The bell tower of Tam Toa church and the story of Thanh Hoa youth volunteers

The church was built in 1887 with Portuguese architecture, and was once one of the most beautiful churches in Vietnam. After the Geneva Accords of 1954, most of the parishioners migrated to the South, and the church was abandoned. During the war to destroy the North (1964-1972), the church was heavily damaged by American bombs, leaving only the bell tower with many bullet holes.

Today, the ruined bell tower of the old church is preserved as a war relic and a provincial historical and cultural relic. This is an attractive destination for tourists who want to learn about history and traces of war.

During the war against the US, reading the history of Thanh Hoa Youth Volunteers, there was an event in 1968, a group of bamboo boats of Thanh Hoa Youth Volunteers, with 400 people, transported goods to the battlefield. After completing the mission, the group of bamboo boats passed through Dong Hoi and took shelter in the Tam Toa church area, but was discovered by American planes and bombed the Tam Toa church. It is only known that, after that, no one returned to their old unit in Thanh Hoa.

The epic poem The Traveler Has Returned (Le Tuan Loc - Writers Association Publishing House, 2015) has the following passage:

"Suicide Boat Team"

....Recording a special moment:

8:00 p.m., November 1, 1968/The order for the transport campaign was issued/The Thanh boat group set out/Code name VT5/the night of zone 4 was red with fire/the sky was red with American bombs exploding/starting from Cua Hoi/down to Nhat Le port/drifting in danger/survival fragile/the number of people leaving gradually decreased/the number of people returning was sent to the bottom of the sea.

Bamboo boat!

400 Bamboo boats of Thanh land/on Quang Binh land/after delivering the goods, no one returned/The sacred souls in Tam Toa church (the workers who took shelter from the bombs/God could not protect them/Sadly letting the American bombs take away/The sadness of Dong Hoi/the bells rang mournfully/The bells tolled for the souls who did not return to Thanh land.

Leaving from Nga Son/special shipment/full mat/not for soldiers to lie on/entering the battlefield with mats/battlefield with not enough mats/tied tanks!

Thanh bamboo boat

Nhat Le Kien Giang ... the story became a legend".

The story is long gone. If we don't reread old documents that have been lost to our contemporaries over time, young people may not know about our people's heroic anti-American events.

Nearly 60 years have passed, reading back the historical lines, the tragic lines of the Vietnamese Youth Volunteers in general and the Thanh Hoa Youth Volunteers in particular, we can see that, for national independence and national unification, the people had to pay with blood.

Le Tuan Loc

Source: https://baoquangbinh.vn/van-hoa/202506/thap-chuong-nha-tho-tam-toa-va-chuyen-ve-nhung-thanh-nien-xung-phong-thanh-hoa-2227204/