Viet Cong pith Helmet

[willysproject]

7

[nguoi tien su]

I really like the first one you show. So called specialists have been saying that the plastic chinstraps were post 75 whereas actually even some bamboo helmets from the 50's already had them.

I have a kaki one from the early 60's also with a plastic chinstrap.

As for the second one, I personnally don't like associated with the cover. It is a civilian helmet as the one you could see all around Saigon street, especially on cyclo riders. I doubt it would have been used by the NVA.

My two cents.

[Wikipedia]

Here is a white plastic helmet with camo cover

It is not Viet Minh Helmet ?

[nguoi tien su]

For me, this is the helmet shown above, as seen in Hue in 1969 :



I have no perticuliar opinion about the cover itself, but I feel they don't belong to each other.

[ETN]

The white plastic helmet shown above is a civilian helmet that was available in Vietnam during the war. It was also used the VC often with an improvised cloth or plastic cover. I have one similar with a cover made from a US sand bag, that has a makers label in it showing that it was made in Hong Kong.

As for the NVA helmet with the plastic chinstrap and paper label. Although it may be possible that the NVA did use plastic chinstraps during the war and the helmets may have had lables, I have yet to see one brought back by a US vet with either of these features. Until that time comes, I am still not comfortable with them being a Vietnam war time Pre-US withdrawal era helmet