PANO – Veteran Nguyen Van Tien, former soldier in Commando Company 3, Battalion 10, Brigade 52, Military Zone 5, remembered his successful prison escape forty years ago.
On January 22nd 1975, Tien and his comrades bravely combated and set up a commanding position at the enemy’s An Son post in Nghia Hanh district, the Central province of Quang Ngai.
However, the enemy on the following day mobilized a large number of infantry to reoccupy the point.
Veteran Nguyen Van Tien (second from right) tells his story 40 years ago
Some of Tien’s comrades had laid down their lives during the fierce encounter and Tien himself got stuck in a collapsed trench and was arrested by the enemy in the imbalanced battle.
In spite of extremely barbarous tortures, the enemy failed to subdue Tien and they had to jail him in Can Tho city prison.
After three months in captivity, suddenly on morning of April 30th 1975, he heard gunshots in downtown Can Tho city. More strange still, he could only realized at the Tra Noc airport, close to the prison, only the sound of aircraft taking off in a hurry and no sound of aircraft landing as usual. Tien could also see several columns of smoke.
In the evening the same day, political prisoners prepared for a prison break. At 22:00pm, they could unlock cells and took over the enemy’s guns without any resistance. Actually, the prison’s warders had fled on the previous day.
Tien and his comrades immediately contacted liberation troops from outside by the prison’s radio transmitters for further cooperation to protect Can Tho city.
In April 1976, he was discharged from the army and returned to his native village in Phuc Hoa commune, Tan Yen district, Bac Giang province.
Up two now, he and his comrade Pham Cong Huong have got in touch with American veterans who had participated in a battle at Kham Duc airport (Kham Duc town, Phuoc Son district, Quang Nam province) on August 5th 1970 to find and collect their 16 comrades’ sets of remains. Tien shared that they would keep finding their comrades’ remains.
Translated by Van Hieu
Đăng ký: VietNam News