Võ Nguyên Giáp and The People’s Army of Vietnam (PAVN)
On 22 December 1944, under the guidelines of Hồ Chí Minh, guerrilla fighter and later General of the Vietnamese People’s Armed Forces, Võ Nguyên Giáp, was given the task of establishing the brigades and the Propaganda Unit of the Liberation Army, which later became the People’s Army of Vietnam (PAVN).
The PAVN was first conceived in September 1944 at the first Revolutionary Party Military Conference as the Vietnam Information, Communication and Education Liberation Army, to educate, recruit and mobilise the Vietnamese people to create a main force to drive the French colonial and Japanese occupiers from Vietnam. The first formation was made up of thirty-one men and three women, armed with two revolvers, seventeen rifles, one light machine gun, and fourteen breech-loading flintlocks.
The Propaganda Liberation Army formation’s first ever engagement at the Battles of Khai Phat and Na Ngan against French soldiers was in late 1944. The United States Office of Strategic Services (OSS) agents, led by Lieutenant Colonel Archimedes Patti – who was regarded as the first instructor of the Propaganda Liberation Army – provided ammunition as well as logistic intelligence and equipment to the formation. OSS agents also helped train the Propaganda Liberation Army soldiers, who formed the backbone of the Vietnamese military to successfully fight the Japanese and other opponents.
On 19 July 1945, for insta
