Legendary road on the land of fire Quang Binh
(Baonghean) -Quang Binh is the “next rear”, the origin of the two branches of the East and West Truong Son. The roads, the key points... on the land of Quang Binh will forever be the epic in the immortal epic of the Ho Chi Minh Trail...
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During 16 years (1959-1975), the road was built with the ingenuity, creativity, determination to fight and win, and acceptance of sacrifice, all for the beloved South and the noble international duty of tens of thousands of soldiers and youth volunteers, including the blood and bones of more than 20,000 heroic martyrs, nearly 30,000 wounded soldiers and Agent Orange victims.
The soldiers, Youth Volunteers and ethnic people along the Truong Son Trail overcame countless difficulties and hardships, defying the most modern weapons of destruction and the most sophisticated and vicious tricks to attack, destroy and stop the enemy.
Quang Binh is both the front line of the rear and the great front line. The entire length and width of the land of fire is the focal point of the horizontal axes connecting the East - West Truong Son (Roads 12, 20, 10, 16 and 18). Quang Binh is also the focal point of the vertical axis of the Ho Chi Minh Trail East Truong Son. Forming a dense network of roads with tens of thousands of kilometers of roads, waterways, airways to oil pipelines, communication lines...
Along with the transportation network, the system of bases, command posts, warehouses, and stations of the Truong Son Command to reserve materials and gather troops to support the South were also mainly concentrated in Quang Binh. Here, the rear base of the Truong Son Army was formed, such as: command posts, warehouses, guest stations, infirmaries, production camps... Quang Binh welcomed and safely protected Party and Government leaders, high-ranking generals, such as comrades Le Duan, Truong Chinh, Pham Van Dong, Vo Nguyen Giap... and Prince Nodom-Xianuk (Cambodia) to visit and work with units and localities on the Ho Chi Minh Trail, during the fierce times of the resistance war against the US to save the country. Also on Quang Binh land, millions of tons of weapons, military equipment, food, 5.5 million cubic meters of gasoline and oil, along with two million cadres and soldiers... were received by Truong Son military stations to join the Ho Chi Minh trail system and spread out to the battlefields to fight the Americans.
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That is why the US imperialists focused on fierce attacks, considering Quang Binh a place that needed to be destroyed, dropping millions of tons of bombs and bullets.... Day and night, the sound of bombs and bullets never stopped. The earth and rocks were plowed up and re-plowed many times, bomb craters piled on top of bomb craters. During the day, they blocked the entrances and exits on the roads. At night, they dropped flares, threw cluster bombs, and fired rockets, aiming to destroy our road rescue forces. By all means, they wanted to turn this place into a desert, a dead zone, in order to prevent support for the southern battlefield.
However, in the longest, most costly and human-consuming war in the 200-year history of the United States, with bombs, bullets and the most modern weapons, it could not subdue the will to unify the Fatherland of the entire nation and the steadfast heart of the people of Quang Binh. Like the provinces through which the Truong Son road passed, with the spirit of "For the South", with the oath "The heart can stop beating, the traffic veins will never stop flowing", tens of thousands of people were ready to go out on the streets to carry out the task of clearing traffic, supplying food, provisions, ammunition, caring for the wounded, burying the dead, building battlefields... to serve the fighting forces. The patriotism of the people of Quang Binh was also highly promoted with the spirit of "The car has not passed, the house is not regretted"... many families gave up their houses and gardens to make warehouses, were ready to demolish their houses to pave the road for the car to pass... During those fierce years, on this poor land full of sun, wind and sand, each village was a fighting fortification, each commune was a transit station, each house was a warehouse...
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The road has become a symbol of the nation's indomitable will and spirit, according to General Vo Nguyen Giap: "The Ho Chi Minh Trail is a great project, expressing the will, determination, courage and extraordinary creativity of the Vietnamese people, determined to use the human and physical strength of the great rear to serve the great front; it is one of the strategic factors of decisive significance in bringing the resistance war against the US to save the country to complete victory."
The Ho Chi Minh Trail can be compared to the Hannibal Trail through the Alps. |
Bai, photo: Thanh Chau
