ChiCom Type 57 North Vietnamese Viet Cong Officer’s Compass with Pouch

In the North Vietnamese Army few were issued compasses. Even fewer were issued in the Viet Cong. As a result compasses are a bit hard to find and were a highly prized souvenir.

This was true because, like in most armies, the average NVA soldier could not do land navigation and could not read a map. They were not trained to do so.

Instead, the primary mode of land navigation for most North Vietnamese Army and Viet Cong troops was being lead by a guide from station to station.

Only Officers and senior NCOs had the training and need to carry a compass. Like pistols, map cases and binoculars, the compass was a status symbol.

There were a few types of ChiCom made compasses as well as some Soviet and Warsaw Pact types captured.

The ChiComs had various compasses with different designations, such as Type 51, Type 55 and Type 62. The nomenclature marking was most often found on the inside of the dial while sometimes they were marked on the exterior.

They were initially issued in a leather pouch that was worn on the belt. There were some plasticized compass pouches as well.

A cheap green lanyard was initially issued as well. Few lanyards survived.

There was a folding polished stainless steel mirror used to observe a back azimuth inside each compass.

There was also a wheel and dial, that when run between two points on a map, could tell the user how far the distance was between two points on a map by observed how far the wheel traveled on the paper. As you can see, this distance calculator dial was scaled to 1:25,000 1:50,000 etc.

Compasses were also issued to those with special skills such as mortar men, engineers, scouts and snipers.

Whether a ChiCom Type 62, Soviet or Warsaw Pact, no NVA VC collection is complete without a compass.