Siamese/Thailand model 30-32 Steel 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 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.

It all started on Guam...

Welcome.

The purpose of this blog is to show my collection of 20th century combat helmets and to foster a discussion among other collecters and interested individuals about helmets and the hobby of combat helmet collecting.

I invite all questions, comments, and corrections.

Each week I’ll be posting photos and text of a particular combat helmet.

But first, some background

I've been collecting helmets since 1972 when some shipmates and I were boonie-stomping on the island of Guam where we were all stationed as young Navy radiomen. We were exploring an area around the village of Yigo ("Jee-go") which was the scene of one of the last stands made by organized Japanese forces.

Crawling on our bellies into a spiderhole cave which was half filled with water, we inched our way about 150 feet into the base of a ridge line. When we got to the source of the subterranean spring we found a Japanese helmet, buckles, teeth and other human remains. There were about six of us cramped in this deep, dark, cool, wet resting place of a Japanese soldier on this speck of an island in the middle of the Pacific. In the beams of our flashlights we started conjecturing about the circumstances that drove this long-ago soldier into the depths of this hillside.

We had our own war going on in those days, and bore none of our fathers' malice toward the remains that shared this space with us. It seems strange, in retrospect, how long we lingered to consider the life and death of a Japanese G.I. from that different war.

(U.S.Navy Radioman Roger Jacobs emerges from cave with helmet and buckle - 1972)
We returned to the surface, taking the helmet with us. Crawling back into the tropical sunshine, all introspection passed and again we were a bunch of jocular, knuckleheads in Uncle Sam's Navy, simply looking for the next adventure. Even so, that time in the cave stuck with us. And when I get together with the one old pal I've still kept in touch with, our conversation often turns to the afternoon of the helmet.

You can view a Youtube of that whole story here.


That helmet, now completely out of any historical context, resides here on South Mountain, Maryland, with me. Sometimes, when it catches my eye, I find myself wondering about the life of the young man who wore it to Guam but not back home again.

There is something about the very personal nature of a combat helmet that I find very compelling. Some guy wore it through some very difficult situations and may or may not have made it home again. Helmets aren't grand or dangerous, they've no moving parts, and they're totally utilitarian and characteristically drab. But a helmet suggests to me the thinking person who once wore it into combat; a young G.I. just like many of us were, once upon a time.

I guess there's something very optimistic in the nature of the "tin lid"...everybody's entitled to hope that he, or she, is going to make it home alive.

I share their hope.

Next week a closer look at the Japanese model 30-32, though this one’s in pretty good condition with liner, chinstrap, and insignia.

Peace,

Mannie