Võ Nguyên Giáp and The People’s Army of Vietnam (PAVN)

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 instance, the Propaganda Liberation Army’s raid at Tam Dao internment camp in Tonkin resulted in the death of fifty Japanese soldiers and officials, freeing French civilian captives and escorting them to the Chinese border. The Propaganda Liberation Army also fought the Japanese 21st Division in Thai Nguyen that year, and regularly raided rice storehouses to alleviate an ongoing famine affecting the Vietnamese population.

During the creation of the Propaganda Liberation Army, another separate communist army called the National Salvation Army had already been established on 23 February1941, which was commanded by Chu Văn Tấn, who later became the first Defence Minister of liberated Vietnam. On 15 May1945, the Propaganda Liberation Army, led by Giáp, merged with the National Salvation Army into the Vietnam Liberation Army.

On 2 September 1945, when the League for Independence of Vietnam (the Việt Minh) was established and the Democratic Republic of Vietnam was proclaimed in Hanoi by Hồ Chí Minh, the army was renamed the Vietnam National Defence Force, which had about 1 000 soldiers.

On 22 May 1946, the army was called the National Army of Vietnam, and in 1950, it officially became the People’s Army of Vietnam (or the Vietnam People’s Army – PAVN). Võ Nguyên Giáp went on to become the first full general of the PAVN on 28 May 1948, and famous for leading the PAVN in victory over French forces at the Battle of Dien Bien Phu in 1954 and being in overall command against United States backed South Vietnam at the Fall of Saigon on 30 April 1975.

22 December is celebrated in Vietnam as Armed Forces Day.

Source:
Wikipedia.

Castro Khwela
Good day fellow Compatriots!🙏🏾✊🏾👊🏾