Introduction

WARNING: This is not light reading and is only lightly illustrated. However, I have included it on this site because of it's significance in relation to any consideration of the NVA and VC military. MikeR.

In researching the National Liberation Front (NLF) it has become apparent that a great deal more is known and has been recorded regarding it's politics and ideology than is available regarding the detailed organization of it's parallel military forces. As a consequence, whilst it has been possible to discover the hierarchical structure of the NLF military, I have encountered considerable difficulty in uncovering the details of their battlefield organisation in terms of established Tables of Organization and Equipment.

One of the major difficulties in this area is due in great part to the very nature of the NLF forces themselves. In spite of having an organisational pattern that mirrored that of their northern counterparts, the PAVN, as an insurgency army it was almost impossible for them to maintain manpower and equipment at levels that allowed it to field units even closely resembling that of 'official' TO&E. The manner in which the NLF was forced to recruit, coupled with irregular and erratic lines of supply coming down the Ho Chi Minh trail, precluded the maintenance of any such 'neat' organisational structures. Whilst the United States itself, although for different reasons than the NLF, had considerable difficulties in keeping units up to establishment strength, the problem was of a different magnitude for the NLF. Hence it is possible that the structure of an NLF unit in one month of the war could vary considerably with that of the same unit just a few weeks later.

In this respect it is also important to remember that the military forces of the NLF were not organised, and did not operate, along the lines of orthodox western military forces. This is difficult to grasp (it certainly was for me) since it precludes any exact or meaningful construction of TO&E's in the western sense - it is unlikely that the NLF, unlike the Free World Forces, ever published such Tables, and I certainly have been unable to find any evidence that points to, or indicates, the existence of such.

As a consequence of this, all information pertaining to the TO&E's of NLF units in this section should be viewed as generalised rather than specific. Since the majority of the information comes from US intelligence sources by way of interviews with captured NLF soldiers as well as Chieu Hoi's it is necessary to approach these sources with a degree of scepticism with regard to their accuracy. This is not to suggest that the information has little or no validity, since there is also considerable input from US Army Order of Battle analysts as well as from the mountains of captured documents, but that what information is presented cannot be relied upon as being definitive - a look at the example given in a later section, the structure of the 514th 'Ap Bac' Provincial Mobile Battalion, clearly illustrates the availability of conflicting accounts regarding unit structure and hence the problems surrounding any research in this particular field.

A further essential point to bear in mind when studying the NLF military is that it's role was always perceived as being secondary to the political aims of the NLF and that it's role was primarily one of supporting the overall revolutionary movement. Within this framework the military forces were nonetheless represented at all levels of the movement. In fact, the military organisation paralled that of the political organisation although the political commissar of each military unit held the rank of the chairman of the political unit one step higher up in the hierarchy - in effect he outranked the military commander to whose unit he was attached.

The subordination of the military forces to the political was constantly emphasised. An NLF indoctrination booklet dealing with the organization of the Liberation armed forces made this relationship quite clear. It declared that three organizational principles must be followed:

• Organization must conform to political lines...
• The Liberation Army is a fighting army and therefore must be highly centralized, with inferiors obeying superiors... There must be discipline...
• The army political tasks are fundamental: There must be unity between cadres and men, between army and people...

It is of prime importance that these three principles be fully understood. They ensure that military action is subordinated to political action, that the army is united, and that the people are closely united with the army. They win over the members of the enemy, subvert enemy morale and organization, and ultimately completely annihilate enemy resistance....

The NLF military, certainly as depicted in various NLF documents, stands in sharp contrast to Western military establishments; not only the role but also the very nature of the military arm was regarded as unique by the NLF. For example, the indoctrination booklet just quoted described what might be called the myth of creation of the NLF army:

The people themselves had a hand in the birth of the SVN Liberation Army. The RVN people were deeply resentful of the US-Diem fascist regime. This resentment caused them to stage armed uprisings to crush the oppressive military might and liberate themselves and exterminate the US-Diem regime. Hence the Liberation Army stems from the people and fights for the people... The RVN Liberation Army is a heroic armed force of the Vietnamese working people. The people have made many sacrifices and have fought gallantly in order to build up the present Liberation Army. The people themselves have killed enemy troops and seized their weapons in order to build up its strength. The people have fed and protected the army. The people have committed themselves to getting youngsters to enlist in the revolutionary forces. The Communist Party organized the present Liberation Army, led it, trained and built up its human factors. The Communist Party guided the Liberation Army in successive stages, in methods of work, fighting, and organization, all of which are bound to ensure success. The Communist Party indoctrinated and trained the Liberation Army unceasingly and raises its present high level of political awareness... It has stressed the 5 important factors of development, which are the rural population, fighting spirit, equipment and materiel conditions, quantity and quality of manpower, and cadres...

This propogandized and romanticized picture places the NLF military forces within a clearly defined political and idealogical framework - their role was clearly considered subservient to the NLF in military-civilian terms. The army was inextricably bound up with the rest of the organization, from the NLF National Central Committee to the village committee. As previously mentioned, Liberation Army representatives sat at all committee levels as an integral part of the organization so that there was no such thing as NLF army autonomy; the military arm was totally integrated with the over-all operation. In addition, within the military apparatus the political officer, or political commissar, served as a further mechanism of political control over the officer corps.