Truong Son Trail: from Central Highland to the Southeast of Sothern Vietnam

Abstract

After the Geneva Treaty, facing the demand of supplying troops and weapons from the north to build up forces for the Sothern revolutionary movement, the Politburo and Central Committee of the Communist Party of Vietnam planned to open a strategic transporting line – the Ho Chi Minh Trail on land and in the sea. To expand the transporting network to the Southeast of Southern Vietnam, the lines had to be connected with the Central Highland region. To do so, different dispatched divisions were set up along the line (from the North: B90 unit, B4 unit; from the South: C200, C300, and C270). After 18 months, those divisions finally met together, forming the unified line between the Central Highland and Southeast of Southern Vietnam. The trail laid the foundation for creating four communication lines from the south of Srepok Riverbank to Southeast of the Sothern Vietnam and the tip of the south of the central region. The activities of those pioneers of opening new transporting lines and guarding them helped to complete the Ho Chi Minh Trail that connected north and south Vietnam. The system allowed the expansion of the northern war efforts, including providing human resources and weapons to revolutionary forces in the south, opening a new age for the revolution against American invasion. This paper describes the activities of opening new transporting lines that allowed more supplies to the battlefield in the Southeast of Southern Vietnam during the early years of the anti-American war.