The Naval Zone 5 whose forerunner was the Coastal Zone 5 under the Navy, was founded on October 26th, 1975 according to the Decision 141 by the then Minister of National Defence. Over the past 46 years of construction, combat, and development, cadres and soldiers of the Zone have unceasingly contributed their knowledge and effort to firmly protecting national sovereignty over seas, islands, and continental shelf in the Southwest, thus building up the glorious tradition of “bravely combating, wholeheartedly assisting friends, maintaining unity and coordination, controlling the sea.”

Immediately after the Zone had been founded, its cadres and soldiers quickly overcame difficulties, took over and constructed facilities, and actively participated in training to improve their combat readiness capacity and safeguard the country’s seas and islands in the Southwest. When the war to defend the Southwest border broke out, cadres and soldiers of the Zone 5 played a core role in cooperation with other naval forces in gaining victory in the Tà Lơn landing-by-sea campaign - the first landing-by-sea operation of our Military. After that, cadres and soldiers of the Zone together with other forces of the Vietnam People’s Army and Cambodia liberated the Land of Temples from genocide, hunted down the remnants of the Polpot, protected the revolutionary fruit, and gave assistance to Cambodia’s Navy so that it could undertake and master its seas and islands. After 10 years of the international mission in Cambodia, affiliates of the Zone promptly deployed their forces to the designed positions, gradually consolidated, adjusted, and modernised their organisational structure and materiel, created an inter-connected, solid defensive posture, and actively organised training courses to master modern weapons and technical equipment and firmly protect the country’s seas and islands in the Southwest. With its remarkable achievements, the Zone was given many noble rewards by the State. Notably, since 1999, the Zone has been continuously presented with the Emulation Flag by the Ministry of National Defence and the Naval Command for its outstanding achievements in the Determination to Win Emulation Movement. In 2020, the Zone was given the Flag of “excellent unit in the Determination to Win Emulation Movement” by the Prime Minister, while being presented with the Certificate of Merit for its brilliant performance of the task of military diplomacy in the period of 2015-2020 by the Ministry of National Defence. To obtain such achievements, the Zone’s Party Committee and Command have synchronously taken measures to build a pure, strong Party Organisation and an “exemplarily, typically” comprehensively strong Zone, with a focus on raising the quality of training as the basis for improving the Zone’s synergy and combat power.

First of all, the Zone has enhanced the work of propagation and education to raise cadres and soldiers’ awareness of training. In this regard, emphasis has been placed on disseminating the Central Military Commission’s Resolution 765-NQ/QUTW and the Naval Party Committee’s Resolution 1050-NQ/ĐUQC on raising the quality of training in the period of 2013-2020 and beyond. The Zone’s Party Committee has developed annual resolutions on the training work in accordance with the area’s particularities and its organisational structure and task. It has directed offices and units to renew the forms and methods of propagation and education relevant to each group of troops. Priority has been given to training troops to manage and master state-of-the-art weapons and technical equipment and providing training for independent sectors at sea. Due regard has been paid to educating troops on the direction, motto, task, and requirements of training, particularly breakthroughs in training. The defence of national sovereignty over seas, islands, and continental shelf has been seen as the goal of training. The Zone’s Party Committee and Command have directed affiliates to adhere to the training motto of “basics, practicality, and thorough grasp,” with significance attached to synchronous, intensive training for units tasked with the BM mission and patrols of military diplomacy. Cadres and soldiers have been educated to grasp the breakthrough in “mastering weapons and technical equipment and ensuring safety regulations” set by the Zone. Up to now, all cadres and soldiers within the Zone have promoted their responsibility to actively take part in combat training to master the existing weapons and equipment. Via inspections by the Navy and the Ministry of National Defence, the Zone’s training work has been highly appreciated.

Troops of the Naval Zone 5 practise shooting enemy aircraft

Second, focus on renewing the forms and methods of training. This measure acts as a determinant to raising the quality of combat training and political education as the basis for firmly protecting the seas and islands of responsibility. Prior to each training season, the Zone has directed offices and units to develop training documents, directives, plans, and timetables, design and closely approve lesson plans, and carry out the work of training statistics and report. Great value has been attached to assigning cadres with good capability and experience to participate in organising and running training courses. While deploying its cadres to refresher courses held by the Navy, the Zone has organised such courses on the contents, organisation, and methods of training across its affiliates. Focuses of those courses have been placed on new points, the existing weapons and equipment, and joint operations at sea and on islands. Importance has been attached to training officers and professional service men and women who had just graduated from military schools or had just been recruited. All cadres have been trained to take charge of the training work at their level. Superiors have been required to train their subordinates, while experienced cadres have been asked to give assistance to new ones.

In the training process, the Zone has demanded to reduce the duration of theory and increase practice. Cadres at all levels have been required to train troops in new points and pass their experience to make training courses relevant to combat projects, objects of combat, and the existing weapons and equipment. Consideration has been given to increasing night-time training, training in bad weather, and physical training. Training courses have been closely organised to ensure that cadres and soldiers would all master the existing weapons and equipment together with a high level of combat readiness. Additionally, cadres and soldiers have been trained to take charge of different positions in a combat formation. In order to improve troops’ professional competence and all-level commanders and units’ joint operations at sea and on islands, the Zone has held exercises according to combat projects in accordance with the particularities of the area of its responsibility. At the same time, it has promoted the role of its competent offices in managing and running the training work closely, with the strength of above 98.5%. Great weight has been added to strictly maintaining regulations on assessing the training outcome, opportunely drawing lessons, and overcoming weaknesses in this work. After each training period, the Zone has closely organised contests at all levels, while opportunely rewarding collectives and individuals with brilliant achievements in training as an incentive to raising the quality of combat training across the Zone. Besides, the Zone has directed its offices and units to take the training results as a yardstick for evaluating the task performance of collectives and individuals and as the basis for rank promotion and appointment of cadres and party members. Up to now, the Zone has basically successfully fulfilled its training programmes for its troops. Warships of the Zone have also accomplished their training programmes. All of them have achieved merit or distinction in examinations and ensured the absolute safety. The Zone has finished its training plan for vessels tasked with the BM mission. It has also provided extra training for vessels tasked with military diplomacy, while cooperating with the Royal Navies of Cambodia and Thailand in organising maritime training courses during joint patrols. Moreover, transport and reconnaissance vessels have well maintained training courses and performed their task at sea simultaneously. Inland units of the Zone have also fulfilled their training programmes and plans with the increasingly improved quality.

Third, promote internal resources and ensure materials for raising the quality of training. As the Zone’s affiliates are stationed on islands far from the coast, they are confronted with difficulties in providing logistics and technical support for training. Meanwhile, many of weapons, pieces of equipment, and vessels of the Zone have been in use for ages and seriously deteriorated. Besides, more demanding requirements have been imposed on the training work and combat training services. To deal with those difficulties and challenges, on the one hand, the Zone has directed its offices and units to effectively employ fund allocated by higher echelons and gradually improve the quality of facilities for training. On the other hand, its affiliates have been required to bring into play their internal resources, exploit their troops’ labour, and mobilise available materials to enhance the quality of training services. More investments have been made to design and supplement training documents, perfect and effectively apply theories of several new issues to the Zone’s combat training process. Due regard has been paid to stepping up and applying scientific researches to the training work, and actively implementing the movement of “promoting initiatives and innovating training equipment.” Many researches and initiatives on renovating training equipment have been effectively applied to training, exercises, and missions, being highly appreciated by the Navy. Besides, the Zone has encouraged the movement of “sustainable, safe, economical use and traffic safety” to ensure the technical coefficient of warships, weapons, and equipment to meet the task requirements. Thanks to those measures and the close direction from the Zone’s Party Committee and Command, the work of logistics and technical support for training has been better carried out. A number of effective approaches and models of the Zone have been applied to the training work across the Navy.

Those considerable achievements in combat training will provide an important foundation for building a “revolutionary, regular, elite, modern” Naval Zone 5 capable of firmly protecting the country’s sacred sovereignty over seas and islands.

Rear Admiral NGUYEN DUY TY, Commander of the Naval Zone 5