A very personal Viet Cong flag from veteran Dao Van Duc
This National Liberation front Flag is part of an extraordinary grouping of Viet Cong flags, memorabilia and combatant's personal items which were acquired in Vietnam by Mr. Jean Phillipe Martinet from a Viet Cong veteran named Dao Van Duc. In addition to two Viet Cong (VC) flags, the grouping contained many of the ephemeral personal items a VC soldier would have for use in the field, including: an enameled metal eating bowl with an attachment ring; two sets of chopsticks, one aluminum the other ebony; two knives, one a belt knife the other a utility camp knife; a homemade web equipment belt, an oil lamp, two lighters, a woven pith helmet, a VC insignia, a selection of VC medals, a VC newspaper dated 2 September 1968 and a VC propaganda booklet about the Battle of Keh Sanh, also dated 1968.
While both trophy and GI bringback VC flags are common in the US; flags accompanied by such groupings of personal equipment rarely leave Vietnam and are uncommon in the West. They reveal a great deal about the life of the average VC soldier, most of the equipment is homemade field expedients. Particularly interesting are the knives; both are believed to have been made in the field, the handles of the camp knife seem to be made of Plexiglas, possible salvaged from an American aircraft, similarly for the aluminum chopsticks, which are also likely salvaged from aircraft aluminum.
Mr. Martinet acquired these artifacts while he was employed by the venerable French water company Lyonnaise des Eaux which specializes in water services and sanitation for local communities and industry in France and former French possessions. From 1989 to 1998 Mr. Martinet traveled often in the Ty Ninh area, and befriended the Viet Cong veteran Dao Van Duc and his family from Trai Bi, between Tay Ninh and the Cambodian Border.
Ty Ninh is the name of both a city and a province of Vietnam. The town is located approximately 90 kilometers (54 miles) northwest of Hồ Ch Minh City, Vietnam's capital and largest city. Ty Ninh is most famous for being the home of the Cao Äi religion, a syncretistic and monotheistic religion which is an indigenous Vietnamese faith that includes the teachings of several major world religions. The Cao Äi religion's Holy See, built between 1933 and 1955, is located around 5 km to the east of Ty Ninhs town centre.
It is not known where Dao Van Duc served while he was with the VC; but during the Vietnam War Ty Ninh was the site of large semi-permanent US hospital, the 45th Surgical Hospital. The 45th was a Medical Unit Self-Contained Transportable (MUST) unit, established in 1966 the hospital was the site of numerous VC mortar and rocket attacks throughout its existence.
After the war Dao Van Duc became a municipal official of the city council of Cu Chi, a suburb of Hồ Ch Minh City and the nexus of the Viet Cong's Cu Chi tunnel complex, which was a major base of operations from which the Viet Cong participated in the Tet Offensive in January & February 1968.
This Viet Cong flag is typical of the flags of the era; it is made of locally available silk, and only has the star on one side indicating that it was designed to hang against a wall instead of flying from a free standing pole, or carried.
The Viet Cong or the National Front for the Liberation (NLF) of South Vietnam (NLF) was both an organized political and military body in South Vietnam and Cambodia that engaged in a an intensive guerrilla war-campaign against the United States and South Vietnamese governments during the Vietnam War (1955-1975). It had both guerrilla and regular army units, as well as a network of cadres who organized peasants in the territory it controlled.
The NLF of Vietnam adopted a horizontally red over blue flag with a yellow star in the centre in 1960, and was based on the 1955 flag of North Vietnam, a single golden yellow five point star on a red field. This flag was also the flag of the (communist) Republic of South Vietnam, adopted on 8 June, 1969. It became de facto the only flag of South Vietnam on April, 30, 1975 (when the anti-communist regime collapsed) and 2 July 1975 (when North and South Vietnam were united as the Socialist Republic of Vietnam).
The "Vietcong" flag was simply a Communist flag with a blue half. The blue half was rapidly abolished on May 1st 1975 after the "reunification speech" of Le Duan, who was the then Communist Party's Secretary General, in Saigon. Founding members of the NLF (e.g. Nguyen Ho^.) now admit that they were simply Communist Vietnam (North Vietnam) agents with a different flag. Nguyen Ho^ was placed under house arrest for revealing these secrets.
This flag, unlike the majority of flags in collections and institutions in the US, was neither captured nor taken as either a trophy or booty, but rather a gift from a veteran who survived the war and kept it amongst his personal possessions.
ZFC Significant Flag
Sources:
National Liberation Front (Vietcong), Flags of the World, 17 November 2011, from: http://www.crwflags.com/fotw/flags/vn-vcong.html
Vietcong, Wikipedia, 17 November 2011, from:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viet_Cong
Ty Ninh, Wikipedia, 17 November 2011, from:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tay_Ninh
Caodaism, 17 November 2011, from:
http://www.wix.com/lamdathoa/intro/page-1
Muzzio, Robert, The History of the 45th Surgical Hospital, 45th SURGICAL HOSPITAL TAY NINH VIET NAM 17 November 2011, from:
http://the45thsurg.freeservers.com/History.html
Củ Chi tunnels, Wikipedia, 17 November 2011, from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C%E1%BB%A7_Chi_tunnels
Image Credits:
Zaricor Flag Collection
