Here I would like to mention one person: Nguyen You An. Maybe many military fans are still unfamiliar with this name, but he is a legend in the Vietnam People's Army and quite famous in the Western military circles, especially the Americans who suffered more from him during the Vietnam War, especially Ruan Huan An. Much appreciated. In the American Vietnam War film "We Were Soldiers" starring Mel Gibson released in 2002, Lieutenant Colonel Nguyen Huan An, the head of the 33rd regiment of North Vietnam, played by Dan Yang (actually Ruan Huan was the B3 battlefield in southern Vietnam at that time) appeared. Deputy Commander and Chief of Staff of the Front Command of the Battle of Polemé, and not a lieutenant colonel but a colonel). This film has a hot war scene and has a good reputation among military fans. However, because the film has not been well translated, many people do not know that the ambitious and decisive Vietnam Army commander is Nguyen Huan An.
Nguyen Huan An was born in Vietnam in 1926 in Tai Binh Province (today's Jia Yuan County, Ninh Binh Province), from a working-class family. In August 1945, he joined the Vietnam Liberation Army (the predecessor of the Vietnam People's Army). In February 1946, he joined the Communist Party of Indochina (now the Communist Party of Vietnam). During the Anti-French War, he served as a battalion commander in the Vietnam People's Army, and later served as the commander of the 98th Regiment of the 316th Infantry Division. After the war, he was promoted to Deputy Chief of Staff of the Northwest Military Region. In 1958 was awarded the rank of lieutenant colonel. In 1963, he was promoted to colonel and served as the commander of the 325th Infantry Division. At the end of 1964, he led his troops to South Vietnam to support the armed struggle. In November of the following year, he served as the deputy commander and chief of staff of the West Plains Military Region. Nguyen Huan An has been tempered in the Anti-French War and participated in famous battles such as border and Dien Bien Phu. He is a model who grew up step by step from a soldier, became an excellent tactician, and shined in the War of Resistance Against the United States and National Salvation. .
In October 1965, the B3 battlefield of the People's Liberation Armed Forces of South Vietnam (i.e. the Western Plains battlefield) launched the Battle of Polemé, and transferred 3 elite infantry regiments of the Vietnamese People's Army (that is, the 33rd, 66th and 320th infantry regiments). , attempted to remove the Polemé stronghold held by the South Vietnamese army, and at the same time wiped out the South Vietnamese army and the US military who dared to come to aid. A unified frontline command was established for this campaign, with Zhu Huimin, commander and political commissar of the West Plains Military Region, as the commander-in-chief, Ruan Youan as Zhu Huimin's deputy commander and chief of staff, and Deng Wuxie as the director of the Political Bureau of the frontline command. In the film "We Used to be Soldiers", Ruan You An was demoted to lieutenant colonel infantry commander. This information is a bit far away.
At this time, according to the famous "search and destroy" strategy proposed by General Westmoreland, the commander-in-chief of the US military in Vietnam, the US 1st Cavalry Division (the number of the 1st Cavalry Division, which had fought with the Volunteers on the Korean battlefield) was immediately removed after the war. Cancelled. In 1965, the 11th Air Assault Division was added to the original 11th Air Assault Division and the attached infantry and artillery units were added to re-form the 1st Cavalry Division, which became a division-level air assault unit that used a large number of armed helicopters to fight) was ordered to join the battle, relying on fast Air mobility continued to search the area, supporting the South Vietnamese army in combat, preparing to capture the Viet Cong armed forces and eliminate them in one fell swoop. As a result, the 1st Cavalry Division had encounters with the 66th and 33rd regiments of the Vietnamese infantry in the Delang Valley area, which also became the first large-scale helicopter landing operation in the history of world wars. The brutal and fierce battle process at that time has been exaggerated in the film "We Used to be Soldiers", so I won't go into details here. Friends who are interested can Baidu this battle by themselves.
Mel Gibson plays Lieutenant Colonel Harold Moore, commander of the 1st Battalion, 7th Regiment, 7th Regiment, 1st Cavalry Division, who led the first group into the Delang Valley. As a result, Moore's battalion was surrounded and attacked by the Vietnamese army and fell into a hard battle. The situation was very critical for a time. Later, they were rescued by air support. Of the 450 people who participated in the battle, 79 were killed and 121 were wounded. Moore claimed to have killed 1,215 Vietnamese troops, of which 834 were killed. Interestingly, Moore quickly reduced the number of Vietnamese killed to 634, leaving the total number of casualties unchanged. Vietnamese military historical materials resolutely slapped Americans in the face. History of the 66th Infantry Regiment (later known as the "Poléme Regiment") says only 55 men were killed and 100 wounded. If we only look at the casualties calculated by the two sides, the 1st Cavalry Division is still fighting like this when it has a huge firepower advantage in air support, and its combat effectiveness is obviously not convincing. As for the number of Vietnamese soldiers killed by Moore after the war, as well as the scene of the Vietnamese soldiers being killed everywhere in the film, they can only make American audiences hungry.
Moore's battalion was only the first battle in the Delang Valley. After the battalion was withdrawn from the battlefield, the 2nd Battalion of the 7th Regiment and the 1st Battalion of the 5th Regiment of the 1st Cavalry Division took over its tasks. However, Nguyen Huan An and others seized the enemy's newly arrived fighter plane and quickly launched the reserve team of the 66th Regiment and a part of the 33rd Regiment into the attack. After 16 hours of hard fighting, the 2nd Cavalry Battalion suffered heavy casualties, with a total of 155 killed and 124 wounded. According to the historical data of the Vietnamese army, 153 people were killed and 46 wounded in the battle. At this point, the battle of Delang Valley has truly come to an end. Throughout the battle, the US military lost 234 people and wounded 245 people, for a total loss of 479 people. At the same time, it claimed to have killed 1,037 Vietnamese troops and wounded more than 1,000. According to the records of General Deng Wuxie, the Vietnamese army participated in the war with 208 killed and 146 wounded, with a total loss of 354, far less than the number claimed by the US military.
The battle in the De Lang Valley made the Americans firmly remember Nguyen Huan An, the main commander of the front line in the Vietnamese army. Although the Vietnamese army did not achieve the attempt to capture Polemé and annihilate a large number of them to aid the Vietnamese army in the United States, but in the case of the disparity in firepower between the enemy and the enemy, they fought heroically and stubbornly, and severely damaged the elite air assault of the US military. troops, making General Westmoreland's "search and destroy" strategy a flashy prototype from the outset. Due to the special factors of the Cold War, the essence of the Vietnam War is a long-distance limited war of exhaustion, endurance, and will to fight. As long as the Vietnamese army can effectively preserve itself and keep attacking the enemy, the end of the war seems to be far away, then first of all The only thing that can't hold on is the United States, which doesn't dare to die. The De Lang Valley was not a large-scale battle, but its significance became more apparent in the future, and the name of Nguyen Huan An was also popular in the Western military circles.
After the Battle of Drang Valley, for the convenience of command, the Supreme Command of the People's Liberation Armed Forces of South Vietnam instructed to set up the 1st Infantry Division, with Nguyen Huan as the division commander, under the jurisdiction of the 33rd, 66th, and 320th infantry regiments that participated in the Battle of Polemé. For the region's main division. In the Battle of Duc Do 1 in November 1967, Nguyen Huo An commanded the 1st Infantry Division to severely damage the 173rd Airborne Brigade of the US Army, and achieved the biggest battle victory against the US Army in the Western Plains battlefield. In 1968, Nguyen Huu An left the Saiyuan Military Region and was transferred to the Vietnam Volunteer Army Command in Laos. At the beginning of 1970, he assisted the commander Wu Li in commanding the No. 139 campaign, defeating the Royal Lao Army and securing control of the Char Plain. Soon, Nguyen Huan became the commander of the 308th Infantry Division.
In the 1971 Nanliao-No. 9 counter-offensive campaign (called "Operation Lanshan 719" by the South Vietnamese), Ruan Huo An commanded the 308th Infantry Division to attack bravely, and successively annihilated the 21st Special Battalion and the "Black Tiger" of the South Vietnamese Army. Most of the 39th Special Battalion of the South Vietnamese National Army, known as the "Battle", took the lead in the Route 16 area, isolated the South Vietnamese defenders in Ban Dong, and laid the foundation for the smooth development of the campaign. In 1972, Ruan Huo An commanded the main forces of the 312th Division, 316th Division, 886th Regiment, 335th Regiment, and 88th Regiment of the Vietnamese People's Army Infantry in Laos to launch the "Z" campaign. After repeated competition with the Royal Lao Army, they captured the important towns of Sang Thong and Long. town, firmly in control of the Char Plain. In the spring of 1972, the Vietnamese People's Army and the People's Liberation Armed Forces of the South launched a strategic offensive against South Vietnam (called the "Easter Offensive" in the West), during which they were met with a strong counter-offensive by the South Vietnamese Army with the support of the US Navy and Air Force, resulting in heavy casualties and setbacks. At this time, Nguyen Huan An was ordered to take part in the battle of Quangzhi again, commanding the 308th Infantry Division, repelling the counterattack of the Nanyue National Army Parachute Division, and ensuring the safety of the flanks of the 48th and 95th Infantry Regiments in Quangzhi City and the ancient city. Then, he led the 308th Infantry Division to smash the repeated attacks of the Paratrooper Division and Marine Division of the South Vietnamese Army in the Hou Han River defense battle, and kept the newly liberated area of Quang Zhi Province. Due to his outstanding military exploits, Ruan Huan An was sent by the Central Committee to the Soviet Union for further study and was promoted to major general in 1974. In January 1975, the commander of the 2nd Army of the Vietnam People's Army, Huang Wentai, was promoted to general and transferred to the deputy chief of staff.
In the spring of 1975, the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Vietnam and the General Headquarters of the Vietnamese People's Army launched a decisive "General Offensive and General Rise" campaign against South Vietnam. Ruan Huan An and political commissar Major General Le Ling commanded the 2nd Army to launch an assault in the direction of Zhitian, and cooperated with the brothers to continuously seize the ancient capital of Hue and the important town of Da Nang, completely defeated and annihilated the 1st Army of the South Vietnamese Army, and cleared the obstacles for the main force to march into Saigon. After that, Ruan Huan An commanded the 2nd Army to participate in the Battle of Ho Chi Minh. The No. 390 chariot of the 203rd Tank Armored Vehicle Brigade under his command was the first to rush into the Saigon Presidential Palace, and raised the red, blue and gold star flag of the South Vietnam National Liberation Front on the top floor of the Independence Palace at 11:30 on April 30, 1975. . The arduous Vietnam Unification War is finally over, and Nguyen Huan An and his comrades share this glorious historical honor!
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