Capt. Ta Duc Hao (right) and the author in Longxuyen in 2006.
The field hospital couldn't stay anywhere within the borders of South Vietnam. It kept moving west, crossing the border, and eventually withdrew into Cambodia. I and other wounded moved with the field hospital and left South Vietnam in that winter.
In 1966, I recovered from my wounds. I left Cambodia and returned to my unit in 1967 in South Vietnam. I was lucky to be transferred back before the American forces intensified their air raids and bombing in 1969 and eventually invaded Cambodia in the spring of 1970.
Our battalion fought in seven provinces of South Vietnam. I was promoted to sergeant, lieutenant, and then captain. Although I was wounded again in 1973, I remained in active duty until the war was over in 1975. We returned back to the North in the same year. I retired from the army in 1976 during the demobilization and I got married in Hanoi later that year. I talked to my wife and came down to the South in 1978. I knew the South better than the North since I had spent about ten years of my young adult life here. Also I could get a better job here after we won the war and took over everything during its reconstruction in the late 1970s. I worked in the village office in 1979–1985, and then in the town government from 1986 to 2002. I retired from the government position in 2005. I receive government retirement, military pensions, and disability compensation every month. I’m very happy living in this village with my wife. We may have to move to one of the cities since our children need our help. One of them is expecting their first baby.
Chapter 6
No Final Victory, No Family Life
They are still friends. Ngoc and Tran worked in the same office in 1975–1976 at Ty Xay Dung, the largest construction corporation in An Giang Province. Ngoc's father was the CEO, a retired NVA lieutenant general; and Tran was from a small business family and soon fled the country as one of the “boat people” I was surprised to see their reunion after thirty years: emotional hug with tears, instant recall of some old-day gossip, and garrulous brags of their kids and families. Even though they went separate ways, there was no animosity, no regret, and no hard feelings. They seemed happy with the ending. Lt. Gen. Huynh Thu Truong was happy, too, having seen it all: the end of the French Indochina War in 1954, the end of the American War in 1973, and the end of the Vietnam War in 1975.1
As a senior artillery expert, Major General Truong's war experience both in the North and in the South reflects the technological aspects of the NVA and PLAF by showing how the Viet Cong adopted new technology and trained its officers. During the early years of the 1960s, Hanoi sent many of the NVA officers with Southern roots back to the South to participate in the NLF and PLAF’s struggle against the ROV government. Some of these officers had been recalled to north of the 17th parallel according to the Geneva Indochina Agreement signed in July 1954.2 Some had fled to the North during Diem's suppressions against the Communists in 1958–1961. While in North Vietnam, they received further training in guerrilla warfare, mass mobilization, political propaganda, and military technology. After they were sent back to the South, these officers played an important role in upgrading the PLAF’s weapons and equipment and improving their combat effectiveness.
The NVA high command began to pay more attention to military technology in the late 1950s in order to win large-scale, decisive battles against the ARVN forces, establishing artillery and engineering divisions and opening artillery and engineering schools to train their officers and commanders. When the first antiaircraft artillery brigade began its air defense of the capital city, Ho Chi Minh wrote to the commander that “Without antiaircraft artillery, Hanoi is like a house without a roof.”3 In the summer of 1965, the NVA established its antiaircraft missile regiments in the North. Meanwhile, the PLAF continued to improve its weaponry by introducing up-to-date military technology. In the late 1960s, the NVA transformed from a peasant guerrilla army into a modern professional army.4
Lt. Gen. Huynh Thu Truong
Rector, Artillery Training Center, PLAF (Viet Cong, South Vietnam)
I was born into a well-off family in 1923 in South Vietnam. After high school, I enrolled in a French Catholic College at Saigon [present Ho Chi Minh City] in 1944. I studied engineering, mathematics, mechanics, physics, and chemistry. The Pacific war was over in August 1945, and the Viet Minh established the Democratic Republic of Vietnam [DRV] in Hanoi with Ho Chi Minh as president in early September. The Viet Minh had been active in the South.
The First Indochina War broke out in 1946 when the Viet Minh troops clashed with the French forces in the North. Even though we were French college students, we didn't like the French colonial government's return after World War II, with their old-fashioned, out-of-date colonial policy. We liked national independence and wanted to take Vietnam back from France. I joined the student protests against French domination of our country.
The Viet Minh members were actively involved in these student movements in Saigon and rapidly developed their party branches all over the college campuses. I was approached by one of the party branch members in our college, and I became a Southern Vietnamese Communist Party member in 1946.5
After my graduation in 1948, I got married and had an engineering job to cover my secret mission as an undercover Communist engineering researcher. I had accomplished several important artillery tests and research projects for the People's Army of Vietnam [PAVN, also known as Viet Minh] in the North in my company lab in Saigon. The results of my research were sent all the way from the South to the North.
In 1952, the Viet Minh headquarters in the North sent a request through the South Vietnamese Party Committee in Saigon and asked me to join a newly opened artillery training school in the North. The party committee asked for my own opinion on this. At that time, I believed that I could make more contributions to Vietnam's Communist revolution by joining the army in the North than working as an undercover engineer in the South. Certainly, there was a war going on in the North between the Viet Minh and France. It meant that my decision would soon lead me to danger, hardship, and even death on the front line against the French forces. But I thought that the party needed me, and that there was also a good opportunity for my career. I left my job, a comfortable family life, and a pregnant wife behind. I walked for two weeks with a small group of people all the way to the North until we got to the Chinese-Vietnamese border.
Back then, the Viet Minh force was a guerrilla farmers’ army. Short of financial sources and military technology, they didn't have their own artillery instructors and training facilities in the early years of the French Indochina War. The Chinese Communist forces, the People's Liberation Army [PLA], provided artillery pieces, equipment, and training for the North Vietnamese troops. Among the 250 advisers of the CMAG [Chinese Military Advisory Group] were eleven artillery officers, who arrived in North Vietnam on August 11, 1950. In May 1951, the Chinese helped the Viet Minh establish the 351st Division, the first Vietnamese artillery and engineering division.6 In the same year, the PLA also trained the Vietnamese officers inside China by opening an officer academy, an artillery training center, and engineering schools. While the Viet Minh high command was grateful about the Chinese effort to train the Vietnamese artillery officers, it also worried about the military dependence and Chinese influence. Since the Viet Minh had grown from two divisions up to seven regular divisions by 1952 and was winning the war against the French forces, it should have its own artillery training programs.
After arriving in the North, I served as an artillery training officer at the Viet Minh's No. 9 Quan Khu Phao Binh [Artillery] Training Center.7 Most of the artillery equipment came from China, including 60 mm, 80 mm, and 82 mm artillery guns. Their best artillery technology was the Chinese-manufactured six-rocket launchers and 75 mm recoilless guns against tanks and defense works.
During the early years