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Author Topic: Interview with creator of Ho Chi Minh Trail
blake 3:17
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posted 25 August 2006 03:42 PM      Profile for blake 3:17     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
'We were waiting for them'

Vo Nguyen Giap is the Vietnamese general who planned the Ho Chi Minh trail and defeated the French at Dien Bien Phu. In a rare interview with the author of a book about the trail, he recalls his part in defying the might of the US military

Virginia Morris
Friday August 25, 2006
Guardian Unlimited


Vo Nguyen Giap is one of the most influential generals of modern times. Photograph: Clive Hills


The teacher turned military genius Vo Nguyen Giap, who celebrated his 95th birthday today, is one of the last connections with the days of Ho Chi Minh and the start of the fight against colonial rule.
Remarkably, his army originally consisted of 34 people. By the time of the ultimate battle against the French at Dien Bien Phu in May 1954, it was a conventional force of thousands with weapons supplied by China and the USSR. His army would eventually rise to be over a million-strong against the Americans.


General Giap still lives in the former French colonial villa in the capital, Hanoi, that has been his home for the past 60 years and where key decisions were made throughout the war. In the light and airy living room hangs just one photograph of Ho Chi Minh and Gen Giap in the early days of their guerrilla campaign against the French.
I was granted an audience with Gen Giap recently to show him our book, A History of the Ho Chi Minh Trail: The Road to Freedom, with an introduction that included his thoughts from a previous meeting.

He was in good health, sitting upright in military uniform, his voice and mind still sharp. His wife, Professor Dang Bich Ha, who is much younger, joined us for tea. They have been married since 1946. She is his second wife: his first died after being tortured by the French.

Gen Giap planned the Ho Chi Minh trail to run through Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia with a total road length of 12,500 miles. It became a lifeline that provided his army with everything needed to live and fight effectively against the US. In a vain attempt to destroy the trail, the US dropped more than 1.6m tonnes of munitions on lower Laos alone during its 16-year period of operations, starting in 1959.

Anticipating a fight against the Americans as early as 1959, Gen Giap had realised the importance of a secure supply line.

Full story.


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