In the course of 40 years’ participation in revolutionary activities and undergoing many important positions, General Le Trong Tan left many deep impressions. His fame and achievements were closely linked to many units, theatres, the two resistant wars against French colonists and American imperialists, and the wars to safeguard the Fatherland. In his capacity as both a commander in the theatre and strategic advisor, he proved to be a talented, decisive militarist and made great contributions to the military and Vietnamese revolution.

1. A talented, decisive militarist in the theatre

To be one of the regiment commanders and division commanders of our military, General, Chief of the General Staff of VietNam People’s Army (VPA), and Deputy Minister of National Defence, Comrade Le Trong Tan took on many important responsibilities, directly participated and command many big and small battles and operations of strategic importance, and demonstrated his talent and determination as a militarist during the two resistant wars and the wars to safeguard the Fatherland. Whenever he was assigned a mission and before each battle and operation, together with unit commanders, he used to make every effort to surmount difficulty and hardship to complete the mission successfully. Given his vision, spirit, sharp, sensible, flexible military thinking, and decisiveness in handling situations, Comrade Le Trong Tan thoroughly grasped the ideologies of offensive strategy, using the few to counter the many and the high quality to defeat the mass, close combination of force build-up, establishment of posture, exploitation of opportunities, and use of stratagems in war, and creative application of people’s war and the Party’s military art to reality. On the basis of good understanding and correct prediction of the enemy plots and actions, he used to know how to deploy forces properly and apply many creative fighting methods suitable to each theatre and opponent. His guiding ideology was to force the enemy to fight in our own methods and prevent them from bringing into play their advantages. His command talent was shown in the command and control of operations and ability to predict enemy intentions and make sound, correct decisions at critical times. Tactics, which include attacking positions to destroy reinforcements, attacking enemy in strong fortifications, maneuver warfare in combination with establishment of hardened defensive positions, etc., were applied by him in a flexible, creative manner.

General Le Trong Tan (first from left) and the Command of Operation Quang Tri in 1972

With his operational talent and experience, General Le Trong Tan was entrusted with many important responsibilities in theatres across the country and international missions in both wartime and peacetime by the Party and the VPA. He directly led and commanded units, which contributed to victories in many major operations of strategic importance during the wars resistance against French colonists and American imperialists, notably the Song Thao Campaign in 1949, the Border Campaign in 1950, the Upper Laos Campaign in 1953, the Dien Bien Phu Campaign in 1954, the Dong Xoai, Bau Bang – Dau Tieng in 1965, the Junction City Campaign in 1967, the Road 9 – South Laos Campaign, the Plain of Jars Campaign in 1971, the Tri Thien Campaign in 1972, the Hue – Da Nang Campaign, and the Ho Chi Minh Campaign in 1975.

One thing special is that, during the two final decisive battles in the resistant wars against French colonists and American imperialists, he was the commander of the units attacking enemy headquarters to capture General Christian de Castries in 1954 and the entire cabinet of the Saigon regime in 1975, making worthy contributions to liberation and reunification of the country.

In the war to defend the Southwestern border, comrade Le Trong Tan was tasked with commanding the Southwestern Front between 1978 and 1979. Given his talent, General Le Trong Tan commanded our military and people to collaborate closely with Cambodian military and people to firmly protect our border, contributing to the collapse of the Khmer Rouge regime, liberation of Phnom Penh, and revival of Cambodia.

2. A creative, outstanding, military strategic advisor

With battle experience and ability to conduct operational review, comrade Le Trong Tan is one of generals who made great contributions to development of military theory, the art to command and control operations at the strategic- and operational-levels of war, operations of army corps, coordination among services and arms, building of human resources, and preparation of force and posture for decisive victory in the wars. He was the one who directly formulated and proposed many correct, creative military plans and suitable solutions with a view to enhancing combat power of the armed forces. He made a great contribution to strengthening the strategic staff body and staff branch in the VPA.

In early years of the resistant war against French colonialists, in the face of extreme difficulty and hardship, when his unit was forced to withdraw from the Northwestern theatre, comrade Le Trong Tan (the then regiment commander of the 148 Regiment) proposed and effectively built armed propaganda teams. These teams kept staying in the areas to protect people and encourage the people to set up bases for the resistant war. The experience in organising armed propaganda teams was later multiplied across the Northwestern area, providing firm conditions for the development of the armed forces in general, the resistant war in the Northwestern region in particular.

After the victory of the Northwestern Campaign in 1952, given their considerable experience, comrades Le Trong Tan and Cao Van Khanh were assigned to be in charge of the research group named “Assault on battlefield complex.” On the basis of studying our soldiers’ experience in attacking the enemy battlefield complex in Na San in 1952, the enemies’ disposition of forces in Hoa Binh and Sam Nua, he concluded that, first, the format of the battlefield complex was not a product of intelligence. The emergence of the battlefield complex had its own cause. It was the development of our military. This is a scientific conclusion, which demonstrates the comparison of forces from a dialectic perspective and provides a vital foundation for mapping out the operational plan to destroy the battlefield complex. This paper was approved by the Ministry of National Defence (MND) and served as the basis for formulating the concept of operations and reaching consensus on combat methods in the Dien Bien Phu Campaign, proving the talent of the two strategic advisors.

In the resistant war against American imperialists for national salvation, in his capacity as Deputy Chief of the General Staff, Deputy Commander of the Liberation Army of South Viet Nam, and Member of the Region Military Commission, together with other talented generals, comrade Le Trong Tan propose many correct guidelines on building and strengthening people’s war posture, building the armed forces in the Southern theatre, and formulating operational plans for the Central Military Commission (CMC). After the Resolution of the 21st Plenum of the Party Central Committee had been introduced, he directed studies and review of experience in countering stabilisation operations, attacking district military commands, fighting in urban areas, destroying divisions of the Sai Gon puppet regime, etc., which aimed to propose lessons for the Headquarters. More importantly, from early 1973, Deputy Chief of the General Staff Le Trong Tan was assigned to lead the Central Squad to study military plans to liberate the South. He devoted his intelligence and enthusiasm to the draft Strategic Plan to Liberate the South at the end of the war. This is a document which concretised the strategic enthusiasm of our Party and the crystallisation of collective intelligence, including the great contribution of comrade Le Trong Tan.

When he returned to the Southern theatre to participate in the 1975 Spring General Offensive and Uprising, with the sensibility and broad vision of a sharp, strategic mind, after commanding the liberation of Da Nang, he advised the General Staff to form the eastern-flank army to advance towards Sai Gon along the Highway No. 1. In fact, this proposal was correct and creative, which made a vital contribution to victory of the campaign. At the meeting held to review the 1975 Spring General Offensive and Uprising, General Vo Nguyen Giap affirmed that the eastern-flank army was the creativity of the General Staff because it had not been in the early plan to liberate the South.

After nation reunification, in the context of complex developments in the region and the world, in his capacity as Deputy Chief of the General Staff, Chief of the General Staff, and Deputy Minister of National Defence, he proposed many correct policies and solutions on military, defence missions to safeguard the country in the new situation for the CMC and MND. These proposals enabled the CMC and MND to effectively lead and direct the strengthening and development of the armed forces, in which the VPA plays the key role, contributing to the struggle against and defeat of the hostile forces’ multi-faceted destructive war, firm protection of national independence, sovereignty, and territorial integrity, and accomplishment of international missions in Laos and Cambodia. Drawing on experience in the theatres and outcomes of studies and reviews, comrade Le Trong Tan wrote many invaluable works such as “The Winter-Spring War between 1953 and 1954: A creative development of Vietnamese military art,” “Few thoughts on military art in the 1975 Spring General Offensive and Uprising,” “On command and control of operations,” “Building every district into military fortresses,” and so on. These are scientific projects of great theoretical and practical values regarding military strategy, national defence, and protection of the Fatherland.

In the course of 40 years’ participation in revolutionary activities and holding many commanding posts in various theatres, comrade Le Trong Tan used to prove to be a seasoned, talent general with steadfastness and great contribution to the development of Vietnamese military art in all three aspects namely tactics, operational art, and strategy. On commenting about his closest comrade and combat friend, General Vo Nguyen Giap affirmed that comrade Le Trong Tan was one of campaign commanders, the best commanders in combined arms operations of our military, and a brave, creative, talented, decisive commander with high responsibility and sense of discipline. No matter how complex the circumstances were, he managed difficulties to complete assigned tasks. He was one of the most reliable cadres to realise the strategic intentions of the High Command.

Major General, Doctor Nguyen Hoang Nhien, Director General, Institute of Military History