North Vietnamese Army Enlisted Shoulder Boards Corporal

NVA enlisted men and officers were authorized to wear cotton twill tunics in the North. Officer’s wore four pockets; enlisted wore two pockets on the chest; female personnel had two lower pockets. Wartime tunics had THIN loops on the shoulders for attaching shoulder boards.

Some of these tunics made their way South as reported in ST66-24, the MACV Intelligence circular which reported on captured NVA material.

The construction is typical war time with aluminum buttons, not shiny plated post war.

This style of shoulder board is well documented during the late 1950s up to the early 1970s. The first relevant photo shows NVA enlisted men in a parade wearing these shoulder boards while carrying PPSH41s. Note the squad leader at the end of the line. He has a tunic, not the standard combat shirt. The color photos of NVA soldiers are from the POW exchange in 1972.   See the attached photo.  These are enlisted NVA personnel on a C130 assigned to help in the physical exchange of POWs.   Note the enlisted men wear only two pockets on their tunics, while the officer on the right  has four. They are also wearing Soviet export pistol belt with plain smooth brass buckles.

This style of board does not appear after 1975.   It seems the NVA went back to the standard gold and red shoulder board for enlisted men.