Any Way to Find Info on Bringbacks?

[jmaurer]

In reviewing some of the rifles in my collection, as well as others often seen online, I note that with some the probability that they were acquired in Vietnam is almost certain. Examples would be East German, "North Vietnamese", etc. If the capture paperwork for such was simply lost over time, is there a mechanism to find corresponding records still held by the US government? Would it take a FOIA request? Has anyone tried this before?

[Boris Badinov]

This question comes up from time to time. My understanding from those discussions is that it is next to impossible to locate originals or carbon copies of bringback documents that the military required at the time of importation.

Luckily, for the E.German and N.Korean variants, the bringback papers have little influence on the value of the rifles themselves.  (An E.G. sks recently sold for $11,500 without documents).

For the Chinese guns-- there are certain attributes that one can look for to determine bringback plausibility. These traits can raise the value modestly from standard market value but not much.

For the NVA variants, the  carbines themselves are all the documentation needed for battlefield/theater provenances.

If you're mostly asking out of historical curiosity, I suppose there exists a ever-so slight possibility that the documents are ...out there... somewhere. But it will be a long and arduous search -- and likely a fruitless undertaking.

[jmaurer]

It would be great if someone could figure a way to offer a research service for such records, similar to that provided by Mangrove at Mosin.fi (firearm provenance research from archived Finnish government records). That being said, it probably would take a Freedom of Information request to get anything.

[Phosphorus32]

North Korean, East German and "North Vietnamese" SKSs are all understood to have arrived in the US exclusively via bringbacks from Vietnam, so no paperwork required, but it's a nice bonus.

There aren't any other country's SKSs that are as clear cut as the Trinity rifles. No import marks, patina, battle damage all indicate to very strongly suggest that they were bringbacks, but one can't be 100% certain with any of them. Generally, bringbacks are prefaced by the adjective "likely" in those cases.

I suspect these DD-603 papers would be in personnel service records if they exist at all. Alternatively, they could be in the accujmulated unit records for those units that handled the approval of the export of the war trophy firearm. In either case, yes it would probably take a FOIA request including fees and labor. That could stack up for difficult to locate records...if they are found at all. Probably not worth trying just to satisfy curiosity or even to try and add value. Best you could get is a photocopy which wouldn't add much value in any case.

My $0.02