GUEST: I got the helmet from my grandmother. I was visiting when I was about 14 years old. It was actually upside down on her table in her living room with dirt in it and a flower growing out of it. She said, "Well, that helmet belonged to your father's uncle." It was her brother. She started telling me things about his exploits in the, in the Navy, and, uh, one of the first things she said was that he was the first Naval officer to land on Normandy. I thought, "Oh, Grandma..." And she then started talking about him being involved in helping develop plans for the assault on Normandy. And I thought, "Oh, how much of this can you, can you come up with?" So I didn't pay too much attention. She told me a few other stories, and then asked me if I would be interested in the helmet, and I said, "Oh, yeah, sure." I took it home and played with it for a while, and it just sat at home until about the 75th anniversary of D-Day, and I thought, "I'm going to check into this," and sure enough, my grandmother's stories were quite accurate.
APPRAISER: This is the helmet from Captain James Earl Arnold. Your uncle was a very important man. He was the Naval officer in charge at Utah Beach.
GUEST: Yeah.
APPRAISER: One of the first to land. And when we look at that event, it makes the hair stand up on your arms, because the D-Day invasion at Normandy is one of those moments in world history where the course of the world hangs in the balance. Now, we didn't win the war at Normandy.
GUEST: Right.
APPRAISER: But we cer... Had we been kicked off those beaches, it, at the very least, would have taken another year or two and who knows how many lives...
GUEST: Hm, uh-huh.
APPRAISER: ...in order to accomplish the mission that had to be done. And your uncle is a key player in making sure that that all comes together. Imagine A, trying to keep it a secret, B, the tides have to be just right. They have to have a full moon, because the Airborne has to be able to pick out their targets.
GUEST: Right.
APPRAISER: There are so many things that have to come together just right. He is involved in all of that planning. On this particular helmet, there is a specific designator here in the front, N.O.I.C.: Naval officer in charge. So he's Naval officer in charge at Utah. His deputy and the other people on his staff there with him would have had similar helmets or similar markings.
GUEST: Oh, mm-hmm, I see.
APPRAISER: And of course, that's also at Omaha.
GUEST: Mm-hmm.
APPRAISER: But he's the only guy there with the captain's eagle on his helmet.
GUEST: Oh. Oh, really.
APPRAISER: So there is but one of these.
GUEST: Wow.
APPRAISER: We have an early-production World War II M1 helmet. The seam for the brim that goes around the edge of the helmet is in the front.
GUEST: Mm-hmm, oh.
APPRAISER: At the very end, that's moved to the back. On the interior, we've got "Captain Arnold," and then... On the reverse, it's stenciled "USN."
GUEST: Mm-hmm.
APPRAISER: United States Navy. Now, you have a copy of a photograph of your uncle very, very clearly wearing that helmet. This has to have been on June 6.
GUEST: Oh, really?
APPRAISER: He's still, he's still wearing his invasion life belt.
GUEST: Oh!
APPRAISER: So this puts him on Normandy on June 6, wearing that helmet.
GUEST: Wow.
APPRAISER: And you had asked earlier, "Does the stenciling appear to be level?" No, to me, it does not.
GUEST: No.
APPRAISER: It's a little off-kilter.
GUEST: Yeah.
APPRAISER: And you can recognize that in the photo.
GUEST: You can see it there.
APPRAISER: Great photo.
GUEST: Yeah.
APPRAISER: And it eliminates that problem of getting that helmet to June 6. This is everything that you would want to see. It's a real unicorn in the World War II collecting realm.
GUEST: Wow.
APPRAISER: It's something that represents a fantastically important human endeavor.
GUEST: Mm-hmm.
APPRAISER: One that had an impact on the lives of millions of people.
GUEST: It's amazing.
APPRAISER: I mean, there are people in Europe alive today that would not have been had your uncle not have been so good at his job.
GUEST: If this hadn't happened.
APPRAISER: If I was cataloguing this for an auction, I would put an estimate on the item between $30,000 and $40,000.
GUEST: Wow. (gasping) I can't believe that. Mm. (sniffs softly) Amazing. Pretty expensive flowerpot. (chuckles) Wow. Well, thank you. (exhales): I can't... I just don't have words to say.
