With 66 photos, 20 documents and 153 artefacts, the exhibition takes visitors back to the Vietnam of the twentieth century when France and the U.S. waged their wars of aggression against it.
The August Revolution brought an end to nearly 100 years of heroic Vietnamese struggle against French colonial rule. On September 2, 1945, President Ho Chi Minh formally declared to the world Vietnamese independence. However, the French returned, conspiring to usurp Vietnam’s sovereignty with financial and weapons assistance from the U.S. government.
After the French defeat, the U.S. violated the Geneva Agreements, directly interfering in Vietnam. They initiated schemes of long separation in Vietnam, and launched attacks over both North and South Vietnam. The U.S. government deployed a large military force of over six million troops in Vietnam, dropped 14.3 million tonnes of bombs and other ordnance on the country, and spent 676 billion dollars on the Vietnam War.
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On March 8, 1965, 3,500 U.S. Marines from the 3rd Battalion, 9th Marines, and 1st Battalion, 3rd Marine Regiment of the 9th Marine Expeditionary Brigade, waded ashore at Nam O Beach (Da Nang), becoming the first U.S. ground combat unit in Vietnam.
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Every eight-engine Boeing B-52 Stratofortress strategic bomber was equipped with a guidance system and carpet bombing and modern electronic attack capacity. They could carry over 27 tonnes of bombs (including normal and nuclear bombs of 500, 750 and 1,000 lb.), dropping them from a height of 9,100 metres.
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On April 30, 1975, the Vietnamese clinched an overwhelming victory. “Yet we were wrong, terribly wrong. We owe it to future generations to explain why,” conceded former Defence Secretary Robert McNamara. But these so-called misjudgements left behind terrible catastrophes for Vietnam and its people.