Vo Nguyen Giap: 'We were waiting for them'

Vo Nguyen Giap is the Vietnamese general who planned the Ho Chi Minh trail and defeated the French at Dien Bien Phu. In a rare interview with the author of a book about the trail, he recalls his part in defying the might of the US military

Virginia Morris
Friday August 25, 2006
Guardian Unlimited

The teacher turned military genius Vo Nguyen Giap, who celebrated his 95th birthday today, is one of the last connections with the days of Ho Chi Minh and the start of the fight against colonial rule.

Remarkably, his army originally consisted of 34 people. By the time of the ultimate battle against the French at Dien Bien Phu in May 1954, it was a conventional force of thousands with weapons supplied by China and the USSR. His army would eventually rise to be over a million-strong against the Americans.

General Giap still lives in the former French colonial villa in the capital, Hanoi, that has been his home for the past 60 years and where key decisions were made throughout the war. In the light and airy living room hangs just one photograph of Ho Chi Minh and Gen Giap in the early days of their guerrilla campaign against the French.