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Zippo and World War II
No other event in history increased the popularity of Zippo lighters more than World War II. From 1943 through the end of WWII, Zippo’s entire production was allocated to the armed forces. The company archives are filled with letters detailing the services a Zippo lighter was called to perform: heating rations in a helmet, lighting campfires, sparking fuses for explosives, hammering nails and even signaling to fellow soldiers with the famous Zippo click. On several occasions, a Zippo lighter in a shirt or pants pocket even saved a life by deflecting bullets.
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No wonder legendary war correspondent Ernie Pyle wrote, “Getting hold of a Zippo (lighter) is like getting hold of a hunk of gold…There is truly nothing the average soldier would rather have.”
Because of a shortage of raw materials, WWII-era Zippo lighters were made of steel rather than brass, and dipped in a black protective coating to prevent rusting. Today collectors refer to these rare models as black crackle lighters.
 Walter Nadler
In the early 1990s, a Zippo employee found a genuine black crackle World War II-era lighter bearing a simple hand-carved inscription, “Walter Nadler” on the front and “June 6, 1944, 0630 France” on the back. As part of our D-Day 50th Anniversary initiative, Zippo launched an international media search throughout the U.S. and France, seeking to find any details on Walter Nadler. Information from several sources led to Walter D. Nadler of Rahway, NJ, who landed on Normandy June 6, 1944, with the fighting 4th Division of the U.S. Army. Unfortunately, Nadler had passed away in 1990. The now famous Walter Nadler lighter is on display at the Zippo/Case Visitors Center in Bradford, PA.
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FYI: World War II Zippo lighters with the black crackle finish, distributed only to the PXs for the men and women in the service, mistakenly were stamped with patent number 203695. The correct number should have been 2032695.
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 War Commemoratives
Starting in 1990, Zippo created gift sets commemorating significant military events that shaped the history of the United States. Every U.S. Navy ship has been commemorated on a Zippo lighter. Collector sets honoring the U.S. military include the Civil War Series, a two-lighter Korean War commemorative, Vietnam limited editions, Zippo: A Remembrance, Volumes 1 and 2 the D-Day 50th commemorative, and the most recent D-Day 60th Anniversary Sands of Normandy set. |
60th Anniversary D-Day commemorative
The 60th Anniversary D-Day commemorative set
included a container of sand drawn from Normandy’s Omaha Beach, an informational booklet providing details about Zippo and WWII, and a replica of the 1941 Zippo lighter with the famous black crackle finish, all packaged in a fiberboard box mimicking the packaging of K-rations soldiers carried into war.
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