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.
A high-ranking delegation of Hoa Binh province on July 14 offered incense in commemoration of martyrs at the Truong Son National Martyrs’ Cemetery and the Road 9 National Martyrs’ Cemetery in Quang Tri province on the occasion of the 77th War Invalids and Martyrs’ Day (July 27, 1947-2024).
The Party committee of Phu Cuong commune, Tan Lac district is directing sectors and mass organisations to perform key plans and tasks, bringing resolutions of the communal Party Congress for the 2020-2025 tenure and the communal Party Committee into life.
Thai Ambassador to Vietnam Urawadee Sriphiromya on July 15 led a delegation to pay a working visit to Hoa Binh province. The delegation was welcomed by Bui Van Khanh, Deputy Secretary of the Hoa Binh Party Committee and Chairman of the provincial People’s Committee, as well as leaders of provincial departments, sectors and Da Bac district.
Receiving the Party admission decision from the Secretary of the Mai Chau district Party Committee, new Party member Mua Thi Vang, of Pa Co commune, felt so proud and emotional. The district Party Committee held a solemn ceremony to hand over the decisions to Vang and 61 other new Party members on the occasion of the 134th birthday of President Ho Chi Minh (May 19, 1890-2024). The ceremony saw the participation of leaders of local Party organisations, representatives from political, social organisations, outstanding youth, and armed forces.
The People's Committee of Hoa Binh province recently organised the Determined to Win Emulation Congress of the provincial armed forces in the 2019 – 2024 period.
On July 5th, the Standing Committee of the Provincial Party Committee organized a conference to ask for the opinions from the former provincial leaders to contribute to the 1/10,000 scale urban master planning project of Hoa Binh City by 2045. Mr. Nguyen Phi Long, the alternate member of the Party Central Committee, and the Secretary of the Provincial Party Committee chaired the conference.
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