Lieutenant Colonel Nguyen Tai Ba, chairman of the Truong Son-Ho Chi Minh Trail traditional association in Hoa Binh province, and his comrades have recalled the days of building and protecting the arterial supply route for the southern battlefield as the Traditional Day of Truong Son Army Corps (May 19, 1959) is approaching.
Lieutenant Colonel
Nguyen Tai Ba, chairman of the Truong Son-Ho Chi Minh Trail traditional
association in Hoa Binh province.
Ba volunteered to join the army in 1962 when he
was only 18 years old. After three months of training in the northern province
of Bac Ninh, he and others marched southward.
He said to meet the requirements of the
resistance war against the US, the Politburo, the Party Central Committee and
President Ho Chi Minh on May 19, 1959 decided to open the strategic Truong Son
– Ho Chi Minh Trail.
Corps 559, whose name stood for May 1959 when
the trail was blazed, grew from 500 hand-piked men to a division-level unit on
October 23, 1961. It was tasked with opening the track in the Truong Son
jungle.
Recounting the hard-but-glorious decade-long
task, Ba said Vietnamese soldiers shot down enemy aircraft and used collected
bombs to pay the way through mountains to the South.
Truong Son soldiers and youth volunteers stayed
optimistic and ready to sacrifice their lives to protecting the Ho Chi Minh
Trail, which Ba said, was not only the large-scale supply route but also a big
battlefield spanning 11 Vietnamese provinces, seven southern Lao localities and
four northeastern Cambodia provinces, with a total length of nearly 17,000km.
The US launched more than 150,000 air strikes, with
tens of thousands of B52 sorties, and more than 4 million tonnes of bombs, more
than half of the bomb tonnage they pounded away across Vietnam, along with 120
raids and 1,235 commando operations. The bodies of more than 20,000 Truong Son
officers and soldiers have still remained on the battlefield, and 30,000 others
were injured.
The Ho Chi Minh Trail was considered an
indelible eight trigram formation in the jungle.
In mid-May, the provincial Museum organised an exhibition named "Duoi la co Dang Cong san Viet Nam quang vinh” (Under the flag of the glorious Communist Party of Vietnam). This meaningful activity took place in the joyful atmosphere to celebrate the country's major holidays and the Party congresses at all levels for the 2025-2030 term, towards the 14th National Party Congress.
A delegation from Hoa Binh province led by Colonel Trinh Duc Thiem, Commander of the provincial Military Command, completed a mission to visit and encourage officers and soldiers stationed on Truong Sa and a DK1 platform from May 20 to 26 as part of activities of the Vietnam People’s Navy. The delegation included 12 senior officials from various provincial agencies and units.
Storytelling and painting contests honouring President Ho Chi Minh have been held at the Hoa Binh provincial Youth Activity Centre.
The Hoa Binh provincial People's Committee held a gathering at the provincial Military Command headquarters on May 20 to commend the armed forces that took part in a military parade celebrating the 50th anniversary of the Liberation of the South and National Reunification on April 30.
Throughout his revolutionary life, Uncle Ho visited Hoa Binh province four times. He also sent dozens of letters, telegrams, greeting cards, and heartfelt messages to local officials, Party members, and people of all ethnic groups, urging them to remain united, support one another, strive for progress, and actively engage in both production and resistance efforts to build a prosperous homeland.
To unlock the full potential of its forest resources, the standing board of the provincial Party Committee on July 30, 2020 issued a Resolution on the sustainable development of production forests through 2025, with a vision toward 2030.
