When Death Strikes & Bombs Rain Over The Sky of Ha Long Bay, Gulf of Tonkin

Ha Long Bay, a UNESCO World Heritage site (1994). The Dreadful Past. These days Ha Long Bay presents picture-perfect scenery of unmatchable beauty. There are about 2000 limestone outcrop small islands bobbling in the azure sea in the bay which forms part of the Gulf of Tonkin separating Vietnam and China. Between 1966 and April 1975 danger and fear lurked in the waters as the surrounding seas were the hunting ground of the aircraft carriers and the other war-ships of the US Seventh Fleet. From the aircraft carriers naval planes were launched and together with the giant B-52 bombers from bases in Okinawa and Guam bombing raids were made over Hanoi and the industrial cities in North Vietnam especially Haiphong. Submarines stalked Soviet and Chinese ships carrying war material bound for North Vietnamese ports. Aerial dog-fights between the North Vietnamese MIG-21 and the US F-4 Phantom fighter-bombers, F-105 Thunderchief fighters and A-4 Skyhawks bombers provided an unwelcome relief to the humdrum of daily life.One of the naval pilots shot down was Lt. Commander John McCain whose A-4 Skyhawk was hit by a Soviet-made anti-aircraft missile after dropping bombs over a thermal power plant in central Hanoi on November 26 1967. He ejected safely but almost got drowned as his parachute landed in Truc Bach Lake a short distance from the Presidential Palace and The Citadel. He was imprisoned in "Hanoi Hilton" and was released on March 15 1973 after the Paris Peace Accord. He is now Senator John McCain a presidential hopeful. Nowadays if you are mesmerised by the karstic landscape of Guilin you will certainly be enthralled by similar limestone crags but with the seascape thrown in.
Ha Long Bay cruise junks equipped with cabins. Reminiscence. Those were troubled times then. The years 1966 and 1967 were my Pre-U days and in the next four years I was an under-graduate. Like many youths of that generation we were influenced by the almost daily war protests and demonstrations in the colleges and universities all over the United States and many other countries. We were horrified by the shootings and killings of four students on May 4 1970 by the Ohio National Guardsmen. Anti-war songs such as "The Times They Are A Changin" and "Blowing In The Wind" both by pacifist-activist singer Bob Dylan were the "international anthems" of angry, disenchanted and alienated youths of that era. Our rallying cry was "Make Love Not War".
As the war worn on it became increasingly unpopular and more young American youths had to be drafted into the military using public lottery draw based on their birth dates. My primary and lower secondary classmate SL Yee who lived in one of the shophouses along Batu Road (now Jalan Tuanku Abdul Rahman) was drafted into the US army.He is a cousin of my travelling companion, Siew Kong. He saw fierce action in Vietnam and he survived the war to tell us horror war stories. He had emigrated in 1962 to join an aunt who operated a supermarket in Phoenix, Arizona as Chinese people then no longer operated laundry business and the men opened railroads throughout America unlike the 1800s and the early 20th century. Another secondary school senior joined the renown "Green Berets" (a movie of the same name was made in the 1970s) but after a brief stint in the jungles of Vietnam he fled to Sweden on political asylum as a "conscientious objector" either due to disillusionment with the war or he feared death. Mohamad Ali, (previously Cassius Clay), the boxer, too dodged military draft as he claimed that his religion forbids wars and killings.
We sang: "Yes, 'n' how many times must cannon balls fly. Before they're forever banned.......How many times must a man look up. Before he can see the sky. Yes and how many ears must one man have. Before he can hear people cry? Yes how many deaths will it take. Till he knows that too many people have died? The answer my friend is blowing in the wind. The answer is blowing in the wind."
Ha Long Bay, Floating Fishing Village. Trepidation. Unfortunately my generation bore witness to many newspapers, Life, Time and Newsweek as well as radio and TV reports on suspense-filled events such as 77-day seige of South Vietnamese-US manned fortress at Khe Sanh by combined Vietcong and North Vietnamese troops from January 21 1968 to April 8 1968. The World's attention was also gripped by the Tet (Lunar New Year) Offensive launched by the Communist forces starting on January 30 1968 and ending on September 23 1968. The US and the rest of the World were outraged by Huynh Cong Ut's photo taken on June 8 1972 which showed an image of a naked terrified crying 9-year old girl Phan Thi Kim Phuc fleeing from a napalm attack on her village.
Ha Long Bay Islets of Imaginable and Unimaginable Shapes and Forms. Happier Times. Since the unification of North and South Vietnam on April 30 1975 but was immediately followed by the tragic fleeing of thousands of "boat people" (many of whom perished in the South China seas ) Vietnam saw better times from the mid-1980s. With the opening of her doors to foreigners, investments poured into Vietnam including many from Overseas Vietnamese known as Viet Kieu. Tourism too boomed and many of her visitors are returning Americans and Frenchmen or their descendants. They tried to re-live the lives of their loved ones in a land far away from home. Some 58,000 American soldiers were killed in Vietnam. Their names were immortalised on the walls of the Vietnam Veterans Monument in Washington DC. I had visited the Monument and recalled the air of solemnity at the site. Millions of Vietnamese perished but there were too many casualties to be accounted for or named. They were forgotten, unmourned, unremembered not even by name_even a number is more soulful.

Ha Long City's Bai Chay town. Friendship & Amity. With new friends at the tourist wharf where cruise boats to Ha Long Bay are moored. This photo shows yours truly with his travelling companion Siew Kong on the far right. In between were two young Chinese couples one from Shanghai and the other from Beijing. We met them on the cruise. So times are a changin' indeed. Vietnam now enjoys new-found friendship with China which had for centuries been their enemies. The most recent conflict was a border war with China in February 1979. Historically Vietnam had over the centuries swung between being a territory of China and an independent country. For some 1000 years from the Han dynasty to the Sung dynasty Vietnam was part of the Chinese empire. So Chinese culture and religious practices hold a strong grip over the lives of the Vietnamese people. Vietnam nowadays is very much a part of ASEAN in spirit, belief, thought and action. Another friend not easily forgotten was Markus Gamper an affable and jovial fresh university graduate from Heidelberg who was touring Vietnam with his much reserved fraulein. We, poking fun at him, called him Hans Fritz a throwback to our pre-teen days when we gobbled with gusto comics on the Second World War. In a similiar vein he addressed yours truly as Mr Lee in deference to Singapore's first prime minister and Siew Kong as Jackie Chan, a contemporary Chinese brand par excellence.
Don't you think this is true?: "Come gather 'round people. Wherever you roam. And admit that the waters around you have grown. And accept it that soon. You will be drenched to the bone. If your time to you is worth savin' Then you better start swimmin' Or you sink like a stone. For the times they are a changin' " Bob Dylan, "The Times They Are A Changin'"