"Hero" Lieutenant Tunic.

[Will]

A tunic from my collection.....
Although it is a tunic for a Lieutenant, I was aware of the fact that children are allowed to wear the parent's medals. Thus it displays a number of awards that a young officer would not have earned himself.

[kliment]

Originally Posted by Will

A tunic from my collection.....
Although it is a tunic for a Lieutenant, I was aware of the fact that children are allowed to wear the parent's medals. Thus it displays a number of awards that a young officer would not have earned himself.

When the childrens are pupils in military schools it's indoubtely the case, but I'm not sure if they continued to wear the decorations when in the military.

[Esteban_cool]

Given all the photographic evidence seen to date, I assume they still use their ancestors´ awards together with their own.

[kliment]

Hello Esteban,
I have seen many pictures of pupils from the Mangyongdae or Nampo schools with a lot of decorations. But never junior officers with more than a few basic awards.

Btw, an new article (in Russian) about the uniforms of the Mangyongdai revolutionary school :
http://www.vedomstva-uniforma.ru/mundir1/chuchkhe.html

[Will]

In my collection reference library I have several books published in North Korea. I'll see if the many photos of decorated soldiers can give us any further information on this point.

[kliment]

The best thing to do :thumbsup

[CtahhR]

I am somewhat ambivalent about this tunic. I'm sure any ambivalence would be removed by a detailed description of the Types of the awards present (and rough serial number range where available).

Everything is in the right place which is a good start!

[Will]

I put the display together myself.
It was not intended to represent a known officer's uniform with his actual awards.
It was, rather, meant to serve as a display of various DPRK awards and how they would appear when worn on a uniform.

[CtahhR]

There's the ambivalence for you!

What raised issue for me was the timescale of Badges on the right with some of the items on the left. It would be very strange not to have any commemoratives. As well as the items being placed to incorporate the belt.
I've seen plenty of service uniforms with "chewed" left chests where awards and bars have been placed and replaced but without catching the awards there it'll be unknown as to just what the recipient received. No doubt most items of uniform will be worn to death. The selection of "unseen" buttons are usually anything but uniform.

I am yet to see an authentic tunic with original awards come onto the market. As is the nature of DPRK items and their dealers. An original untampered set of documents to accompany the awards on a tunic would be the only way to prove authenticity and documented DPRK groups are difficult enough to come across let alone attached to the uniform.

5 of the groups I have (which may or may not be complete) are as follows;

#1 1962-1990
Order Of The National Flag 2nd Class X3
Order Of The National Flag 3rd Class X5

#2 1968-1993 Military Chemical Industry Worker
Commemorative Order "40th Anniversary Of Fatherland Liberation War Victory"
Medal For Merits
Medal For Military Merits
Commemorative Medal "Great Fatherland Liberation War 1950-1953"
Commemorative Medal "Fatherland Liberation"

#3 1964-1992 Publication/Construction Worker
Order Of The National Flag 3rd Class
Medal For Merits
Medal For Military Merits

#4 1980-1987 Factory Foreman
Order Of The National Flag 2nd Class
Medal For Merits

#5 1970-1993 Hydro-Electric Military Engineer
Order Of Military Engineer Service Honour 10 Years
Commemorative Order "40th Anniversary Of Fatherland Liberation War Victory"
Medal For Merits
Commemorative Medal "The Foundation Of The People's Republic Of Korea"
Commemorative Medal "The Foundation Of The People's Republic Of Korea"