Ngo Quang Truong

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This is a Vietnamese name; the family name is Ngô, but is often simplified as Ngo in English-language text. According to Vietnamese custom, this person properly should be referred to by the given name Trưởng.
Lieutenant General Ngô Quang Trưởng
Lieutenant General Ngô Quang Trưởng

General Ngô Quang Trưởng (born in Kien Hoa, Vietnam on 13 December 1929, Vietnam; died January 22, 2007, Falls Church, Virginia) was a general in the Army of the Republic of Vietnam.

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[edit] Military service

Truong was educated in French schools before attending the Thu Duc Officer Candidate School and the Command and Staff School at Da Lat. When the Republic of Vietnam was created in 1954, Lieutenant Truong joined the 5th Airborne Battalion as a platoon leader. By 1963 he had been given command of the battalion. Two years later, he was chief of staff of the Airborne Division. His reputation for bravery, honesty, and fairness (even though he was free of the political maneuverings of his compatriots in the officer corps) got him noticed in Saigon. The ARVN chief of staff, General Cao Van Vien, called Truong "one of the best commanders at every echelon the Airborne Division ever had."[1] During a Buddhist uprising in Hue during the spring of 1966, Truong (a Buddhist himself) was made acting commander of the 1st Division in order to quell the disturbance. He performed so well that Saigon made the position permanent. He remained in command of the 1st Division until 1970, when he was given command of the IV Corps Tactical Zone in the Mekong Delta.

During the People's Army of Vietnam (PAVN) Nguyen Hue Offensive (known in the West as the Easter Offensive) of 1972, he was given command of I Corps, replacing the disgraced Lieutenant General Hoang Xuan Lam. General Trưởng held communist forces at bay before Hue and then launched (against the initial resistance of President Nguyen Van Thieu and MACV) Operation Lam Son 72. During the counteroffensive, he successfully pushed PAVN forces back to the city of Quang Tri (which was retaken in September) and advanced on to the Cua Viet River.

Truong remained in command of I Corps during the North Vietnamese Ho Chi Minh Campaign of 1975. In March of that year, while attempting to follow contradictory orders from President Nguyen Van Thieu, he relinquished Quang Tri and Huế to the communists and retreated south to Da Nang. He was evacuated from the city, escaped the fall of South Vietnam and, after the war, lived in exile in the United States. Trưởng died of cancer on 22 January 2007, at the Inova Fairfax Hospital in Falls Church, Virginia.

[edit] Author

General Truong wrote several historical works dealing with aspects of the Vietnam War, mainly for the U.S. Army's Center of Military History, including: "The Easter Offensive of 1972" (1979); "RVNAF and US Operational Cooperation and Coordination" (1980); and "Territorial Forces" (1981).

[edit] Quotes

  • Truong "would rate high on any list of capable South Vietnamese leaders...[other U.S. commanders] so admired Truong that they would trust him to command an American division."[2]
  • "General Truong was capable of commanding an American division." - comment by Gen. Creighton Abrams, commander of U.S. military forces in Vietnam from 1968 to 1972.[1]
  • General Norman Schwarzkopf stated in his autobiography It Doesn't Take A Hero, that "His face was pinched and intense, not at all handsome, and there was always a cigarette hanging from his lips. Yet he was revered by his officers and troops -- and feared by those North Vietnamese commanders who knew of his ability...General Truong was the most brilliant tactical commander I'd ever known."

[edit] Notes

  1. ^ Dale Andrade, Trial by Fire. New York: Hippocrene, 1993.
  2. ^ William C. Westmoreland, A Soldier Reports. New York: Doubleday, 1976, pgs 303, 488.

[edit] External links