General Võ Nguyên Giáp:
A South Vietnamese's Viewpoint.

Phan Vũ

I'm a humble and liberty-loving South Vietnamese. Neither am I a general nor a professor of history at any university; but I am a critical thinking person, living from the start to the end of the Vietnam War. I was experiencing the war atrocities and a hard life with years in re-education jail under the Vietnamese Communists' rule (Vietnamese Communist = Vietcong). What do the South Vietnamese think of Võ Nguyên Giáp's death.

About Gen. Võ's death, foreigners praised him:

• Margie Mason and Chris Brummit (AP): "Gen. Giáp was a brilliant and ruthless self-taught general...forced the Americans to abandon their grueling effort to save the country (the South Vietnam government) from Communism..."
• The New York Times compared Võ Nguyên Giáp to Rommel (German), MacArthur (USA)
• Joanna Mills wrote, "Võ Nguyên Giáp was Mandella of the Vietnamese people."
• Bloomberg said, "He was the friend of all nations."
• Jean Claude Pomonti wrote on Le Monde, "He was one of the great Commanders in Chief of the 20th Century [translation from BBC Vietnamese."

There are many more journalists, historians, anti-Vietnam War activists, even Senators would express the same ideas. They were really protégés of Phạm Xuân Ẩn, a Vietcong two-star-spy general, aka anchor of the Catinat Radio [Givral Café] in Tự Do Street, Saigon Downtown. They are VC-boot-licking reporters (Neil Sheehan's compound adjective, page 207), born in freedom, living in democracy, daily saying, "I pledged allegiance to ... Liberty and Justice for all," and writing distorted, falsified stories about the battle outcomes of the Vietnam Wars.

Here are some moderate, reasonable comments with negative, doubtful words:
Lê Quỳnh from BBC Vietnamese wrote (without authors' quotations):

• Edvin Moise, history professor at Clemson University, USA: Gen. Võ, a Communist...built the Viet Minh army to defeat French colonialists... 

But in order to win Điện Biên Phủ Battle, he was willing to mercilessly sacrifice a large number of his men...

• Shawn McHale, history professor at George Washington, USA: Gen. Võ was an outstanding general...

                But he did not win the 1968 Têt Offensive...

• Christopher Goscha, International Relations professor at Quebec University (QUAM), Canada: Gen. Võ was remembered as a military leader in the Vietnam War against French (1945-1954). But he and his Communist Party devastated the Vietnamese people...
• Fredrik Logevall, professor at Cornell, USA: Gen. Võ was a self-taught general. He made mistakes on battlefields...
• Nguyễn Liên Hằng, history professor at Kentucky University, USA: With Gen. Võ Nguyên Giáp's death a chapter of tragedies closed...

These professors are skeptic, doubtful: their comments are followed by "...mercilessly sacrifice a tremendous number of soldiers..., ...did not win the 1968 Têt Offensive..., ...devastated the Vietnamese people..., ...made mistakes on battlefields..., ...a chapter of tragedies closed...."  Why? Because no one has known the really true documents, stories and history books written in the Vietnamese Communist regime so far.

Here were Gen. Võ Nguyên Giáp's performances, based on battlefields' outcomes because he was a military commander.  Based on facts, my writing starts from the end of the war specially on the Vietcong Offensives he was commanding: 

The 1972 Easter Offensive:

• Gen. Giáp launched the Nguyễn Huệ Offensive in successive stages. On May 1, 1972, his divisions crossed Bến Hải River and conquered Quảng Trị Citadel. But on September 16, the South Vietnamese soldiers kicked Gen. Giáp's men out of Quảng Tri. No bộ đội survived.
• Three VC Divisions (2nd Div. 'yellow star', 320 Div. and 10 Div., Artillery Regiment with 101mm, 102mm rockets, 102mm cannons and 130mm cannons) attacked Kontum City from May 14, 1972 to July 1972. The 23rd Div. of ARVN wiped out the VC 2nd Div. and decimated the VC 320 Div and VC 10 Div.
• On May 11, 1972, Vietcong units attacked An Lộc; but they were wiped out and An Lộc stood still.

The Nguyễn Huệ Offensive was a catastrophic failure for General Võ Nguyên Giáp. He was fired from Minister of Defense. He was appointed as director of the condom factory in Hanoi. That was the end of his career.

     The 1968 Têt Offensive (General Offensive-General Uprising = Tổng công kích-Tổng khởi nghĩa)

• Tết Holidays or Lunar New Year are always sacred for the South Vietnamese people. So they resented Vietcong's attack. All guerrilla units were terminated when they infiltrated the cities. There had been the Hué Massacre about 3,000 + residents buried alive before VC fled from the City.
• The Khe Sanh Battle last from Feb. 29 to March 11, 1968. North Vietcong withdrew after their 304th Regiment had been decimated. The total casualties of Vietcong was about 58,000 KIA, almost 70 per cent of their forces. The expected uprisings never happened and the general offensive was eliminated.

General Võ Nguyên Giáp suffered a total defeat.

                The Ấp Bắc Battle: (Jan. 2, 1963)
The terrain was composed of Tân Thới Hamlet and Ấp Bắc (northern hamlet), bordered by Bà Bèo Canal in the North, Tổng Đốc Lộc Canal in the East, National Freeway 4 in the South and an immense, soft muddy bog in the West. The VC 261 Battalion protected Ấp Bắc, the VC 514 Battalion defended Tân Thới Hamlet. Their forces about 500 guerrillas had two (2) .30mm caliber machine guns. They dug foxholes along banana tree lines and dikes.
The South Vietnamese forces had two (2) Civil Guard battalions and one M-113 Company commanded by Captain Lý Tòng Bá. There were 12 M-113s equipped, each one with a .50mm caliber machine gun and escorted by 10 infantrymen.
At 14:30 p.m. (Jan. 2, 1963) the M-113 Company arrived at Ấp Bắc. The Company suffered 8 gunners killed right away. Captain Bá ordered the replacements. Besides the battle had four (4) H-21 helicopters downed. When one M-113 was climbing up the dike, others followed it. The behemoths ran over VC foxholes, burying them alive. Because VC could not run faster than the carriers, the two VC battalions were decimated. Captain Lý Tồng Bá conquered Ấp Bắc and Tân Thới Hamlet at 16:30 p.m. (25 years on the Battlefields by General Lý Tòng Bá)
General Võ Nguyên Giáp was a loser in this battle.

Điện Biên Phủ Battle:
Điên Biên Phủ Battle started on March 13, 1954 and ended on May 8, 1954 with Gen. Giáp's victory.
A "lend-lease agreement" with the Chinese provided Gen. Giáp with artillery, mortars, and modern rifles. He had two Chinese Generals Tran Canh and Vi Quoc Thanh and 30,000  Chinese soldiers, comprising technicians, instructors and infantrymen. Besides, he had got aids from the USSR and Eastern Bloc Countries. For the battle Giáp commanded an army of 50,000 soldiers, another support  forces of 50,000 men, and 200,000 workers. Chinese general advisors helped Giáp plan and perform tactics.
French Colonel Christian De Castries had a scanty number of 12,000 troops. The ratio was 330,000 by 12,000: that meant: 27 Việt Minh fought 1 French soldier.
After many days on end of raining cannon shells and mortars, Giáp launched a mass attack that forced De Castries to surrender.

Điện Biên Phủ Battle was really a great victory; however Gen. Võ Nguyên Giáp claimed the whole triumphal glory. The Chinese generals did not need it; what they wanted must be something real: land  and islands, based on the "lend-lease agreement" between Ho Chi Minh and Mao Tse Tung in 1950.

Today in 2013, Chinese got what they had wanted: high mountain summits in the North border of Vietnam and islands. Foreign historians and University history professors, even the Vietnamese people have never known these secrets so far. They saw only a beautifully pictured gâteau.

In brief, General Võ Nguyên Giáp's fame rose up worldwide after Điện Biên Phủ Battle's victory with his mass attack tactics. But the B-52 raining bombs destroyed his old magic tactics and bitterly ended Gen. Giáp's career after the 1972 Easter Offensive disaster.

The South Vietnamese knew it and they did not pay attention to that merciless General's death: He had burned more than two (2) million Vietnamese KIA without remorse for the unnecessary Vietnam wars.