To safeguard the capital city of Hanoi and central offices when the struggle for northern border defence became more and more tense, on February 27th 1979, the infantry Division 301 was founded. After its inception, the Division quickly stabilized its organizational structure, actively built its force, organized combat training courses closely, carried out its tasks of manoeuvring and fighting to defend the capital city of Hanoi in the country’s main direction, and cooperated with local armed forces in defence, counter-attack, and offensive to firmly protect the area. Over the past 40 years of building, developing and maturing, in spite of changes in its missions under the requirements for protecting the essential targets in the area of Hanoi, generations of the Division’s cadres and soldiers have always united in handling all difficulties to fulfil all assigned tasks, building up its traditions of “being absolutely loyal and united, maintaining the close-knit relationship with the people, gaining the victory in all battles”.
In the current period, the Division continues to be a main mobile combat unit of the Hanoi Capital High Command and assigned to maintain combat readiness, protect the essential targets and major political events of the Party, State, Military and Hanoi capital, and take part in disaster prevention and mitigation, search and rescue, and other contingency missions. Fully aware of the importance and particularities of its missions, in recent years, the Division’s Party Committee and Command have comprehensively conducted its work in order to improve its synergy and combat power, defend the targets, and fulfil the contingency tasks successfully; therefore, it has been given many noble awards by the Party, State, Military, Hanoi Capital High Command, and local party committees and authorities. From the performance of its missions, the Division has drawn several lessons which have also served as the solutions and been applied effectively.
First and foremost, the Division has focused on strengthening itself politically as the basis for enhancing its combat power. To meet the task requirements, the Division has concentrated on educating its cadres and soldiers to thoroughly grasp the Party’s military and defence guidelines, resolutions and directives by the Central Military Commission, the Ministry of National Defence, the Hanoi Capital High Command, and particularly the Division’s Party Committee as well as its traditions and missions, the hostile forces’ “peaceful evolution” strategy, and the requirements of defending the capital city in the new situation. As its stationed area is complex and the situation could arise at any time, the Division has directed offices and units to focus on educating the troops to raise their sense of vigilance, ensuring that they remain steadfastness and qualities of revolutionary soldiers against temptation and the hostile forces’ bribery and inducement, being ready to fight and sacrifice for the protection of the targets and the successful fulfilment of the assigned task. At the same time, the work of education has aroused troops’ pride in serving a unit which has deep-rooted tradition and is assigned to perform the missions of paramount importance, thereby raising their responsibility and proactiveness to overcome difficulties and accomplish all assigned tasks.
Besides, significance has been attached to consolidating and improving the leadership capacity and combativeness of party committees and organizations, offices and political cadres at all levels via training courses. The Division has promoted the role and responsibility of key cadres as well as the pioneering and exemplary role of party members during the leadership over their units in line the implementation of the Resolutions of the Party Central Committee’s 4 Plenums (11th and 12th tenure) on the Party building and rectification and the 12th Politburo’s Directive 05 on studying and following Ho Chi Minh’s ideology, morality and lifestyle. Priority has been given to ensuring the political quality of party committees, commands and party members of the units tasked with training, combat readiness, and important, specialized work. Moreover, the Determined to Win emulation movement has been stepped up in an effort to encourage the synergy to successfully fulfil the Division’s central political task.
Second, great value has been attached to improving the quality of training and combat readiness. The Division’s Party Committee and Command have determined that it is an important breakthrough solution and a determinant to the Division’s combat strength and task performance. Based on the Central Military Commission’s Resolution 765-NQ/QUTW and the Resolution 939-NQ/ĐU by the Party Committee of the Hanoi Capital High Command on improving the training quality in the 2013-2020 period and beyond, the Division’s Party Committee and Command have directed offices and units to issue the special resolutions and develop the action plans in accordance with each group of troops, tasks and characteristics of the area. To raise the quality of training the active force and the reserve force, the Division has focused on improving the training method of cadres, particularly those who are directly in charge of training infantry troops and reservists. Materials for training have been prepared uniformly, sufficiently, qualitatively in accordance with the regulations on the system of lesson plans and training models, aids and grounds. The training content, form and method have been renewed while the quality of training management and operation has been raised.
The Division has required its units to comprehensively train the active force and focus on the weaknesses and task requirements in accordance with combat reality under the motto of “basics, practicality and thorough grasp”. Importance has been attached to training troops to master the existing weapons and specialized equipment for the A2 mission and to manoeuvre in night time on the terrains of all types in the area of Hanoi, particularly in the urban area in the hi-tech warfare. Due attention has been paid to increasing field training and training under the projects to protect the targets and the situations of the A2 mission and natural disaster prevention and control as well as search and rescue. Contests and inspections of training results have been well organized to draw lessons and provide the basis for seeking measures for the following training season. To improve the all-level cadres’ capability in combat command and the combat coordination between its units, annually, the Division organizes one-side, two-level command exercises on the map and the field together with mobilizing and receiving the reserve force and organizing live firing at the infantry battalion level safely, thereby maintaining readiness to opportunely, effectively deal with the situations in the area. As for the reserve force, the Division has cooperated with localities in grasping the reservist resources and consolidating and staffing reservist units while directing A-level cadres to train and improve B-level cadres’ professional competence, training method, and capability to manage and command their units. Training contents have been provided sufficiently for the reserve force under the motto of “basics, practicality, and quality”. It has strictly maintained the order and regulations for training and examination under its own plan. After each training season, the Division organizes battalion-level exercises in which a reserve company will take part in live firing in order to enhance each reserve unit’s coordination and capability to deal with the combat situation.
Third, the Division has regarded discipline management and regularity building as a needed breakthrough measure to improve its combat strength. Clearly understanding that “discipline is the combat strength of the Military”, the Division has directed offices and units to render their troops fully aware of the Soldier Management Regulations and the Criminal Code regarding military disciplinary actions and the degree of the State’s penalty for soldiers who do not strictly follow the order of commanders during the performance of their task. As a result, the troops’ awareness towards the observance of all-level commanders’ orders and directives at any time and any where, particularly in training, combat readiness and performance of contingency missions has been raised; a sense of unity within the Division has been created while its strength has been improved. Importance has been attached to grasping and executing the Directives 917/CT-BQP and 91/CT-BQP by the Minister of National Defence and the Directive 1565/CT-BTL by the Commander of the Hanoi Capital High Command on regularity building and discipline management, education and maintenance. Due regard has been paid to stringently maintaining the daily, weekly regulations and combining military discipline management with the observance of the State’s law. As a result, in recent years, the Division has no serious violation of discipline and ensured the absolute safety within itself.
Fourth, it has enhanced the quality of logistics and technical support for its central mission. The Division has directed its offices and units, particularly the all-level logistics offices to develop the system of documents and plans for regular logistics support for the training and combat readiness tasks as well as the logistics support projects for the contingency missions. Consideration has been given to sufficiently ensuring material reserves for combat readiness under the regulations and strictly maintaining the order for logistics support and rotation in a bid to raise the logistics quality. It has renewed the method of logistics support by the direct allocation of logistics and financial support to the units, with priority given to the units tasked with training, combat readiness and significant missions. It has both effectively used the budget allocated by higher echelons and exploited the on-spot logistics resources, encouraging crop and animal husbandry within its units to improve its troops’ life, well managing and taking care of troops’ health, closely, economically, effectively managing petroleum, electricity and water for its missions. Concerning the technical work, the Division has concentrated on grasping and executing the Program 925-Ctr/ĐU by the Hanoi Capital High Command’s Party Committee on implementing the Central Military Commission’s Resolution 382-NQ/ĐUQSTW and Decision 763-KL/QUTW on the work of technical support in the 2013-2020 period, opportunely, synchronously providing weapons, technical equipment and vehicles for its missions, particularly training, exercises, natural disaster prevention and control, and search and rescue. Besides, it has closely combined exploitation, management, maintenance and repair of the existing materiel with research and upgradation of its materiel, making investment in acquiring specialized equipment and vehicles for the A2 mission in order to improve its combat strength, ensuring that the Division would always fulfil all assigned tasks and deserve to be a main mobile unit of the Hanoi Capital High Command.
Sr. Col. Nguyen Duc Hanh, Commander of the Division 301