war,
Kentucky served as a training ship in the Chesapeake Bay
and along the Atlantic coast, and after the armistice
she briefly remained in service, making a Naval Academy
midshipmen cruise to Panama in mid-1919. The
USS Kentucky was decommissioned in May of 1920 and was
sold to be scrapped in January of 1924 in compliance
with the United States’ commitments to the Washington
Treaty which limited the size of the signatory nations’
fleets.
The origins of the Navy’s ship designator and hull
number system extend back to the late 1880s when serial
numbers were assigned to most of the newly constructed
warships. During the course of the next thirty years,
these numbers were combined with filing codes used by
Navy clerks to create an informal version of what
eventually became the Naval Registry Identification
System (NRIS) that was established in July of 1920, and
remains in use today.
In the 1890’s, the Navy began to assign unique ship
numbers consisting of the ship type appended in
parenthesis’s to the ship name – i.e. USS Kentucky
(Battleship No. 6). Beginning in 1907, the ship type
began to be designated with single letter codes – in
this case, “B-6”. Specific to battleships, it is not
known exactly when the designation “BB” came into common
usage, but based on surviving artifacts from other US
Navy ships, it was well before the NRIS was formally
adopted in 1920, and may well have become a well
established practice during the voyage of the Great
White Fleet in 1907-1909.
As noted above, of the three characteristics exhibited
by this belt which suggest it was in the inventory of
the USS Kentucky, the most obvious is the “B 6 B”
stenciled in white paint on the interior surface of the
belt body. The format of this stencil does not present
in the manner of army unit applied markings which
followed the convention of regiment, company, number,
such as “3 K 43”. However, in the case of this belt the
use of the two capital “B’s” on either side of the
numeral 6 must have been sufficient to identify this
belt to a military organization. The service history of
the USS Kentucky, and the era when US Navy ships began
to be assigned the alpha-numeric designations are both
concurrent with the period when this belt would have
been in use.
The second characteristic, or lack thereof, is described
in Dorsey’s American Military and Naval Belts
1812-1902. The dark blue Mills Looped Pistol
Cartridge Belts which were manufactured for the army
were fitted with a series of brass grommets for mounting
equipment hanger wires for the holster and sabre
slings. There are no grommets in this belt, indicating
it was produced under a different contract than those
belts produced for the army, and quite possibly it
represents a separate contract produced for the navy.
The third characteristic is the presence of a set of the
pistol belt “T” closure which was introduced with the
series of Mills Model 1903 Pocketed Cartridge Belts.
Presumably, these “T” closures were available as
separate pieces to repair the pocketed cartridge belts,
and the closures would have been supplied on the basis
of requisitions so that units, or ships, in possession
of the looped cartridge belts could have retro-fitted
them with the more modern closures. While there is no
way of knowing when this pair of closures were mounted
on this belt, the woven material has a definite “set”,
matching the curve of that portion of the brass closure
over which the belt passes. This set in the material
indicates the closures have been on this belt for some
time, and was likely worn in this configuration with a
load of cartridges.
Assuming this belt was in use in the navy, specifically
aboard the Kentucky, the holsters in the fleet inventory
at the time - the black leather Models 1889 and 1895 US
Navy .38 Caliber Holsters, and the russet leather US
Marine Corps Model 1892 .38 Caliber Holsters [there were
approximately 80 marines aboard each battleship] – all
had belt loops which would accommodate the width of this
belt. During the service years of the Kentucky, the US
Navy Model 1905 Mills Woven Holster and Woven Pocketed
Cartridge Belt was adopted for carrying the .38 caliber
revolvers. While the Model 1905 Belt and Holster were
the most recent models, they did not necessarily eclipse
the equipment currently in use, and the older equipment
would remain in use so long as it was serviceable.
In the context of this Mills Looped Cartridge Belt, it
is worth noting that while the standard issue US Navy
Model 1905 Holster was fitted with a brass wire hanger
with two prongs which engaged grommets on the bottom
edge of the Pocketed Cartridge Belt, the original 1905
dated Mills patent drawing for the holster, and the
accompanying text, indicates that Mills’ original design
included a belt loop and not the wire hanger. The
patent description reads: “….there is or may be on
the rear face of the case [holster body] a loop
to receive the belt for carrying the case, which loop
also is woven in one with the body fabric.”
Apparently Mills made some quantity of the Model 1905
Holsters with a belt loop rather than the wire hanger,
as in one of the early 20TH Century catalogs
published by the famous Bannerman Store, they listed
“NEW U.S. NAVY OFFICER’S WOVEN HOLSTERS” described as
made for the U.S. Naval Academy “with loop for attaching
to waist belt” and stating the holster would hold the
Colt’s Navy .38 caliber service revolver. It is
entirely possible that some of these Model 1905 Holsters
with belt loops were purchased by the navy for the fleet
for issue with the looped cartridge belts.
This 2 ¼” wide belt is full length, complete with both
brass captive ends which bear the Mills and Orndorff
patent information, has all forty-five .38 caliber
cartridge loops present, which are all in excellent
condition with no wear or fraying. The belt webbing
retains a nice even dark blue color with only one spot
where there is a loss of color, fading to a purple hue
where the material was exposed to an agent that turned
the color.
This is a particularly interesting belt which will be a
thought provoking addition to your early 20TH
Century US Navy collection, and one which would display
nicely with one of the early .38 revolvers.
(1027) $325
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