(VIETNAMESE HISTORY) complex network of mountain roads and trails leading from the mountain highlands west of Hanoi to the
Mekong river delta. This was used by the People's Army of Vietnam (
PAVN) between 1959 and 1975 to infiltrate the putative "
Republic of Vietnam" (South Vietnam). The network had some 16,000 Km (10,000 miles) of roads.
The road was named for Vietnamese leader Ho Chi Minh, leader of the Viet Minh and Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV); construction began on his birthday (9 May 1959).
The road was built at enormous sacrifice by the Vietnamese and their allies in the Lao & Khmer peasantry. During most of the Second Indochina War, it was a primary target of US bombing raids. After creating a puppet state in Saigon, the US military sealed off the 17th parallel between the two sectors of Vietnam; so PAVN forces bypassed the DMZ and cut through Laos and Cambodia. The US military thus intervened militarily in Laos (against the pro-Communist
Pathet Lao) and in Cambodia (against the Khmer Communist Party, or Khmer Rouge).
The Ho
Chi Minh Trail was a constant target for B-52 bombers, but bombing failed to stop traffic on it. As a consequence, the US organized the
ouster of the Cambodian monarchy in 1970, so it could use the puppet junta to get permission for invading Cambodia.
The USA dropped an astonishing volume of high explosives on Cambodia in the hopes of shutting down the Ho Chi Minh Trail.
The National Liberation Front (
NLF, or "Viet Cong") was supported by supplies from the Ho Chi Minh Trail.