Red School: Recruit to Guerilla

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363-04885B.pdf

Digital Object Identifier

363-04885B

Title

Red School: Recruit to Guerilla

Description

Article published in the New York Herald Tribune about a North Vietnamese defector's report on the training of Communist troops, page 2

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Draft transcripts were automatically generated via Google Document AI and are currently under review. Please report significant errors to Archives & Special Collections at archives@unl.edu.

Transcript

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- Page 1
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NEWS PERSPECTIVE
Red School: Recruit to Guerrilla
By Beverly Deepe
A Special Correspondent
SAIGON.
A defector from one of sev-
en regular Viet Cong battal-
lons now surrounding Saigon
said he was told by Commu-
nist recruiters "when we win
the war you will become mas-
ter of the country."
The defector, one of some
4.000 trained Red troops on
the outskirts of the capital city
complex, described his re-
cruitment, training and life
with the organized guerrillas
to this reporter.
He said the commander and
the deputy commander of his
unit-the 6th Battalion, oper-
ating on the outskirts of Bal-
gon-were native-born South
Vietnamese, but had gone to
North Viet Nam when the
country was divided by the
Geneva Convention in 1954.
The political commissar of
the unit "is a new man that
has just come in from North
Viet Nam-and is North Viet-
namese by birth," the defector
said. He said 90 per cent of the
troops in his unit had been
recruited from their local vil-
lages outside of Baigon-and
that recruitment had been ac-
celerated since the February
air strikes against North Viet
Nam.
PERSUASION
The defectór said the Viet
Cong recruiting agents-
called propaganda and prose-
lytizing cadres-told him that
if he joined "the puppet gov
ernment forces" he would have
to kill his friends and relatives
South Viet Nam (the political
backbone of the Viet Cong
guerrillas--which is dom
inated and directed by the
Communist People's Revolu
tionary party),
TACTICS
During his military instrue
tion, the defector said that he
was taught five main tactics:
How to concentrate human
power and fire power to at-
tack fixed positions or moving
convoys with high intensity.
How to defend adequately
their home bases, plus how to
retreat from government at-
tacks.
How to attack armored
vehicles, and how to use re-
coilless rifles, grenades and
"elephant traps" to defeat
armored convoys.
How to chop up an in-
fantry column or convoy and
smash one segment of the
selected unit of the column
and annihilate it.
How to conduct close
hand-to-hand combat, using
rifle butts and bayonets
CANOPY
The defector said the train-
ing was held in the Viet Cong
Jungle strongholds in Tay
Ninh Province bordering Cam
bodia under three layers of
canopy. He said that the
training courses started at
5:40 a. m. and lasted until
p. m. When the training was
Anished, the trainees walked
through the Viet Cong strong
hold of D-Zone, where they
received weapons and ammu
nition, and then they broke
In other villages and that since some cultural training like trainees spent about 40 per up in small units and walked
ne had little education
would have little future with Only 20 per cent of the train- on military training, involving lay south of Saigon and
the government and American
ing dealt with guerrilla war more
sophisticated weapons, Cholon on the outskirts of the
forces."
"If you join the Viet Cong
you don't have to kill innocent
people and your future will be
very bright," the defector said
he was told by the recruiting
agenta.
The defector said he had
received 11 months of training
with the Viet Cong before he
became a full-time guerrilla.
The first three months we
studied in villages around
Balgon," he said. "About 80
per cent of the study was
political training-including
fare, which included how to
and how to shoot pistols and
lay booby traps and spikes
rifles."
WEAPONS
He said the trainees were
given four months of "district
level" training farther from
Baigon, where 60 per cent of
the instruction dealt with po-
litical-cultural subjects, in-
eluding how to make Viet
Cong propaganda and how to
become friends with the local
At the district level the
such as 30-caliber machine
They also were taught how to
guns and automatie rifles.
camouflage themselves.
The trainees were then sent
for four more months of "zone-
level" instruction, the highest
and most sophisticated in
struction. About 60 per cent
of their time was devoted to
military instruction, while
only 40 per cent dealt with
political subjects.
On the political side, they
were taught the policies of the
National Liberation Front for
city.
Chanh, the defector said, the
unit moved during the day in
the thick jungle, but moved at
night through areas contain
ing government outposts
During their march to Binh
"Every time we stopped, we
had to dig foxholes," he said.
"Most of these stops were
made two to three kilometers
from villages. Even if we were
near our home village, we
could not so to see our rela
tives. We were forbidden even
to talk with our wives.

Date

1966, Mar. 7

Subject

Defectors--Vietnam; Vietnam (Democratic Republic). Quân đội; Recruiting and enlistment; Military education; Tactics

Location

Saigon, South Vietnam

Coordinates

10.8231; 106.6311

Container

B186

Format

newspaper clippings

Collection Number

MS 363

Collection Title

Beverly Deepe Keever, Journalism Papers

Creator

Keever, Beverly Deepe

Copyright Information

These images are for educational use only. To inquire about usage or publication, please contact Archives & Special Collections.

Publisher

Archives & Special Collections, University of Nebraska-Lincoln Libraries

Language

English