Wherever I stopped on my way to the South, I was asked about Uncle Ho’s health and activities and when he would visit those regions. Local officials were worried about the disruptive activities by the Chiang troops and their agents in Hanoi and about possible dangers for Uncle Ho and the Central Government. In mass meetings, young men asked why they had not been called up, and soldiers why their units had not been ordered to go south.
The seething atmosphere of the resistance made itself felt ever more strongly as we went further south.
The people’s morale was very high in the two provinces of Quang Nam and Quang Ngai. Everyone expressed his determination to fight the French and asked to be sent to the front. Girls wore their hair short. No activities by the enemy and the reactionaries could be concealed from the people’s vigilant eyes.
In Quang Nam, 37 out of every hundred National Defence guardsmen had been sent to the southern front. In Quang Nam, the percentage was the highest: 85 out of every hundred fighters had been sent to various fronts.
After meeting the provincial leaders in Quang Ngai, I attended a very exciting mass rally in the stadium. That night, I wrote in my diary: “That is the immortal Vietnamese spirit of independence. With such a morale, Viet Nam will certainly be fully independent and united.”
Quang Nam and Quang Ngai were greatly elated to hear the new directives by Uncle Ho and the central committee. Together with active preparations for a protracted resistance war in case the enemy came the leaders of the two provinces proposed to send more fighters to the front.
Every small village and hamlet along the highway seemed to be on its mettle, alive with the activities of the people’s militia. These could be seen everywhere: wearing brown peasant clothes, in their hands a rifle, a scimitar, or a mere pointed bamboo stake, yet with extraordinarily high morale.
On the 23rd, I left Quang Ngai in company with comrade Duc. As we came near Binh Dinh, we caught sight of a militiaman with a gun by the roadside. Probably a checkpoint. The car was driving fast. As he had travelled a lot on this road, Comrade Duc told the driver to go on. Suddenly we heard a gun shot and the whizz of a bullet. We had the car stopped, realizing that we couldn’t hurry on.
As we stepped out of the car, two militiamen ran up, asked why we hadn’t stopped for the control and demanded to see our papers. We apologized. Duc produced a paper identifying him as Chairman of the Administrative Committee of Trung Bo (Central Viet Nam). A militiaman looked at the paper for a while, then asked, anger still in his voice, “Where is that ‘Trung Bo’ village?”
We had to explain. The expression on his face relaxed gradually and at last he let us go. We left with a feeling of joy and admiration. The revolution would need more time to raise the cultural level of the citizens who had just freed themselves from slavery. But it certainly had done a lot to raise the morale and mettle of those new masters of the country.
There was a strong movement to join the army in Binh Dinh. In Qui Nhon city there was even a navy unit of nearly one hundred men. Many young girls also volunteered to serve in the armed forces. There were two munitions factories in which 150 workers worked continuously making and repairing weapons.
I went to Ninh Hoa with Comrade Pham Kiet. There one already felt the atmosphere of the front. The French had just sent a 15,000-strong force, including an armoured column to attack Di Rinh and Da Lat from both Saigon and Buon Me Thuot.
I arrived at the headquarters of the 6th Zone Military Committee just as the Zone commander was ordering reinforcements to be sent to the Madorac front. The enemy had been attacking all day. Their armoured vehicles were trying to break through Madorac to Ninh Hoa. Units fighting at the front communicated with us by telephone. Comrades Nam Long and Huu Thanh were fighting at Madorac. Hearing that I had come, Nam Long phoned to me. But hardly had we begun the conversation when the line was cut.
Two days later, we arrived in Khanh Hoa in the afternoon. The French were attacking in the Nha Trang region. Their planes circled over Khanh Hoa, bombing and strafing the city. Our anti-aircraft guns hit back. Front commanders came to report on the situation, discussed operation plans then hurried back to their posts. Next door, a detachment of National Defence guards were singing. Children were playing in the yard. Only when enemy planes came roaring over their heads did they jump into shallow, newly-dug individual shelters. Camouflaged trucks were carrying troops to the front. Fighters sitting in the trucks were shouting slogans: “We’re determined to fight!” From the direction of Nha Trang, enemy guns were booming, and we could hear the reports of our mortars hitting back. In Khanh Hoa, we received more information about the pressing situation at the Nam Bo front.
It was clear the enemy was trying to relieve Nha Trang, to attack and occupy a number of provinces along the coast of southern Trung Bo and cut our supply lines from the north.
Here, we could see why Nam Bo and southern Trung Bo were standing firm after four months of war. We paid with our blood for the lesson of experience we had drawn and were still drawing on how to fight the enemy. But what was obvious was the determination of every citizen to “Die in Freedom rather than Live in Slavery”. Southern Trung Bo was facing hard times. But with such a spirit, it would certainly stand firm and achieve victory together with Nam Bo.
I had only reached Khanh Hoa when I received a cable from Uncle Ho calling me back. We returned to Song Cau and Qui Nhon, then went to inspect the Tay Nguyen front.
At An Khe, a vast stretch of highlands came within sight. There in olden times Nguyen Hue had raised his banner of insurrection.
After crossing the Mang Giang pass, we came to Pleiku, where most of the population was of the Giarai ethnic group. Most of the Viet lived in the provincial capital. Our troops stationed in camps outside the town were ready to fight. We stopped in Pleiku and had a chat with the people and fighters. The soldiers were excited to hear about the feats achieved by their comrades at the front and eager to join battle.
We went to Kontum in the afternoon. One year before this remote mountainous area had been the place where the French detained captured revolutionaries. The Kontum population includes Ede, Giarai, Xedang, groups... The troops were stationed partly in the town and partly outside it. People from various nationalities came to meet the Government representatives at the former French governor’s residence, built near a stream. Among them was a Catholic priest. Everyone spoke about Bok (Uncle) Ho and inquired after him. Uncle Ho’s image had been familiar to the simple folk of Tay Nguyen at an early date and was to become ever more deeply engraved in their hearts.
There I again met Comrade Duc Thanh, a courageous young man from the Pac Bo mountain area, who had been educated by Uncle Ho personally. He had arrived in Tay Nguyen together with the southward-going troops. We learned sometime later of his death in battle to defend the mountains and jungle of Tay Nguyen side by side with the Tay Nguyen peqple.
We spent the night in Kontum; the next morning we returned to the coast along the An Khe highway.
On the eve of Tet, the Lunar New Year, our car arrived at the foot of the Hai Van Pass. Through the windscreen, we could see the sea lost in the mist. A glimmering light appeared in the distance, in the vastness of the sky and sea. It might come from a returning fishing boat or a thatch hut on Tien Cha Island.
As the car began the climb, it started to rain. On one side was a precipice; on the other were steep mountain cliffs. The wind was blowing hard through the thickets. The pass was well known for its impregnable position: “One man defending the pass could stop ten thousand men”. In the last century, Nguyen Xuan On and Nguyen Thong, patriots who had unsuccessfully fought the French, wrote a poem when passing here.
A Chiang soldier appeared on the roadside. He stopped the car for control but let us go after checking our papers. In these Central provinces, the Chiang men and officers were reasonable in their attitude.
The mist was thick. The rain grew heavier and heavier. The car headlights could not reach further than five or six metres.
How many changes had occurred during the past few months! A foreigner who knew about our activities before the General Insurrection, said, “Your life is full of wonderful events. A week ago, you were hiding in the jungle. Now you are active in the capital itself. If I were a writer, I would write your story”. The wheel of history was turning very fast. For the revolutionary, every day and every hour now seemed to be too short. Time was hurrying on. On this rainy night, spring surprised us as we were crossing the pass.
I wondered what Uncle Ho and my comrades in Hanoi were doing. The first Tet in independence in the capital must be very cheerful. Some ten days earlier, I had listened to Uncle Ho’s letter calling on the people and the mass organizations to bring the joy of Tet to the soldiers at the front and their faimilies at home. This evening, when passing Da Nang, I had been able to read his New Year’s greetings. He expressed warm feelings towards the fighters who “were setting off guns to defend the Fatherland while their countrymen were setting off fire-crackers to greet the New Year”. His letter contained a few verses:
When the Resistance war is successful
We shall drink red wine together.
This Tet, we are temporarily separated
Next Tet, let’s hope we shall be reunited again.
Reading this New Year letter addressed to the whole nation, each of us felt as if Uncle Ho was addressing him personally.
We arrived in Hue the next day. We attended the grand New Year rally at Thuong Bac landing-place. A vast sea of people, banners and streamers. The spring afternoon was warm and sunny. The whole city of Hue was present. The people cheered up when they heard about the situation at the front and the determination of President Ho and the Government to step up the resistance and actively prepare for a protracted war in case the enemy expanded it. Shouts of “Long live independent Viet Nam”, “Long live President Ho”, “Prepare for a protracted resistace war!” “Support the resistance in the South!” thundered as the rally ended. For the first time in Hue’s history, our countrymen greeted the new year with shouts expressing their determination to fight.