Colonel, Associate Professor, Dr. Ho Son Dai - historian, author, editor and co-author of nearly a hundred famous research works on the subject of military history in the South spent 2 years collecting documents to write the historical book 'South Vietnam Liberation Army Newspaper (1963-1975)'.
On March 25, 1963, implementing the directive of the Party Central Committee on the need to strive to build political forces and armed forces, continue to promote all forms of struggle to gradually overwhelm the enemy and move towards completely overthrowing the enemy, in a conference of the Regional agency at Trang Chien base (Tay Ninh), Head of the Regional Military Department Tran Nam Trung popularized the policy of establishing the Liberation Army Newspaper. After a period of preparation, on November 1, 1963, the Liberation Army Newspaper - the agency of the Military Commission, the Command of the Liberation Army of South Vietnam, the voice of the armed forces of the people's liberation of South Vietnam was officially born, publishing the first issue (coincidentally coinciding with the day when the Saigon generals, supported by the US, staged a coup to overthrow the Ngo Dinh Diem government), starting the process of operation until the day the country was peacefully unified . November 1, 1963 became the traditional day of the Liberation Army Newspaper.
Cover of the book Liberation Army Newspaper of South Vietnam (1963-1975) by author Ho Son Dai (Ho Chi Minh City General Publishing House, 2023)
During nearly 12 years of operation, the Liberation Army Newspaper has published 338 issues, in which generations of cadres, reporters, and editors of the newspaper overcame all hardships to publish thousands of news articles (not to mention hundreds of other articles published in the Liberation, People's Army, People's , Liberation Radio, Voice of Vietnam...) from handwritten pages torn from blood-stained hundred-page notebooks sent from the front, reflecting all activities of the army and people of the South from 1963 to 1975. These were articles that thoroughly grasped the policies and tasks of the struggle in each specific historical period; disseminated typical collective and individual examples, intellectual information and lessons learned about force building and military art of the armed forces; These were articles denouncing the nature, plots, and tricks of the US imperialists and the Saigon government and army, encouraging the people and armed forces to overcome all hardships and challenges, and move forward to achieve final victory. The activities of the Liberation Army Newspaper have truly become an important part of the political struggle in the motto of two legs, three prongs, three regions ; a reliable and sharp weapon of the Military Commission, the Command, and the people's armed forces to liberate South Vietnam in the political, ideological, and cultural fields.
Author Ho Son Dai has organized the book into 4 chapters related to 4 historical periods of the Southern battlefield at that time. These are the period 1963-1965 - "special war" (chapter 1); the period 1966-1968 - "the Mau Than General Offensive" (chapter 2); the period 1969-1972 - "Indochina is a battlefield" (chapter 3) and the period 1973-1975 - "The General Offensive and Uprising of Spring 1975" (chapter 4), this is also the period when the Liberation Army Newspaper completed its historical mission (October 15, 1975). The appendix of the book introduces some memoirs of former journalists and a list with full portraits of the Liberation Army Newspaper's reporters from its establishment until the end of its mission.
To write the history of the Liberation Army Newspaper of South Vietnam (1963-1975) , author Ho Son Dai spent a lot of effort, through many approaches, intermediary lines, many dates of reconstruction from the number of collected newspapers and the scarcity of original documents in the archives. Due to limited materials, although the book has not yet reflected the history of the Liberation Army Newspaper systematically, comprehensively and completely as the author originally intended, it has introduced a brief history of the newspaper through the stages. 108 issues provide data for those who want to research the history of the Vietnamese revolutionary press, want to find documents for historical scientific works and those who want to learn about the war through the Liberation Army Newspaper, which reflects and references the war against the US on the Southern battlefield from the perspective of revolutionary soldiers.
As the American writer and historian Geoffrey Wart wrote: "The press is the first draft of history", the book The Liberation Army Newspaper of South Vietnam (1963-1975) has truly become a rare document to supplement the missing part of the history of the resistance war against the US to save the country in the key battlefield of South Vietnam. Colonel, Associate Professor, Dr. Ho Son Dai is known for many other valuable titles such as: The Resistance War 1945-1975 seen from the South, History of the Regional Command, History of the Liberation Army of South Vietnam, People's War in the South during the Resistance War against France, History and Changes of the Independence Palace ...
MINGHUAI
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