Hoang Thi Sinh, female, born in 1958, from Shang Long Township, An Lap District, Phu Tho Province, Vietnam, served in the 246th Regiment of the 346th Division of the First Military Region of the Vietnamese Army, with the rank of second lieutenant when he retired, and participated in the Sino-Vietnamese border war from February to March 1979. Below, is her memories of the experience of participating in the war.
I joined the army in November 1976 at the age of 18, and there were 30 other recruits in An Rik district who joined the army at the same time as me, and our group of recruits was assigned to Ha Giang City, Ha Xuan Province. After I arrived in the unit, I was assigned to the 346th Company of the 2nd Battalion of the 246th Regiment of the 1st Military Region. A year later, I returned to the regimental office as an administrator, and after the 246th Regiment was moved to Gaoping Province within the division, I went to Ha Quang County to serve as a liaison between the military and the locality.
Edit Search to enjoy the high-definition **During the garrison in Heguang County, my comrades-in-arms and I had to move frequently. At the beginning of February 1979, I was assigned to a cave in the Sakaya area. There are two natural caves in the area, separated by 20 meters from each other, with the road leading to the Shuojiang border crossing on the right side of the cave and the road leading to Nanrong on the left. The upper caves are larger, the lower caves are smaller, and the inside of the cave is like a ditch with many rocky corners and crevices, large and small, with a passage to the outside.
On February 17, 1979, the battle began, and my unit was ordered to enter the Banya Cave. Later, most of the troops were engaged in the battle near the Shuojiang River in Heguang County, and only more than 30 people remained in the Banya Cave, which served as the rear, to be responsible for logistics support and document keeping. In addition, there is a guard squad for security duties.
On February 19, after artillery preparations, the squadron surrounded the Banya area, and until March 6, there were about 30 people hiding in the two caves. After several days of fierce fighting, some of the guards were killed one after another, and the situation became more and more difficult, there was a lack of food and **, and ammunition was gradually depleted. Major Nguyen Hak Di, deputy political commissar of the regiment, commanded the rest of the men and continued to hold out in the cave, occasionally exchanging fire with Chinese soldiers approaching the cave.
Edit Search Map On March 5-6, the fighting became more and more intense. The bullets ran out, the rest were empty guns, Deputy Political Commissar Nguyen Kha Di and many soldiers were killed, only a dozen people were still alive, and we decided to leave the cave and move out. However, when we moved, we were ambushed by the squadron, so we had to go back to the original cave.
In the early hours of 6 March, Chinese soldiers stormed the cave and fired at close range with submachine guns, as well as blasting with grenades and explosives packs, destroying both caves. I hid in a corner and was lucky to survive, but the entrance to the cave had been sealed by the debris and there were no survivors around. Sometimes I was already desperate to think that death was coming, but with the will and desire to survive, after about 4 days of digging, I finally escaped. Later I learned that most of my comrades-in-arms were killed during the attack of the squadron, and 5 people were taken prisoner, who lived in prisoner of war camps in China for several months, and later returned to Vietnam when the two sides exchanged prisoners.
According to the records of our army's war history, the cave where Major Nguyen Kedi, deputy political commissar of the 246th Regiment of the Vietnamese Army, was stationed in this cave, located on the small stone mountain on the west side of Banya, with 5 field ** lines leading to the outside, which was the reserve command post of the 246th Regiment of the Vietnamese Army, and was attacked by the 5th Company of the 2nd Battalion of the 365th Regiment of the 122nd Division of the 41st Army. Qi Jianjun, the commander of the 5th Company, has very detailed memories of this battle. For example, Huang Thi Xin said that he was ambushed during the transfer process, which happened in the rice field on the east side of Xiaoshi Mountain, and there were a total of 5 Vietnamese army *** all of them were captain-level officers, with military ID cards, each carrying a pistol and a submachine gun, one of whom was Lieutenant Huang, the commander of the 9th Company of the 3rd Battalion of the 851st Regiment.
The final outcome of Xiaoshishan, where the reserve command post of the 246th Regiment of the Vietnamese Army was located, was blown up with explosives by the sappers of the 122nd Division. After the explosion, the eastern half of Xiaoshishan completely collapsed, and 7 female Vietnamese soldiers survived death and became prisoners of the 5th Company. When the female soldiers were taken to the division headquarters for interrogation, some said that the commander of the 246th Regiment had died in the cave, while others said that the deputy political commissar Nguyen Ha Thi had died. In order to verify the authenticity of the prisoners' confessions, Commander Yu Xinyi ordered the 5th Company to dig up the bodies for the prisoners to identify. Company commander Qi Jianjun recalled that half of the entire small stone mountain was blown up, and there was no construction machinery, so it could only be dug by soldiers.
In order to carry out the order of the division commander, Qi Jianjun sent 2 squads (too many people to move) to the site to excavate, due to the amount of work, the soldiers worked for a day and a night against the stench of the corpses, and finally found a supine corpse halfway up the mountain, the lower half of the body was pressed by the rock, only the upper body was exposed. After receiving the news, the division headquarters immediately escorted the female soldiers to the scene for identification.
After the identification of several prisoners, some said that they were the commander of the 246th Regiment, and some said that they were the deputy political commissar of the 246th Regiment. Later, the instructor of the 1st Battalion of the 246th Regiment of the Vietnamese Army who had been captured was escorted to Xiaoshishan, and after his identification, it was finally determined that the deceased was Major Nguyen Ke Di, deputy political commissar of the 246th Regiment of the Vietnamese Army.
The company commander of Qi Jianjun believed that according to the standards of a soldier, Major Nguyen Kedi was an excellent soldier. He deserved the respect of all soldiers, and he had planned to bury this stubborn opponent according to the etiquette of a soldier, but the rock that weighed on his lower body was too big to move, so he had to give up. In order to prevent Major Ruan's body from being gnawed by wild beasts, Qi Jianjun personally covered his head with gravel.
In the 1979 war against Vietnam, our army killed more than 40,000 Vietnamese soldiers, including a small number of officers above the colonel level, but there were names and surnames and corpses (** can be searched, so they will not be released), only Major Nguyen Ke Di, deputy political commissar of the 246th Regiment of the 346th Division. From the point of view of rigor and truth-seeking, we can only say that he is the highest-ranking officer of the Vietnamese army who was killed. And the highest-ranking cadres of our army who died were Zhao Lianyu, deputy commander of the 42nd Division of the 126th Army, and Lin Fengyun, deputy political commissar, if they had a military rank at that time, they should have been colonels. It is indeed a pity that the Vietnamese army has not been able to kill an officer at the division level above the colonel level.