Jump to content
Sign in to follow this  
MigBuster

Vo Nguyen Giap, dead at 102

Recommended Posts

Vo Nguyen Giap, the Vietnamese general who masterminded victories against France and the US, has died aged 102.


His defeat of French forces at Dien Bien Phu in 1954 effectively ended French colonial rule in the region.


He went on to oversee the Tet Offensive against American forces in 1968, often cited as one of the factors that led to the Americans' withdrawal.


Gen Giap also published a number of works on military strategy.


He was born into a peasant family in the central Quang Binh province of what was then French Indochina.


At the age of 14, he joined a clandestine resistance movement.


By 1938 he was a member of Ho Chi Minh's Indochinese Communist party and fled to China with Ho, ahead of the Japanese invasion of Vietnam.


Gen Giap organised an army from his Chinese exile and returned to Indochina to wage guerrilla war against the occupying Japanese.


While he was out of Vietnam, his first wife was arrested and died in a French prison. He later remarried and had three daughters and two sons.


After his role in the war against the French, Gen Giap is also remembered for the 1968 Tet Offensive against US forces, when his troops attacked more than 40 provincial capitals and entered Saigon, then the capital of South Vietnam, briefly capturing the US embassy.


After the war, Gen Giap retained his position as defence minister and was appointed deputy prime minister in 1976.


However, he found himself sidelined by the regime and retired from government six years later.


 


http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-24402278


Edited by MigBuster

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Damn, I did not think he was still alive!! His funeral ceremony and national mourning are certainly to be a major event in all of Vietnam these next days. His fiercest opponent at Dien Bien Phu, General Bigeard, just died 3 years ago at 94. He had stated about Giap's treatment of the French PoWs after DBP, 8000 of them dying within the first 4 months: "Giap was a great general, but his doctrine, Marxism, was inhuman. The former Vietminh captain said to me: "We did not kill any prisoner". It's true; they just let them die."

 

Giap's main quality as a leader, was the constant faith he was entrusted by the Viet authorities. He faced several critical setbacks during his military career, facing de Lattre's inventiveness in 1951, facing unsustainable losses during the first weeks at Dien Bien Phu in 1954, not to speak about his repeated tactical failures facing the Americans, or even his own Southern compatriots in 1972. But in circumstances when a common Communist general would have been dismissed, he was kept as the head of military, and as such was each time able to think about bad choices, completely change his mind,  and find a new and much more efficient strategy. Anyway, he was one of the greatest military minds of the last century, and of the last millenium.

  • Like 1

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

He was a teacher for history, before he became a military leader. He was a fan of Napoleon Bonapart. And he was, as the most vietnamese people, eager to learn. Learning by doing, trail and error.

So he became one of the most successfull military leaders in the last century.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

hope this scum suffered

 

 

why so much hate? wars he was involved in are over long agoo (and it's not like he was a politic...)

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

RIP, enemy mine.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
Sign in to follow this  

×

Important Information

By using this site, you agree to our Terms of Use, Privacy Policy, and We have placed cookies on your device to help make this website better. You can adjust your cookie settings, otherwise we'll assume you're okay to continue..