North Vietnamese Army Lt’s Diary with Ho Chi Minh Cover

A rare NVA Diary consisting of about 55 pages. The handwriting inside covers just about every page with Ho Chi Minh on the cover. We believe this to be the diary of an NVA Cadre who was commanding a VC Unit in the far South.

The first written inscription on the first page says Lieutenant Army Officer. Below that are designation for 339 Division, 979 Unit, 9th Region. The 339th was formally a brigade size unit of NVA who fought the Royal Laotian Army in 1962. The 969 unit is likely a small VC unit he commanded. NVA Military Region 9 covered the southernmost part of South Vietnam (Ghau Doc, An Giang, Vinh Long, Vinh Binh, Phong Dinh, Ba Xuyen, Kien Giang, Bac Lieu and An Xuyen provinces). (This was largely the Viet Cong’s MR 3.)

Another inscription indicates it is from the Saigon-Gia Dinh Special Zone. Of course the VC were not operating their headquarters in Saigon during the War. Instead, this name simply reflects the area where this Lt’s High Political Command was near. We have other VC Documents from the Saigon Gia Dinh District. The Saigon-Gia Dinh Special Zone was secretly organized in 1960 to conduct clandestine Party work in the heart of the RVN. As you know military organizations were always controlled by political organizations in the NVA and VC. It was the Party who decided what the military would do.

Some pages inside have outlines of typical NVA forms such as awards.

Two photos were inside with two sisters and another who might be a wife or girlfriend.

As is typical the writing was done in various colored pencils like those found in an NVA Mapcase.

These items were supposed to be turned in for intelligence exploration so few survived in the hands of GIs or Marines who would have been the first to see it in the field.