Dong Loc Junction

Đồng Lộc Junction is a memorial for 10 women who died here on July 24, 1968 during an American bombardment. The junction is at the start of the Ho Chi Mihn Trail. An area which was very heavily bombed during the Vietnam War. There are several bomb craters to be found in the area. The pond on picture 3 is also a bomb crater.

During the war, the crossroads of Đồng Lộc was the most important spot on the legendary Trường Sơn – Hồ Chí Minh route. Trucks carrying soldiers, food, weapons and ammunition from the north to the battlefields to the south drove through the intersection.
From 1965 to 1968, the US military dropped nearly 50,000 bombs and fired tens of thousands of rockets at the Đồng Lộc T-junction in the ng Lộc Commune to close off the transport route to the Southern Front.
All human resources were mobilized by the Vietnamese government at the time to ensure that the way would be cleared.
During that period, 16,000 Vietnamese soldiers sacrificed themselves in this area, on the portion of the trail just south of the Đồng Lộc T-junction.
The war was intense, but the youth volunteer force was determined and never afraid. The spirit was like this: "our blood can stop flowing, our hearts can stop beating, but the transport cannot be cut off."

With such determination, 10 young female volunteers on the Hồ Chí Minh trail leveling bomb craters were buried alive by bombs dropped by US troops.
At noon on the 15th day since the bombing began, a bomb fell very close to the cave entrance where these female transport volunteers, ages 17 to 24, were at work leveling bomb craters to reopen the intersection .
Their sacrifice remains immortal and has become a symbol of Vietnamese heroism.

After National Reunification Day, the Hồ Chí Minh Communist Youth Union Central Committee decided to build a victory monument at the T-junction of Đồng Lộc. The intersection has now become a relic site. On the hill, surrounded by pine trees, a monument was erected on which the names of the 10 heroines are engraved.

Bomb grenades collected on the battlefield of Đồng Lộc were arranged in the shape of an airplane crashing from the sky.

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Source

• Text: Stef Spakman & TracesOfWar.nl
• Photos: Stef Spakman