Thailand m.30/32 combat helmet

 A recycling story...

If you were a nation occuppied by the Japanese in WWII you find yourself awash in Japanese military materiel upon their surrender.  Suddenly your army (such as it is) has lots of helmets.

Such was the case with Thailand.  A small army, a whole bunch of Japanese helmets, just add insignia, and away you go.

The distinctive Japanese 30-32 profile in Siamese livery.

Ventilation holes in the dome.

This example has mounts for the French m. 26 -style liner and chinstrap.

Close-up of riveted mounting frame for the liner...

though the mounting holes for the original Japanese liner are apparent.

Back story...

Remember back in the late '70s and early 80's seeing ads in military magazines for genuine Japanese helmets for only 15 (later 25) bucks? Sounded like a rip-off, but what the heck, it was only fifteen dollars, so I gave it a shot. The helmet I got in the mail proved the adage: "You get what you pay for"; a stripped-down Japanese helmet sans liner and insignia of any sort.


On the plus side it did have a chinstrap, though it was unlike any I was used to seeing on Japanese helmets, and had the French-style suspension for a liner intact. What was most intriguing about this helmet though, was the printing on the remnants of newspaper that were stuck to it (obviously this helmet had been in storage for some time). The script on the newspaper fragments was unlike any I'd seen before. It was definitely not Japanese, nor was it Chinese or Korean. That puzzled me. Also, on the front of the shell, where an insignia had been, was the distinct and symmetrical outline of that missing insignia. The outline was clear and very distinctive, and again unlike the shape or size of any Japanese insignia that I was familiar with.

Mystery aside, I felt a little sheepish about this helmet and pretty much tucked it away in the old "live and learn" box, where it stayed for almost 25 years until it suddenly became somewhat of a prize.


In the intervening 25 years a couple of things happened: the publication of that outstanding book by Paolo Marzetti "elmetti di combattimento di tutto il mondo" (Combat Helmets of the World) and the advent of ebay.

Marzetti's book gave me my first glimpse of the Siamese model 1930-32 which was simply a salvaged Japanese 30-32 with a replaced liner (French m.26 style) and leather chinstrap.

  And mounted on the front, with that distinctive outline that had so puzzled me was the embossed metal Siamese insignia. Shortly after that, as ebay came into full-flower, I successfully searched out and obtained that helmet plate. The helmet came out of storage, the insignia was affixed, and suddenly that cast-off was placed front and center in my collection with some of the other more obscure models.

A very nice ending indeed.

See you next time with another cool helmet from the collection.

Mannie

Vietnam, National Liberation Front (Viet Cong) combat sun helmet (c.1968)

Hey look...It's me.  I wasn't in Vietnam but as a radioman aboard Naval Communication Station Guam during the war I supported the effort by communicating with United States warships operating off the coast of Vietnam. 

How I wish I still had that hair.

The United States was involved in the Vietnam War from 1959 to 1975; a sixteen year investment in blood that led to 58,315 American deaths, and countless lives among the Vietnamese, Laotians, and Cambodians.

And today I own shoes that were recently made in Vietnam.  So it goes.

This is widely accepted as the first war that the United States lost...though keep your eyes on Afghanistan gang.

The United States, and its allies, brought massive amounts of men and materiel to that war.  We came up against an unwinnable insurgency war with the National Liberation Front (Viet Cong) and the highly motivated regular troops of the North Vietnamese Army (NVA).  Caught between these two formidable foes...fighting on their own ground...for their own independence...they were indefatigable and ultimately victorious.  And now they make great shoes.

Today I work as a Park Ranger for the National Park Service and I'm stationed in Washington DC on the National Mall.  Frequently I work at the Vietnam Veterans War Memorial.  It is a sobering reminder of the cost of the War to the American people.

Why we lost the war is still argued here in the United States and many diehards insist that we won, though they're grumpy old men who are only getting older (and grumpier); but as a people we seem to agree that we lost, and we're over it.  For a while we were averse to getting into another Vietnam-like "quagmire"...but we eventually got over that too...didn't we?

Enough with the history of the war, my Vietnamese manufactured shoes, and my one-time luxurious and curly hair, and on to the helmet.

Now for the walkaround:

This wartime version is a light grayish-green color.  The helmet is still standard issue for the Vietnamese army and the post-war model is a very deep green.

The helmet is cheaply made and very lightweight.  Though non-ballistic it made operating in a tropical environment somewhat more comfortable for the wearer.

The disc bearing the insignia of the national Liberation Front is surrounded by an officer's wreath.

The ventilator cover.

The inside of the ventilator.

The helmets, worn by both the the NVA and the VC, were manufactured in North Vietnam and made their way south via the notorious "Ho Chi Mihn trail" - the indestructible supply route which day and night saw the transport of tons of food and materiel to the Viet Cong forces.

The size is inked on the label.

The rudimentary headband is adjustable by a cord and a series of holes in the plastic.

The chinstrap, which is of very inexpensive plastic, is adjusted by two sliding buckles and secured by a hollow rivet.

The liner is simple, cheap, and fragile plastic.

Female fighters of the Viet Cong have camouflage covers

on their helmets.

Bottom line? they won, we lost. End of story.

See you next time with another cool helmet from the collection.

Mannie

Bulgarian M36/C combat helmet

"Old soldiers never die" 

(they just lose a whole lot of their paint)

Used between 1938 until the the last decade of the 20th century the m.36/C had a long life under more than one regime and great geopolitical changes.

An abundance of these helmets ended up on ebay as the m.36/C was an inexpensive glut on that venue for two or three years.

The design of the m.36/C was influenced by the German helmets of the era.  During the

Second World War Bulgaria was a nominal ally of Nazi Germany.

Both paint and tricolor decal are pretty beaten up leading me to believe that this particular helmet saw a lot of service over five decades or more.

The applied ventilator bushings are similar to the Italian m,33 but are more conical.

The ventilator bushings are secured by a large washer.

Split-pins affix the liner framework and the chinstrap bails.

A subtle crest runs the length of the crown of the shell

The only markings are a size indicator on the liner and, perhaps, the initials of one of the wearers.

The quality of the leather liner and chinstrap is inferior to the m.36/A (here).

Robust swivel bails secure the chinstrap halves.

Unlike the m.36/A the leather liner is supported by a metal frame, vaguely reminiscent 

of the Italian m.33.

Small split-pins secure the liner to the frame.

Here's a gallery of the M36/C in action:

A Bulgarian soldier with his "sort of" Nazi friend ("frenemies" as the young folks say today).

Who doesn't enjoy a little vino while on the march?

A mix of m.36/Cs and m.36/As. All three versions - A,B, and C were used simultaneously.

The m,36/C soldiered on through the Cold War era.

A Bulgarian soldier armed with an AK-47 supported by a Soviet-made T-34 tank.

Bulgarians of the Cold War, note the RPG launcher, ubiquitous to all communist countries of the era and still widely used today.

See you next time with another cool helmet from the collection,

Mannie