The Twenty-five Year Century: A South Vietnamese General Remembers the Indochina War to the Fall of Saigon

7th Infantry Division

119 7 7th infantry division BY THE TIME I FINALLY went home in June 1964, General Khanh seemed firmly in control. He also had the support of the Americans . Khanh kept the popular Gen. Duong Van Minh as a figurehead chief of state, but had him under close surveillance. Gen. Hoang Xuan Lam, who commanded the 23rd Infantry Division at the time, once told me that when Gen. Duong Van Minh spent a weekend in Ban Me Thuot, in the Hauts Plateaux, Khanh called in the middle of the night and instructed Lam to watch and to report all Minh’s activities . The week following my return from the United States, I was assigned to the 7th Infantry Division at My Tho, thirty kilometers south of Saigon. I was excited to be able, at long last, to serve in the Mekong Delta where I was born and raised. The Mekong Delta was rich and fertile, the climate was mild and the people so easy-going and so hospitable that my assignment was a sort of “coming home.” It was a blessed opportunity for me to become acquainted again with my own country. The division commander was Colonel Huynh Van Ton, one of my classmates at Dalat. Ton was a member of the Nationalist Dai Viet Party, which opposed the Diem regime. Under President Diem, army officers affiliated with the Dai Viet were viewed with suspicion . As a consequence, Ton was barred from promotion and remained at the rank of major for many years, despite the fact that he had seen action as a battalion commander during the Indochina War. After the successes of the two coups d’etat in 1963 and 1964 in 120UUU THE TWENTY-FIVE YEAR CENTURY which he actively participated, Ton had more than made up for his lost time. He rose from major to full colonel within a few months’ time and was even on his way to becoming a general. Ton was a protégé of General Khanh. Since the 5th and 7th Divisions were located only twenty and thirty miles north and south of Saigon respectively , these divisions had participated in all coups d’état including the coup against President Diem. For this reason, the command of these divisions was given only to trusted friends and political associates of the power structure. During the November 1963 coup d’état, Col. Nguyen Huu Co (who later rose to general and became a minister of defense under Gen. Nguyen Cao Ky) neutralized the 7th Infantry Division by taking it over after arresting the division commander, a supporter of Mr. Diem. The plotting generals felt more secure with regard to the 5th Division whose commander, an obscure colonel by the name of Nguyen Van Thieu, had pledged allegiance to the revolution. However , according to the officers who participated in the coup, Colonel Thieu moved cautiously and did not commit himself until he was sure the coup succeeded. This cleverness had served him well as he later outsmarted his contemporaries and became the President of the Second Republic. Ton appeared happy to see me. He asked me to be his assistant for operations. In that capacity, I would plan and supervise military operations within the division’s tactical area. The important post of chief of staff for the division was given to Lt. Col. Pham Van Lieu, who, like Ton, was a member of the Dai Viet.The new province chief of My Tho, Maj. Do Kien Nhieu, was also a member of Dai Viet and a protégé of Ton. A former chief of cabinet of Gen. Duong Van Minh, Nhieu switched sides and became a supporter of Khanh.Two of the regiment commanders in the division were from our class at Dalat and were good friends of Ton. With this impressive cast of characters under him, Ton was ready to play an important role in the political maneuverings in Saigon and his military career appeared to be ready to take off. With regard to territorial organization, the 7th Division had tactical responsibility over the five provinces of Dinh Tuong, Kien Hoa, Go Cong, Long An, and Moc Hoa. Kien Hoa, also known as Ben Tre, 7TH INFANTRY DIVISION 121 had always been a VC stronghold. One of the richest provinces of the Mekong Delta, Kien Hoa consisted of huge plantations of coconut trees, which could hide entire Viet Cong battalions and were an ideal...