Viet Minh's Dien Bien Phu Campaign, March-May 1954
After my promotion to a major in the Viet Minh, I took part in writing our own training curriculum, officer assessments, promotion requirements, and equipment maintenance regulations. At the training center, I taught classes, organized routine drills, and assessed joint exercises. We also developed our artillery planning, operation instructions, mobile tactics, defense deployment, and offensive bombardment. Our program became more sophisticated, and our classes got bigger. In 1953, we had an average of 150 officers on the campus all year long. The artillery training and tactics played an important role in the major battles, such as the Red River campaign in 1953.
During these years in the North, I missed my wife and my little two-year-old daughter, whom I had never seen. But I knew her name was Ngoc, which I’d picked for her before I’d gone to the North. I had to fight for our victory before I could have my family reunion. We had to fight harder and win the war by defeating the French.
From December 1953 to April 1954, the Viet Minh forces encircled the 15,000 French troops at Dien Bien Phu. Our artillery troops played a very important role in the final battle. The 351st Artillery Division, rocket battalion, and 75 mm recoilless gun battalion effectively engaged in the offensives. Many of our artillery officers received their training from our center. In March, their successful shelling against enemy airfields, supply depots, and communication lines had isolated the French forces and also diminished their escape chance. By April, the French troops held only three points. On May 6, the Viet Minh high command launched its final all-out attack. In a couple of days, the French surrendered. After eight years’ fighting, we finally defeated French colonial forces in Vietnam.
After our victory in the First Indochina War, in the summer of 1954, I traveled back to Saigon and looked for my family. Thanks to the Southern Communist Party members who had taken good care of my family, my wife and my daughter were doing just fine. I moved them all the way from Saigon to the North. In 1957, I was transferred from the artillery training center to the NVA Artillery Academy in Hanoi. My family followed me to the capital city. We had a little boy a year later, when I was promoted to the rank of lieutenant colonel in 1958.
In the early 1960s, the war between the NLF and the Diem government of the so-called Republic of Vietnam [RVN] became intensified. Diem and his forces killed thousands and thousands of the Southern Communist members and jailed hundreds of thousands of the Communist sympathizers. Chairman Ho always reminded us that “Comparing with the great hardships that the Southern people and army have to endure, your difficulties remain modest. You have to follow their example, fighting more valiantly and achieving greater victory.”8 Our party and army decided to support the Communist movement in the South by providing military aid and training to the South Vietnamese guerrilla troops.
After nine years’ service in the North, in 1961 I was sent back to the South and joined the PLAF [People's Liberation Armed Forces] of the NLF to train their artillery troops. The Diem government referred to the NLF as “Viet Cong,” meaning “Vietnamese Commies.”
I left my post in the NVA Artillery Academy in Hanoi, and left my family again in December 1961. After we crossed the North Vietnamese-Laos border, we began to walk on foot. Then we entered Cambodia and walked a long way down south. They told me that it took longer going this way, but it was much safer. Then we entered South Vietnam by crossing the Cambodian-South Vietnamese border. After a twenty-three-day journey, we finally arrived at a Viet Cong military base in An Giang Province in January 1962.
The Viet Cong base was at the top of the Ca Mountain, which has many big trees and overlooks the Ca Mau River. Isolated in the forest and less populated, this mountainous area was far away from Diem's controlled areas. The villagers around the base were supportive to the NLF and the PLAF military struggle against the Diem government and the U.S. armed forces in South Vietnam.
We opened a PLAF artillery training school and began to offer classes to the PLAF officers. I was ranked colonel in the PLAF, an automatic promotion of one level up for most officers who returned from the NVA in the North to the PLAF in the South. The PLAF command sent its officers to our school for training in small groups. Usually we had an average of thirty to forty officers in our school. But we got better and more advanced artillery technology.
During the mid-1960s, we began to receive Soviet artillery pieces and equipment, including Russian-made 120 mm and 155 mm guns. Even though they were not available in the South until 1971, we began to learn how to operate and maintain these new weapons. Of course, we also studied American artillery technology since the PLAF had captured a large number of American artillery equipment and supplies. I was promoted to the rank of major general in 1964.9
During these years, I missed my wife and my children a lot. It had been more than fourteen years. We could send a letter and received mails without mentioning anybody's real name. It took about one to two months for each mail traveling from the South to the North, or the other way around. I believed that we had lost some of our mail. Nevertheless, I had my tears in my eyes every time when I received their mail. At first, I saw a small piece of my daughter's or my son's drawing; then a few words in their handwriting; and soon a short essay. They could not send any photo picture. The only photos I had were taken fourteen years ago when they were very little. I always wondered if they could remember me and accept me as their father who was never there during most of their lives. I really wanted to end this war by defeating the enemies so I could have my family back and have my own life back.
Lt. Gen. Huynh Thu Truong in Saigon in 1975.
In the late 1960s, the war situation was getting better and better for the PLAF. Our artillery troops began to show their firepower when the PLAF started its offensive campaigns against the enemy strongholds and military bases. The main artillery operations in the South occurred in 1968, 1972, 1973, and 1974–1975, the later part of the war.
Because of the nature of the guerrilla warfare and lack of road control and transport vehicles, the Viet Cong did not employ large artillery pieces until much later. Among their favorite guns were small artillery pieces, like 60 mm mortars and single rocket launchers. We trained them how to repair these weapons and how to manufacture the shells. Our training helped the PLAF troops win the battles against the ARVN and U.S. forces. I was promoted to lieutenant general in 1974. Eventually, we won the war in 1975.
Lt. Gen. Huynh Thu Truong (PLAF, ret.) in My Thanh in 2006.
By 1975, I haven't seen my family for fourteen years. My wife still lived in Hanoi, and she'd survived the American air raids and bombings. My daughter, then twenty-three years old, studied in a medical school in China on the North Vietnamese government scholarship. My son, seventeen now, was sent away from Hanoi to one of the government grade schools in the rear areas along the Vietnamese-Chinese border. The North Vietnamese government tried to ensure the safety of the children of all the high-ranking DRV officials and NVA generals, who were fighting the war on the front lines. We, as generals and parents, really appreciated that.
In 1975, I retired from the army. I found a position as the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) at Ty Xay Dung (a construction corporation), one of the major companies in An Giang Province. My wife moved from Hanoi to An Giang to join me. Our daughter continued her study in a medical school in Hanoi. In 1982, I retired from the company. My daughter as a physician also moved to An Giang to practice her medicine in order to take care of us. My son, married with three children, became a chief engineer in a petroleum-chemical company, and lives in Ho Chi Minh City with his own family. I enjoy our family life and my retirement.