Scientific precision seemed more important than haste in time of peace, and the NMFRL was not ready with an armored vest when Communism challenged the free world to a showdown in Korea. Five hundred of the armored utility jackets of the proposed Okinawa test were available, however, and were air-shipped to the 1st Marine Division during the Inchon-Seoul operation. Many of them went astray during the sea lift to Wonsan and subsequent Chosin Reservoir operation. Only the 50 garments issued to the Division Reconnaissance Company were worn in combat. And though this unit kept no records, the doron slabs were credited by Major Walter Gall, the commanding officer, with saving several lives. By the summer of 1951, Lieutenant Commander Lewis and his researchers had designed a new Marine armored vest, weighing about 8½ pounds, combining curved, overlapping doron plates with flexible pads of basket-weave nylon. This garment, according to the official description, was capable of “stopping a .45 caliber USA pistol or Thompson submachine gun bullet; all the fragments of the U.S. hand grenade at three feet; 75 percent of the U.S. 81mm mortar at 10 feet; and full thrust of the American bayonet.” Only 40 vests were available for field tests in the summer of 1951. Lewis rotated them among as many wearers as possible in the three regiments selected for the test, the 5th Marines and the 23d and 38th regiments of the U.S. 2d Infantry Division. There was, as he saw it, a psychological question to be answered--would body armor win the acceptance of troops in combat? The hackneyed phrase “bullet-proof vest,” for instance, put the wearer in a class with the buyer of a gold brick. Nylon was associated in the minds of the men with alluring feminine attire rather than protection from shell fragments. Finally, there could be no denying that undesired weight had been added, that doron plates hampered movement to some extent, and that nylon pads were uncomfortably warm for summer wear. Despite these drawbacks, Lewis found that troop acceptance was all that could be asked. The locale of the tests was the Inje area and the approaches to the KANSAS Line in June and early July. “By keeping these few vests almost constantly in use,” the Medical Service Corps officer commented, “the maximum amount of troop wear was obtained. Included in the wide sampling were company aid men, riflemen, BAR men, mortar (60mm) men, radio (backpack type) men--each carrying his basic weapon, ammunition load and a one-meal ration.” When Lewis returned to Camp Lejeune, he reported “that body armor, protection of some type for the vital anatomic areas, is almost unanimously _desired by all combat troops_, particularly the combat veteran of several actual fire fights with the enemy.”[264] [264] Quotations are from _Instructional Information, Vest Armored_, M-1951. The italicized words were in the original.