Quang Tri Citadel has gone down in history as a glorious period of Vietnam’s war against foreign invasion. The Vietnamese people are proud of it, and foreigners admire it. Tourists in Vietnam travel coming there will feel how devastating the war was when looking at its walls riddled with bullet holes.
Quang Tri Citadel is situated in the heart of Quang Tri town, Quang Tri
province. It was a military bastion and it was also an administrative
head office of Nguyen Dynasty in Quang Tri Province (1809 -1945).
The citadel, which was built in 1824, during the 4th year of the reign of Minh Mang, is approximately 60km north of Hue.
Quang
Tri citadel had a style of Vauban architecture with its circuit of
2,160m – one door each side. There were four fortresses jutting out from
each four corners to control the four citadel gates. Inside was the
town palace surrounded by a system of thick walls with circuit of 400m.
The town palace was a three-roomed house whose two wings were used as
places for the King to worship, and to give promotions to his inferiors
or to occasionally celebrate festivals. Outside the town palace, there
were a flagpole and castles such as Tuan Vu, An Sat and Lanh Binh and a
rice store, etc and under the French domination, soldier camp and tax
agency were added. However there are no remains of the past there
nowadays – due to the destruction of U.S bombs in the hot summer of
1972.
The
incident of 81 days and nights (from June 28 to September 16, 1972) has
made this citadel well-known all over the world. By using fire-power,
the South Vietnam puppet troop was determined to re-occupy Quang Tri
Citadel within a couple of days. Quang Tri Town, therefore, had to
suffer from the U.S bombardment and shelling of 140 B52 aircraft in
turn, more than 200 tactical planes, 12 – 16 fighter planes and
cruisers. Within 40 days and nights it had suffered 80,000 tons of bombs
– as many as that in the World War II in African battlefield within a
month. Sometimes the number of bombs dropped in Quang Tri a day was far
more than that on the whole South battlefield in the years of 1968-1969.
Especially, on July 25, there were 5,000 shells fired at an area of
3km2 of Quang Tri and its vicinity once suffered 20,000 shells of big
size a day. The US aggressors used bombs and shells with their
destructive capacity, to destroy Quang Tri, equivalent to 7 atomic bombs
they dropped onto Hiroshima and Nagasaki – Japan in 1945. It is,
really, unbelievable that each inhabitant in this land had to suffer 7
tons of bombs averagely. All were determined, side by side with Quang
Tri to fight to their last breath. The Northern people had saved
everything such as: ammunition, food and etc. to send to Quang Tri.
The citadel has gone down in history
as a glorious period of the nation’s war against foreign invasion. The
Vietnamese people are proud of it, and foreigners admire it.
Looking at its walls riddled with bullet holes, visitors joining tours in Vietnam
will feel how devastating the war was. In order to commemorate the
soldiers’ meritorious service, a monument was set up in the centre of
the citadel as a symbol of the indomitable spirit of the Quang Tri
people and army and as a token of gratitude to the sacrifices of the
fallen soldiers for the independence and freedom of the nation.
Quang Tri Citadel is the can-not-be-missed place for tourists in Vietnam travel who like discovering Vietnam’s history and admire brave patriotic Vietnamese people in the war.
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