Vietnam war

[Dennis Billaney]

As we’re having Tet or Lunar New Year here, I just came back to Saigon from spending a few days in Vung Tau.
I had to think about this thread a few times. Throughout this thread I’ve read so many firsthand accounts, with several of you sharing memories, describing bits and pieces about the last leg of the run, after passing Vung Tau and heading up the “murky” rivers through the swamps to the docks in Saigon.

I just wanted to share something about those waters which has been interesting me for years, and is yet another part of history which is not often mentioned when talking about the Vietnam war.

So, regarding the original question of “British involvement” etc…, this does not answer the question, but as I pointed out already, the Vietnam war is also a matter of what time frame you are looking at.

It’s commonly understood as the war starting off with the Viet Minh fighting against the French and later the Americans against the NVA and VC.
This covers a bit of the grey area between the French and the American chapters.

Years ago, when I learned about this, it sounded almost too outlandish to be true, like a crazy Hollywood fantasy fiction. About underworld gangster bosses, private army militias, fighting wars against everyone, at the same time involved in opium trade, prostitution, gambling rackets, sounding like a mix of Pablo Escobar and the Godfather with CIA connections.

But it’s true, and it is also crucial to explain or somehow trace the involvement of governments, secret services and the impacts it had, among everything else that took place.

But instead of me telling more about all that, you’re welcome to read what I copied from the links below, about the “Rung Sat” and the times of Mr. Bay Vien and his Binh Xuyen gang empire.



Binh Xuyen Take Control of Saigon

In 1949, Le Van Vien headed a consortium which bought control of two of Asia's largest gambling and prostitution concessions—the "Grand Monde" in Cholon and the "Cloche d'Or" in Saigon—and Vien assumed the position of director of the establishments. Lacking a special ideology, the Binh Xuyen was a target for Communist recruitment efforts; to compensate for this, Vien became fanatically anti-Communist in his activities. In 1950, when Viet Minh bombs rocked Saigon nightly, Cholon, policed by the Binh Xuyen (who were paid by the wealthy Chinese), remained quiet. In an effort to stabilize Saigon, the French granted permission to the Binh Xuyen to police the capital; the Binh Xuyen cleared the terrorists out of Saigon. In return, Vien was promoted in 1952 to the rank of Brigadier General in the Vietnamese National Army.In February 1953, Binh Xuyen military activities received an additional boost when Vien was authorized to form a battalion of troops to police the Long Thanh highway from Saigon to the coast. In addition, the Binh Xuyen were allowed to occupy three posts on the Saigon River to ensure the safe flow of traffic along this important artery.

more here: https://factsanddetails.com/southeas...ntry-3449.html



French intelligence and paramilitary agencies took over the opium traffic to finance their covert operations. As soon as the French colonial government, which was actively seeking to eliminate opium addiction (which began with the abolition of the Opium Monopoly in 1946), abolished some aspect of the trade, French intelligence services proceeded to take it over. This clandestine opium traffic produced a legacy of Corsican syndicates and corrupted French intelligence officers who, according to those studying the topic, remain even today key figures in the international narcotics trade. The impact of the programme on the French officer corps revealed the dangers inherent in clandestine military operations that allows its leaders carte blanche to violate any or all military regulations and moral laws and arguably led to the abuses perpetrated by French forces in the Algerian War of Independence (1954-62).

Sometime after 1950 the French military awarded the Bình Xuyên Saigon’s opium commerce, another lucrative colonial asset. The Bình Xuyên started processing the GCMA’s raw opium from the hill tribes of Laos and Tonkin, and then distributing prepared smokers’ opium to hundreds of dens scattered throughout Saigon-Cholon where the population had tripled from 500,000 in 1939 to 1.7 million in 1954, an increase caused by war, not industrialisation. Once the opium was collected after the annual spring harvest, Trinquier had the hill tribes ready raw opium to be flown-in regularly to Cap Saint Jacques (Vung Tau) near Saigon, where the SDECE’s Action Service school trained hill tribe mercenaries at a military base. The planes used were mainly ex-American DC3s from CAT (Civil Air Transport) formerly a Nationalist Chinese airline and later owned and operated by the CIA as Air America, which flew drugs for the USA.

There were no customs or police controls to interfere with or expose the illicit shipments as the Bình Xuyên controlled all the land routes. From Cap Saint Jacques the opium was trucked 100kms into Saigon and turned over to the Bình Xuyên, who also controlled the city’s police force and managed its opium traffic with the collusion of the 2eme Bureau’s Captain Savani. The Bình Xuyên paid a fixed percentage of their profits to Emperor Bao Dai, the French 2eme Bureau, and the GCMA commandos. Just as the relationship between the Office of Strategic Services (the forerunner of the CIA which, it should be noted, once supported Ho Chi Minh) and the Italian Mafia during World War Two and the CIA-Corsican alliance in the early years of the Cold War affected the resurrection of the European heroin trade, so to the French 2eme Bureau’s alliance with the Bình Xuyên allowed Saigon’s opium commerce to survive and prosper during the First Indochina War. The underworld in Corsica usually refers to the Union Corse (Corsican Union); secretive with some in elected office, others in the Gendarmerie Nationale (a branch of the armed forces) and the SDECE, and who ran the French Connection to the US from 1930-70.

more here: The Bình Xuyên and the Battle of Saigon - 7 April 2021

[j.sabourn]

The situation world wide as regards drugs has been going on for a lot longer than people think.even going through the Suez Canal I was approached by one of the bumboat men with money to take a package for him we were expected to arrive in London the next port all I had to do was leave it on the table in my cabin and vacate the cabin between certain times and Valla it would disappear he offered money there and then and said the remainder would be left on the table. I told him to eff off.. Jump ahead 15 years and was doing an advanced medical course doing what they thought we should know , this covered Childbirth , Venereal diseases, and drugs. The ships that used to come into Liverpool with Chinese crews were well known for their usual opium smoking facilities but in general a blind eye was turned on It by the authoritys the Chinese of that era were not going to change their habits of years and were passed redemption Others of course were not. Today a lot is mentioned about drugs but it’s been there for century’s . So have the other subjects even well before drugs
JS

[Dennis Billaney]

Just remembered some pics I took 2-3 years ago, from the French gun positions on one of the hills in Vung Tau overlooking the entire Saigon & Dong Nai river delta. No clue what guns they are, but it was written the fort was built by the French in 1905.

photo_2023-01-25_20-50-29 (3).jpg photo_2023-01-25_20-50-26.jpg photo_2023-01-25_20-50-27.jpg photo_2023-01-25_20-50-30.jpg photo_2023-01-25_20-50-28 (3).jpg

[Dennis Billaney]

photo_2023-01-25_20-50-28.jpg photo_2023-01-25_20-50-29 (2).jpg photo_2023-01-25_20-50-27 (2).jpg photo_2023-01-25_20-50-29.jpg photo_2023-01-25_20-55-06.jpg

[Dennis Billaney]

Just for clarification and make it a bit easier to trace where this all is:

general area between Saigon and Vung Tau
SGN VT zoom 1.jpg

here the main 2 shipping lanes (red & pink), plus the swamp area called Rung Sat or Can Gio (yellow)
shipping lanes 1 & 2.jpg

and the location of the fortress with the gun positions overlooking the bay area (yellow)
Guns Vung Tau.jpg


and just to note, there's additional gun positions on 2 further hills (not to confuse anyone who might have been to those, below in orange)
Screenshot 2023-01-25 215619.jpg

[Dennis Billaney]

One last thing to add regarding the names of places…. and to clarify again, before I forget, it’s not Saigon anymore, has a new name now. Heard a local bloke once say “it’s a temporary thing, like with the historic name change problem of the nowadays city called Volgograd”

But for now, the correct or official name is known as Ho Chi Minh City (while Tan Son Nhat airport still uses the call sign SGN, as Sir Charles was not able to change that to HCM…)

Does amuse me every now and then when all efforts to erase a name out of existence collide with other interests, such as showing off greatness by adding up numbers, even willing to compromise the utmost sacred doctrines, as long as it helps to make it into the “Top 20 or 30 biggest list in the world”

If you google “busiest cargo port in the world”, you’ll find https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_o...ontainer_ports


As of today, rank nr 21 is “SAIGON PORT” (somehow Sir Charles managed Wiki to at least use the name “East Vietnam Sea”, since propaganda does not allow to use the universally agreed geographic term known as “South China Sea” – for whatever reason….)

Screenshot 2023-01-25 224004.jpg

Screenshot 2023-01-25 224210.jpg

But that’s another endless topic not relevant to objective debate. More interesting is how similarly with swallowing the sour pill having to use the old airport call sign, another one time exception is tolerated and at least on paper, most recently has allowed to include even neighboring province ports under one umbrella, as long as it helps to increase the tally.

Sidenote: honestly, I have zero tolerance for all this sort of politics and ideological bureaucracy, while I generally anyway have always considered all of it SAIGON import/export, or the economic boom and development of this country. I have to deal with it on a constant basis, but don’t get me wrong, while it is frustrating when dealing with backward stubborn man-made stupidity, I’m still optimistic and always insist that it’s mostly 2 steps forward, one steps back!

Besides, my work often involves those ports, mainly Cat Lai & Cai Mep, therefore something I’m interested in seeing growing prosperity and at the same time getting intel from first hand on the ground sources, foreign and domestic. I see the mess but also know it's generally going forward and eventually will make it!

Below content is from this link: https://www.historicvietnam.com/shor...y-saigon-port/

After 1956, the former Messageries maritimes, River and Mercantile ports were taken over by the Saigon Port Authority (Thương Cảng Sài Gòn). In 1966-1967, the US Navy built additional military cargo facilities at Newport (Tân Cảng), Camp Davies (Tân Thuận), Cát Lái and Vũng Tàu and a large combat/logistics base and fuel storage facility in Nhà Bè. In 1973, following the Paris Peace Accords, these military installations were taken over by the Saigon Port Authority, which in the following year launched a joint project funded by Taiwan to establish a 65-hectare Export Processing Zone (EPZ) in Tân Thuận (modern District 7), southeast of Khánh Hội merchant port. However, due to the fall of Saigon in April 1975, this project was never implemented. The existing mercantile ports have since continued to be administered by the Saigon Port Authority.

In 2005, due to lack of expansion capacity and increasing river and road congestion around the city-centre port facilities, the government decided gradually to relocate the existing ports at Tân Cảng, Khánh Hội, Tân Thuận downriver. Since then, larger dedicated port facilities have been developed at Cát Lái (District 2), Hiệp Phước (Nhà Bè) and Cái Mép-Thị Vải (Bà Rịa–Vũng Tàu). The opening of the latter in 2009 finally realised the fleeting French idea of building a major port in Cap Saint-Jacques, and by 2016 that installation was handling over 62 million tonnes of freight and container cargo. While some small and medium-sized cruise ships may still navigate upstream to Khánh Hội, larger passenger vessels are now obliged to dock at Phú Mỹ (Bà Rịa–Vũng Tàu), some 2.5 hours by road from Saigon. At the time of writing, the Nhà Rồng-Khánh Hội port area is earmarked for redevelopment as an up-market residential area.

Final comment, this last line about “redevelopment” has largely been completed, by building the largest skyscraper in South East Asia (Landmark 81, by Vincom grp), plus another few high rise condos and last but not least, the first subway line that has yet to be completed.

[Des Taff Jenkins]

Hi Dennis.
Just to show how long the arm of drugs from Vietnam went. The CIA run drugs into Sydney Australia landing at the Richmond air force base in Western Sydney. Later they opened a Merchant bank in Sydney to put all the money they made. There were strange goings on there , one of the bank managers was found shot dead in his Mercedes in a small town in the Blue Mountains, his death was never solved. The bank still operates to this day and even had one of our Prime ministers as bank manager before he entered politics.
Des

[happy daze john in oz]

Drugs will always be around as long as there are some fools willing to take them.


Way back on the Windsor in the early 60's there was a tourist winger, who we later found out was possible some form of drug runner, ended up at the wrong end of a rope when caught killing a local non white who may well have been the supplier of the drugs.
Never found out the full story but it had some very odd twists to it.

[j.sabourn]

Its a good job they are John oherwise a lot of us wouldn’t be here now , as have been taken them for medicinal purposes for years i could give them all up tomorrow .i wonder if these drug Addicts who take them for recreational purposes will live long enough that they get the same feelings. JS

[Des Taff Jenkins]

"OH! what a feeling," its drug day.
While ever there are illegal drugs clowns take will take them, the cry to make them legal and the clowns will still take them. The other day the police started to chase this speeding car, it took off did a sharp turn spun into the air and exploded,burning the two in it to death , must have been the meth's.
Des