Black cotton shirt of the South Vietnamese Revolutionary Development Cadre: Warrant Officer Class II L D Osborn MM, Australian Army Training Team Vietnam

Long sleeved collarless shirt made of black cotton. The sleeves have a patch sewn over each elbow as reinforcement. The shirt is fastened down the front by black plastic buttons and there are three patch pockets, one on the left breast, the others below the waistline. The shirt has small side splits and a small tag at the neckline with the number 12 printed in red.

A black 'pyjama' style uniform worn by the Revolutionary Development Cadre (RDC) and adopted by their advisor trainers. This particular example was worn by 52506 Warrant Officer Class II (WO2) Leslie Daniel 'Aussie' Osborn MM, of Mount Pleasant, WA, a member of the Australian Army Training Team Vietnam (AATTV) during his service with the RDC from 21 October 1969 until 8 July 1971. Osborn is pictured wearing this uniform in AWM photograph COM/69/0570/VN while serving with the RDC in Phuoc Tuy Province, and states that the RDC "built 73 houses for the people irrespective of whether their menfolk were on our side or not. During my time with them we lost approx 15 KIA and 60 to 70 WIA plus a few kidnappings."

Osborn had previously served in WWII and the Malayan Emergency and served in five tours of Vietnam from 1964 until 1971. He had won a Military Medal when he saved the life of American officer Captain Paul Chalmers after their unit was ambushed in Thua Thien Province, Vietnam on May 29 1965.

The RDC was an American funded grass-roots initiative developed in early 1966 designed to counter the zeal of similar communist groups by a vision of social revolution based on democratic principles; it hoped to restore government influence amongst the South Vietnamese population as well provide them with effective military training. On the ground, this translated to 59 person hamlet-level cadres comprising doctors, teachers, tradesmen government representatives and a para-military component. Basic military training was provided by members of the Army of the Republic of South Vietnam (ARVN) assisted by the Americans and the AATTV. Their success appeared to be limited to the period the teams stayed with the villagers.