Dien Bien Phu - Going through historical days

During the journey back to Dien Bien, visitors saw firsthand the evidence of war, hear about fierce battles, sacrifices, losses, and resounding victories throughout the five continents. Besides the relics in Muong Thanh, Hong Cum, Him Lam... there is also an extremely meaningful and interesting location, the Dien Bien Phu Historical Victory Museum. Here visitors gained the panorama of the Dien Bien Phu campaign in the past, reliving the most heroic moments of the nation's history...

Reenactment of the battle of Dien Bien Phu

The Dien Bien Phu Historical Victory Museum was designed and built in the shape of a bamboo hat, covered with camouflage net, along with a system of concrete and reinforced steel spokes to create a diamond shape symbolizing Dien Bien soldiers' defensive shirt in the past. Here, besides the artifacts, there is also a panorama painting "Dien Bien Phu Campaign", which is considered as the largest painting in Southeast Asia, with a unique and impressive landscape design, vividly recreating 56 days and nights of gouging mountains, sleeping in underground tunnels, soaking in rain, eating squeezing rice of Dien Bien soldiers. The painting was painted with oil paint on canvas with 4,500 characters and a mountain and forest landscape. All have completely and seamlessly recreated typical battles following the evolution of the Dien Bien Phu campaign. The painting is arranged in four stages: “All the people go to war”, “A majestic prelude”, “Historic confrontation” and “Triumph to celebrate victory”, giving viewers a complete, intuitive and vivid perspective, combined with majestic music.

Foreign tourists attentively watch the reenactment of the ancient battle of Dien Bien Phu

Seeing vivid images, combining sound and light, Nguyen Van Hau, a tourist from Thanh Hoa province, commented: “Coming here, I feel like I am living in historical moments of the Dien Bien Phu victory. Just watching less than 30 minutes, I could imagine how fierce the battle on the Dien Bien Phu battlefield was 70 years ago."

Also in the same group of tourists from the Central region to visit Dien Bien, veteran Pham Van The shared: “If you look at the picture recreating the history of the Dien Bien Phu campaign, you can fully see the miraculous power of our army and people. The more we see, the more we understood the ingenuity in the art of direction of the Party, Uncle Ho and General Vo Nguyen Giap; The more we understand the heroic sacrifice and fighting spirit of Dien Bien soldiers in the past, to love and be prouder of the heroic history of the Vietnamese people."

The feelings of an engineering general

In the heroic atmosphere commemorating the 70th anniversary of the Dien Bien Phu victory, Major General Hoang Kien, Hero of the People's Armed Forces, former Commander of the Engineer Corps, said that at the Dien Bien Phu front, the Politburo, The Party Central Committee and the General Military Commission gathered main army forces, such as infantry, artillery, transport, and fire-line civilians, to attack and destroy the most elite enemy forces in the strongest base on the Indochina battlefield.

Returning to visit Dien Bien Phu, Major General Hoang Kien emotionally shared: “I am very proud of the heroic tradition of our army. The historic victory of Dien Bien Phu is an extremely great victory for our nation. In that overall victory, the engineering force played a very important role, paving the way for the rear to supply supplies to the Dien Bien Phu front line, acting as fortifications for the artillery battle, and digging secret tunnels into the French base. ...contributed to destroying the enemy. The person who captured General Christian de Castries was the engineering soldier, Colonel Hoang Dang Vinh. During the Dien Bien Phu campaign, 4 engineering soldiers were awarded hero status for carrying out the mission of secretly digging tunnels into Hill A1 to bomb nearly 1,000kg to destroy the main French stronghold, contributing to bringing about a great, illustrious victory on five continents shaking the earth, creating the basic basis for the signing of the Geneva Agreement on ending the war and restoring peace in Indochina.

Major General Hoang Kien also urged the present and future generations to preserve and promote the nation's heroic tradition to build and develop the country, standing together with the powers of the five continents as Uncle Ho always wished. Our country has gone through many fierce wars, from fighting against French colonialism to American imperialism and wars to protect the Northern and Southwest borders.

“To get to today is the blood sacrifice of countless generations of the Vietnamese people. Therefore, if today's generation is to live in peace and happiness, they must understand the nation's history to be proud, to preserve and promote Vietnam's strength, worthy of the merits of the Party and President Ho Chi Minh, General Vo Nguyen Giap and our heroes, soldiers, and people sacrificed their blood to build the country," Major General Hoang Kien emphasized.

In the heroic atmosphere of the 70th anniversary of the Dien Bien Phu victory, Major General Hoang Kien, Hero of the People's Armed Forces, former Commander of the Army Corps of Engineers, also entrusted the present and future generations to preserve and promote the nation's heroic tradition to build and develop the country, on par with the great powers of the five continents as Uncle Ho always wished. Our country has gone through many fierce wars, from fighting against French colonialism to American imperialism and the wars to protect the Northern and Southwest borders with a lot of blood shed to build the country.

Bao Binh Duong - Translated by Ngoc Huynh