Military revolt in Vietnam
The
Battle of Saigon
was a week-long battle between the
Vietnamese National Army
of the
State of Vietnam
and the private army of the
Binh Xuyen
organised crime syndicate. At the time, the Binh Xuyen was licensed with controlling the national police by Emperor
B?o đ?i
and Prime Minister
Ngo đinh Di?m
issued an ultimatum for them to surrender and come under state control. The battle started on April 28, 1955, and the VNA had largely crushed the Binh Xuyen within a week. Fighting was mostly concentrated in the inner city Chinese business district of
Ch? L?n
. The densely crowded area saw some 500 to 1000 deaths and up to 20,000 civilians made homeless in the cross-fire. In the end, the Binh Xuyen were decisively defeated, their army disbanded and their vice operations collapsed.
Prelude
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On the midnight of March 29?30, explosions rocked
Saigon
as the Binh Xuyen responded to Di?m's removal of its police chief. 200 Binh Xuyen troops launched an attack on VNA headquarters. The clashes were inconclusive, with the VNA suffering six deaths to their opponents’ 10, but by sunrise, the bodies of civilians littered the sidewalk.
Battle
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The final battle between Di?m's VNA and the Binh Xuyen began on April 28 at mid-day.
[1]
After initial small-arms fire and mortar exchanges, the VNA resorted to the heaviest artillery in its arsenal. This coincided with growing calls from within the
Eisenhower administration
to oust Di?m because Eisenhower believed that he was unable to subdue the Binh Xuyen and unify the country. By evening, a large part of the inner city was engulfed in
house-to-house combat
. By the morning of April 29, the fighting had driven thousands of civilians onto the streets. A square mile of the city, around the densely populated inner-city Chinese district of Ch? L?n where the Binh Xuyen had a stronghold, became a free-fire zone. Artillery and mortars leveled the poor districts of the city, killing five hundred civilians and leaving twenty thousand homeless. Observers described that fighting from both sides as lacking strategy and relying on brute-force attrition tactics. One of the few maneuvers that was considered tactical was an attempt by the VNA to cut off Binh Xuyen reinforcements by demolishing the bridge across the Saigon?Ch? L?n canal. This was made moot when the Binh Xuyen threw pontoon bridges across the canal. It appeared that the conflict would be determined by the side which was able to absorb the greater number of losses. Approximately 300 combatants were killed in the first day of fighting.
On the morning of April 28 in Washington,
John Foster Dulles
, the US Secretary of State phoned
J. Lawton Collins
to suspend moves aimed at replacing Di?m. Eisenhower had determined that these were to be put on hold pending the outcome of the VNA operation. Collins and Dulles clashed in the National Security Council meeting, with Collins vehemently calling for Di?m to be removed. Collins continued to argue that the attempt to destroy the Binh Xuyen by force would produce a civil war. The NSC endorsed Dulles’ position.
After 48 hours of combat, the VNA began to gain the upper hand.
Le Grand Monde
, previously
B?y Vi?n
’s largest gambling establishment, and temporarily serving as a Binh Xuyen citadel, was overrun by Di?m’s
paratroopers
after a struggle which caused heavy losses on both sides. The VNA then stormed one of the Binh Xuyen’s most heavily fortified strongholds, the
Petrus Ky High School
in Ch? L?n. By the time Collins had arrived back in South Vietnam on May 2, the battle was almost won. The Binh Xuyen forces were broken and in retreat and their command posts were levelled. B?y Vi?n’s headquarters was battered and his tigers, pythons and crocodiles inside had been killed by mortar attacks and shelling.
Aftermath
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B?y Vi?n escaped to Paris to live out his life on the profits of his criminal ventures, and the VNA pursued the Binh Xuyen remnants into the
Mekong Delta
near the
Cambodian
border. In Saigon, jubilant crowds gathered outside Di?m’s residence shouting “đ? đ?o B?o đ?i” (meaning “Down with B?o đ?i”).
References
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- Jacobs, Seth (2006).
Cold War Mandarin: Ngo Dinh Diem and the Origins of America's War in Vietnam, 1950?1963
. Rowman & Littlefield Publishers. pp. 70?80.
ISBN
0-7425-4447-8
.
- The Battle of Saigon
, by The ?Vinh Ngo.
External links
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| Events
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| Conflict
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| Impacts
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| Aftermath
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