Enfield No5 used by NVA/ Viet Cong?

RedRabbits

RedRabbits

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I'm in a debate with a friend of mine about the service history of the Jungle Carbine. im pretty sure the No5 wasnt used by communist forces in Vitnam although my buddy swears that he has seen pics of Viet cong with the rifle. Any thoughts guys or pics to shed light on my debate?
 
If you look at the photos of captured VC/NVA equipment, you will find just about anything and everything in there.

Especially, the older and stranger stuff turned up in Charlie's hands in the earlier stages of the non-War, before the flow of Russian/Chinese equipment became a continuous river.

They were used, but only in small numbers. Likely, most of them came from Malaya or from the British occupation of Viet-Nam in 1945.

There is a thread over on milsurps dot com about an Enfield revolver which was made in a VC workshop in Saigon. Good photos, too.

Hope this helps.
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The typical rice farmer-turned-viet Cong guerrilla was using the British Lee Enfield rifles

The Modesto Bee - Feb 9, 1968
"http://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1948&dat=19680209&id=ShYxAAAAIBAJ&sjid=K-EFAAAAIBAJ&pg=1542,1678421
 
It is unlikely to have been "issued" in the sense that regular armies use the term, but N.Vietnam wasn't rich and the VC were guerillas so they would have used whatever they could get (and get any ammo for) and there certainly would have been Enfields kicking around S.E. Asia and the No.5 would have been much preferred to No.1MkIIIs and No.4 rifles by the slighter built Vietnamese for the same reason British and Commonwealth troops used it in the jungle.
 
If there's pictures of MP-40's captured from the Vietcong, I'd be willing to bet they at least some Enfield pattern rifle at one time or another.
 
In war anything is possible. ;)

Captured "Germans" on D-day. :eek:

japanese_dday.jpg
 
One of the Koreans Laborers captured on D-Day, conscripted by the Japanese and captured by the Russians on the Manchurian front, then Drafted into the Russian Army. Re-captured by the Germans ending up in Normandy working on the Beach Defenses. One of the guys is alive and living in the USA, I heard Hollywood is working on a possible movie project about these fellows.
 
JP said:
One of the Koreans Laborers captured on D-Day, conscripted by the Japanese and captured by the Russians on the Manchurian front, then Drafted into the Russian Army. Re-captured by the Germans ending up in Normandy working on the Beach Defenses. One of the guys is alive and living in the USA, I heard Hollywood is working on a possible movie project about these fellows.
Click to expand...

There is a Korean movie titled "My Way" about a Korean and Japanese solders serving in a German Army (right at the end of the movie).
Story is a fiction but it's still a very well made movie and worth seeing.
 
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I was given over 30 years publication of the "American Rifleman" magazines from 1959 to 1989. They had been in a Basement for almost 20 years and have a very strong "musty" odor to them, so they are in the garage right now.

However, when I get the chance, I take a few of them and go through them to scan to the computer, some of the articles that interest me, including the firearms takedown drawings and others.

One of the ones that I scanned is from the 1960s on "Weapons of the Viet Cong." While it does not specifically mention Lee Enfields, it does document German MP-40 sub-machine guns.

During the Malayan "emergency" of 1948-1960, (called an "emergency" instead of a "war" because of Insurance reasons ---insurers do not pay damages in a "war",) there were several British Regiments sent to Malaya. Some of these suffered casualties, and weapons were lost to the Communist Terrorist forces. Many of the die-hard CTs retreated to Thailand after 1960 so weapons were taken with them, and could easily have been given to their "brothers" in Vietnam or even taken with some "Volunteers" who "assisted" the Viet Cong.
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