Evacuation Years

This sense of normal ended on August 24th, 1964, when the occurrences of the Gulf of Tonkin incident reignited conflict in the region. The following year, the United States government launched Operation Rolling Thunder and began the bombardment of cities in the northern regions. Packed housing in densely populated Hanoi posed a risk for the thousands of families living in the city. In response to this new threat, children from Hanoi and Hai Phong were relocated to families in the countryside while their parents continued to work in the city.

Lien and her younger sister were welcomed with open arms by farmer families. The city children ate at community kitchens organized by the townspeople and went to school in makeshift classrooms. Yet life in the countryside was not without its challenges. While the Vietnamese diet primarily consists of rice, due to wartime rationing, there was never enough food. Instead, people in the countryside raised chickens and ducks, and harvested crops and fruits such as wheat, yams, bananas, and other vegetables. Everyone, including the children, worked. From gathering firewood to digging for peanuts and yams to catching snails and crabs in the rice paddies, my grandma took on various chores during the evacuation years.

“Khổ vậy nhưng mà như thế cho nên bà mới hiểu được cái cuộc sống của nông thôn nó như thế nào”

“There was a lot of hardship, but because of that, I could understand what life was like in the countryside.”

Far from the cities, there was rarely any news about the conflict raging across the country. A transistor radio was too expensive and was reserved for top-ranking officers, while printed newspapers did not reach remote rural villages. The only access to the outside world was through letters that Lien and her sister sent to their parents in the city, which could take weeks to arrive. As the country was engulfed in revolutionary fervor, the countryside remained quiet.

“Thông tin hầu như là về chỗ của mình ở thôi. Hôm nay có máy bay đến không? Máy bay có bay qua không?”

“Information was mostly limited to what was happening right where we were. Would there be planes today? Would planes fly overhead?”

While these evacuation regions were isolated away from military targets and cities, the threat of carpet bombing still struck fear into evacuees. When planes flew overhead, sirens wailed as civilians rushed underground to escape danger. Lien’s classroom was dug deep into the ground, with trenches and tunnels leading to A-frame bunkers. While direct bomb hits were rare, the threat came from shrapnel and fragments of downed aircraft and anti-air rounds shot by the North Vietnamese.

“And what we feared most back then were what were called cluster bombs. If they lodged in your body, you would be badly injured. Back then, we were extremely afraid of them. But there was no money—no helmets, no proper protection of any kind. So we bundled straw together, sitting and making straw hats, and straw pads to wear on our backs. That way, when we ran, if shrapnel or cluster bomblets fell, they wouldn’t pierce straight into us.”

My grandma continued to live life as an evacuee for five years. Following reductions in bombing in 1968 and the enactment of Vietnamization, the city became safer, and Lien and her sister returned to their parents. Yet, to this day, she still vividly remembers the memories of life away in the countryside.