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.
The Standing Board of the provincial Party Committee has issued a conclusion reviewing the three years implementing its resolution on preserving and promoting cultural values in Hoa Binh province for 2021 – 2025 with a vision towards 2030.
alternate member of the Party Central Committee and Secretary of the Hoa Binh Party Committee Nguyen Phi Long on October 29 chaired the October meeting of the provincial Party Committee’s Standing Board, which focused on important issues related to the locality’s socio-economic development.
Mai Van Chinh, member of the Party Central Committee and Chairman of its Commission for Mass Mobilisation, has visited and presented gifts to revolution contributors in Hoa Binh city. joining him were Nguyen Phi Long, alternate member of the Party Central Committee and Secretary of the Hoa Binh provincial Party Committee; Bui Duc Hinh, Standing Deputy Secretary of the provincial Party Committee and Chairman of the provincial People’s Council; and Bui Van Khanh, Deputy Secretary of the provincial Party Committee and Chairman of the provincial People’s Committee; along with other provincial officials.
Deputy Secretary of the provincial Party Committee and Chairman of the provincial People’s Committee Bui Van Khanh expressed his hope for more support from the European Union (EU) and the French Development Agency (AFD) for the local development, while hosting a delegation from the two organisations led by Vice President of the European Commission Margaritis Shinas on October 23.
During her working visit to Hoa Binh province on October 18, Vice President Vo Thi Anh Xuan toured a site where late President Ho Chi Minh once stayed when he visited the Kim Boi district’s Party Committee. She was accompanied by officials from various ministries, agencies, and central organisations.
A ceremony was held in Kim Boi district on October 18 in the presence of Vo Thi Anh Xuan, member of the Party Central Committee and Vice State President, to mark 60 years since President Ho Chi Minh visited and met with the Party Committee of Kim Boi district (September 19, 1964 - 2024) and the 65th founding anniversary of the district (April 17, 1959 - 2024), and to receive the third-class Labour Order.
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