North Vietnamese Army Pre 1965 Pith Helmet with Bamboo Sweatband Excellent

Here is an early NVA CORK-PITH Sun Helmet with all the standard features including a bamboo sweatband, leather chinstrap etc. The label indicates this helmet was made by the Hat Handicraft Cooperative Society in Hung Yen town (Near Haiphong) and is “Guaranteed Art!” Our guess is that it it really ChiCom made and re-labeled by the NVA. The quality of this helmet is on par with all the ChiCom made helmets we have seen in the past four decades. This helmet is very early as it does not have a grommet in the front for the screw in NVA sun helmet badge. Instead the 1st Model NVA badge would be pinned to the front. A BRIEF HISTORY OF NVA SUN HELMETS The North Vietnamese wore a few types of sun helmets in the North and South. We have seen pith/cork, plastic and cardboard with various colors on the exterior. Many were cottage industry made but most were mass produced in factories. As with all gear, the NVA and their suppliers learned to economize as the production demands increased. They changed styles, materials and manufacturing techniques to make things cheaper and easier to manufacture as the war dragged on. EARLY CORK NVA SUN HELMETS Very early NVA sun helmets, like this one, from the late 1950s and early 1960s, were made with a cork body. The cork bodies were covered inside and out with khaki cotton and sometimes green cotton, like this one. These early cork sun helmets had non-adjustable bamboo sweatbands made of thin strips of interwoven bamboo. A thin layer of plastic sheeting covered the bamboo. The plastic sheeting came in various colors like green, cream, maroon and blue. The plastic sheeting covers the bamboo so the wearer's skin is not rubbed and chafed by the hard bamboo underneath. Like in all wartime helmets, this one has all aluminum hardware including the grommets and vent. Naturally, the aluminum has oxidized a bit. FIRST GENERATION CARDBOARD SUN HELMETS The ChiComs, who made sun helmets to Hanoi's order, elected to make the sun helmet a bit less expensive as they were supplying the NVA with material for the coming war. They eliminated the cork body, substituting cardboard impregnated with resin instead. These first generation cardboard helmets retained the non-adjustable bamboo sweatband. The exterior of these early sun helmets was cotton twill. Khaki was most common but many green ones do exist. The interior of these early helmets remained covered in cloth like the cork helmet. There are sub-variant, like this one, with bamboo sweatbands that do not have the interior lining. SECOND GENERATION CARDBOARD NVA SUN HELMETS Bamboo sweatbands, which are found in all the early NVA helmets, take time to weave to specification. They then take more time to sew on the plastic sheeting over the woven bamboo. Because the War was coming and production had to increase, the bamboo sweatband was eliminated. Instead of a bamboo sweatband, an inexpensive green rubberized sweatband with matching crown suspension was riveted directly into the helmet body in four places. The backing of the sweatband and crown suspension was a white cotton. The suspension system was riveted to the cardboard body through two cardboard spacers, one on each side, shaped like a very elongated letter “M.” This M shaped spacer/washer was not painted in this generation. Later versions of this M washer were pink cardboard painted green. A purple color tie string was used to connect and adjust the green sweatband. Another purple tie string connected the four green crown straps. THIRD GENERATION CARDBOARD GREEN NVA SUN HELMETS The last and most common ChiCom made NVA sun helmet was made of cardboard impregnated with resin with a reed green cotton twill covering glued to the exterior. Instead of covering the interior with cloth, which cost money and skilled labor, the ChiComs used paint on the interior. The ChiComs forever eliminated the interior cotton.