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Survival kit Individual, lightweight holster.


Ethanm
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1 hour ago, Ethanm said:

My rt60 is dated 67 and the battery wasn't inspected, but the radio works 

Can you take a pic of the label?  Curious to see what type of contract it has.  Ive seen both USAF and USN numbers on them.    Do you have an adapter battery for it?  Cant imagine an original batt would still be working on those.

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24 minutes ago, mohawkALSE said:

Navy 68 contract,   pretty cool.

Should I get a different contract?    I want to see what you and Bob think 

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There was all kinds of trading, scarfing, and down right larceny when it came to acquiring survival gear in Vietnam.  I am not willing to say there would never have been a Navy Contract RT-60 used by an Army Aviator, but I will say an RT-10 would be a more historically accurate representation for the average Army Aviator between 1967 and 1969. 

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Times were crazy back then for Army Aviation, not only for rotary wing guys but especially fixed wing Mohawk crews.  Its was a total mix of Air Force and Navy gear, and as Bob said, lots of trading, borrowing, stealing etc.   My father as a rotary wing pilot only carried a RT-10, a pilots survival knife, and a pen flare kit for his survival items.  Carried the radio and flare kit in the chest pocket of his Chicken Plate armor carrier, knife was on his cowboy style holster rig he had for his .38.   Some guys in his unit had traded some things to USAF FAC crews to get SRU-21P vests.   They had some AF O-2A and OV-10A crews living near them in air conditioned hooches.  Army didnt really have a structured ALSE program or school until the mid 70s if not late 70s. They used to send people to the schools sometimes from either the Navy or Air Force.  Same went for SERE type schools, some got basic E&E training during flight school, others were lucky and got to got to USN or USAF courses both state side and in SEA.  My father only got basic instruction on it during a weekend in his advanced portion of flight school in Savannah, GA.   Seemed the Armys experience in SEA lead to major changes in the 70s and developed a more structured ALSE program and training for crews.

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I was able to pick up one of these kits a few years ago.  Mine appears to be brand new and the kit is sealed with copper wire and a lead seal to prevent tampering.  The knife was new in the bag.  Feel very fortunate to have found such a nice example of these rare kits.  

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Your kit is a beautiful example of a mint kit that may never have been issued or delivered to the Army.  The seal is embossed "RJE" which I have no doubt stands for Rocket Jet Engineering.  The Army would have inspected the kit prior to issue and then at least every 90 days during its usage.  There are no instructions on sealing the kit in TM 55-8465-206-13, "Organizational and DS Maintenance Manual for Survival Kits Army Aircraft" dated December 1966.  If the kit were resealed after inspection in a similar way, I don't think they would have used "RJE" when they resealed it.  

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I would think the seal bit was from RJE going to the Army so no one would tamper with it having meds and flares.   Really hope to add one of these to the collection one of these days.  There was a couple up not that long ago.

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It is a nice example,   Bob, when I go to the S.o.S. , I'll bring my survival holster so that that you can inspect it.  The tin itself didn't come with the nylon holster and auxiliary bag , but I still feel in my heart that the carrier and Aux bag are not like the rest, you could say.   

 

I'm going to try to print the scans of the manual, to make a manual since I have no other way to get one 

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  • 3 months later...

How about posting some pics so the experts here can give you an idea on the value..

 

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