Shoe polish: thoughts, fun facts, questions

[BorstalBoy]

In my days flying you never used polish on your boots. It is a fire hazard. And your boots for combat conditions were not polished either.

I can appreciate that - I’ve got the Navy perspective where combat conditions are less of an issue, and given that we have Marine D.I.s, polished everything is a must. For firefighting on the ship, we’ve got separate, galosh-type boots as part of the firefighting ensemble. Flight deck boots have a flame-retardant layer, which I believe aviators wear with flight suits.