The Path Through the Fiery Crossing: Part II: The Battle Strategy to Defeat the Enemy and Open the Way

(Baonghean) - After the two-day Military Region Party Committee meeting in mid-April 1965, attended by Provincial Party Secretary Vo Thuc Dong, the entire province of Nghe An prepared itself mentally and physically to enter a fierce and unequal battle against the strongest enemy at that time...

Traffic management forces at Ben Thuy, Nam Dan, Cam Bridge, Muong Xen, Do Luong, Nghia Dan, Hoang Mai… were transferred to the main engineering companies using canoes, ferries, and military pontoon bridges to cross the rivers. The entire province deployed 340 combat teams to engage low-flying aircraft, with nearly 3,000 militia members participating. They served as a fire support force, protecting the anti-aircraft artillery positions of the 280th and 214th Regiments, the 14th Battalion (341st Division), and the 8th Battalion (325th Division). In the first few days of the campaign to attack Zone 4, with aggressive names like "Flaming 1" and "Flaming Ddrarrt," meaning "Fiery Spear 1" and "Fiery Spear 2," the American enemy paid a heavy price in the skies over President Ho Chi Minh's homeland.

Militia members of Nghi Phuong commune (Nghi Loc district) defused unexploded bombs at the Phuong Tich bridge strategic point (1967). Archival photo.

They were shot down by the anti-aircraft fire of the 3rd Army of Nghe An, with 15 super-fast aircraft of all kinds nicknamed "Thunderbolt," "Ghost," "Crusade," "Heavenly Enemy," and "Intruder." Among the collection of American jets destroyed in May 1965, there was an F8U shot down on the spot by the anti-aircraft artillery of Company 5, Regiment 214, less than 300 meters from Vinh train station. The people of Vinh witnessed the plane, like a giant torch, plunging into the ground and disintegrating along with the enemy pilot who did not have time to parachute to his life.

A historically significant coincidence. The day the 300th plane was shot down by the people and army of Nghe An in Vinh (May 27, 1965) became the founding day of the Nghe An Youth Volunteer Brigade for the Anti-American War. The brigade, codenamed "XKN-300," comprised 8,500 young men and women. They volunteered for the "Three Ready" campaign in 40 semi-armed companies, fighting and supporting combat operations on the transportation front not only in Nghe An, but also providing support to Quang Binh, Quang Tri, and the Route 9 Southern Laos campaign.

I can never forget, after the bombing of Dien Thanh Bridge on October 25, 1965, Uncle Vo Van Gai was killed at the northern bridge abutment, and I was slightly wounded, narrowly escaping death when a bomb fragment grazed my forehead. After the bridge was completed, on the night of October 26, 1965, Construction Team 1-5 (Department of Transport) urgently moved troops to the crucial Cam Bridge area. The order from the Head of the Department of Transport, Nguyen Si Hoa, was to ensure traffic flow from the south of My Ly Station (Dien An) to the north of Cam Bridge, to support the "Quang Trung Transport Campaign," requiring the passage of 700 tons of goods and vehicles each night on National Highway 1A, bypassing the Cam Bridge area.

Winter had arrived, and the weather was bitterly cold. With only makeshift carts, iron rims, and solid rubber tires, we loaded all our personal belongings—boxes, backpacks, shovels, pickaxes, sledgehammers, crowbars, and hand winches—into the carts and pulled them on foot for nearly thirty kilometers to Dien An commune to set up camp. The next day, upon arriving at Cam Bridge to receive our assignment to repair the section of road from the 12/9 Bridge to Rieng Bridge, we could not have imagined the destructive power of the American bombs and bullets that had rained down on the road near Cam Bridge for almost a year.

The section running alongside the railway was riddled with bomb craters, unexploded bombs, and Bunpop missiles. Rising tides caused the Le Canal to overflow, creating localized muddy patches of soil and mud, making it easy for heavily loaded vehicles to fall into the series of bomb craters. The only solution to clear the road was to simultaneously fill the craters and prevent further mudslides in short sections. Team leader Nguyen Hong, originally from Binh Son, Quang Ngai, along with the Party branch secretary and deputy team leader Tran Van Ngoan, rolled up their trousers and went to the scene to discuss how to handle the bomb craters. He looked around, then chuckled as if suddenly enlightened by something. He pulled several groups of workers together, pointed to the dense eucalyptus and bamboo belt along the Le Canal, and then towards the series of waterlogged bomb craters. He calmly said, "Let's use eucalyptus and bamboo to build sturdy bridges over the craters so that traffic can resume overnight. During the day, we'll work with the youth volunteer force to fill each crater." The very next day, the 324th, 302nd, and 317th Youth Volunteer Brigades of Team 67, stationed in Dien Tho, Dien Loc, Dien Phu, Nghi Long, and Nghi Thuan, poured into the construction site to cut down trees, drive stakes, and graft eucalyptus trees. A support unit of Construction Team 1-5 transported tens of thousands of eucalyptus trees, still fresh with sap, using modified carts and carrying them on the strong, rounded shoulders of the young women from Yen Thanh, Quynh Luu, Nam Dan, and Vinh City. For over a week, working tirelessly, with many days of temporary pauses to avoid air raids, the youth volunteer forces of Teams 65, 67, and 1-5 sealed hundreds of bomb craters.

During those days of backaches and blistered hands from wielding hammers to quarry stone and lay gravel for road construction in Len Doi and Than Vu, we felt inspired by the companies. The uncles and elders of Construction Team 1-5, most of whom had left their hometowns in Thua Thien Hue, Quang Tri, Binh Dinh, and Quang Ngai after the Geneva Accords, seemed to become young again. They sang folk songs, pounded rice, sang traditional folk songs, and enthusiastically responded to the playful and mischievous banter of the young female volunteers from Nghe An. Sometimes, working at night, they would join in the Ma River chants with the sailors transporting goods in bamboo boats from Thanh Hoa on the Nha Le canal. They were members of the Dien Bien Transport Cooperative, navigating bamboo boats carrying goods across the fiery Cam Bridge.

As insiders who had endured numerous bombing raids and artillery fire from the Nghi Thiet and Nghi Quang coastal areas, we realized that chanting and singing served as a stress reliever between bombings. No one dared say I wasn't afraid of death, spending each day and hour alone on the open road, with only a few open-top individual shelters, or perhaps a more secure one like the Korean bunkers with eucalyptus and pine wood rafters, covered with a layer of earth to shield against bomb fragments. Yet, if a bomb fell near the shelter, survival was difficult; death was certain. Uncle Duong Van Mon, a worker who had gathered in 1954, was leveling the road when planes swooped down. Before he could jump into the shelter, a bomb fragment struck him. That day (December 26, 1965), they launched eight attacks, dropping 110 lethal bombs. Pham Ba Canh, from Nghi Quang, had just dozed off at noon in his encampment near the Nha Le canal when a rocket ricocheted off his small boat, claiming his life. Less than a month after taking up their post at Cam Bridge, Construction Team 1-5 lost two members to American bombs and bullets, not to mention Uncle Vo Van Gai who had died a month earlier at Moi Bridge, Dien Thanh.

Political Commissar of Youth Volunteer Company 324, Tran Quang Khanh, and female soldier Truong Thi Hieu were killed in the bombing raid on October 25, 1966, which struck their encampment in Dien Phu commune. Youth Volunteer Company 302, stationed in Nghi Thuan commune, was also hit by several bomb attacks; 13 civilians died on the spot, and two Youth Volunteer soldiers were severely wounded and also perished. This doesn't even include the attack on December 26, 1966 (lunar calendar), corresponding to February 5, 1967 (solar calendar), which claimed the lives of 15 soldiers from Team 69 of the Southern Railway Transportation Security Force. All the men and women who died in the February 5, 1967 bombing raid were from Thanh Chuong and Nam Dan districts and shared the same enlistment date: May 1965.

At the Cam Bridge battleground, from September 1965 to September 1968, 41 officers, soldiers, and transport workers sacrificed their lives, with 37 of them belonging to the Youth Volunteer Team 69, C302, and C324. Fortunately, C333, Team 69, remained unharmed for two years at Cam Bridge. On July 21, 1969, before his passing, President Ho Chi Minh sent a letter of praise and presented C333 with an Orionton transistor radio...

Major General Phan Trong Tue, Minister of Transport, had passed through the strategic Cam Bridge many times. Witnessing the extent of the destruction and devastation in this coastal valley, he exclaimed to Mr. Nguyen Sy Hoa, Vice Chairman of the province and Head of the Traffic Safety Committee of Nghe An: "We only cross it for a short while and it's already stressful and makes us sweat. Yet they held their ground day after day, month after month, under bomb and bullets. Truly courageous, truly resilient!"

In the last two months of 1965, proactively breaking the single-line railway system, we coordinated the opening of a 7km road along the foot of Than Vu mountain, connecting to Cau Cam ferry terminal, increasing the number of crossings on the Le Canal. The railway line also had Bridge 100, located not far from Cau Cam bridge. The bridge was constructed using sleepers and rails, with two spans lowered close to the river surface, reducing the target for bombing. The bridge was only designed for locomotives to transport a few freight cars per trip to Quan Hanh station, sometimes to Vinh station. During ceasefires, hundreds of cars, each carrying about 5 tons, were pulled directly to Minh Cam station (Quang Binh).

The joint forces ensuring traffic flow at Cam Bridge kept their promise of honor, even with their blood. During the first phase of the Quang Trung transport campaign (November 1965 - July 1966), they contributed to transporting 36,781 tons of goods across the crucial Cam Bridge.

The slogans "Fight the enemy while advancing, open the way while progressing," and "Live clinging to bridges and roads, die bravely and resolutely" were carved into the cliffs of Than Vu mountain, written on modified carts, and even pasted on the brims of hats and caps. That will, that determination, that sacrifice almost permeated the blood and flesh of nearly 3,000 Youth Volunteer Team members, workers of Construction Team 1-5, Railway Bridge Team 5, Engineering Companies 30 and 37, and the commanding officers of the 37mm and 14.5mm anti-aircraft artillery battalion D16A – Military Region 4, who steadfastly held their positions in the battle to fight the enemy and open the roads!

Van Hien