Secret Weapon Cellar

In a residential house, near the stairs, lies a cover assembled from six floor tiles. Beneath it, a concrete chamber more than eight meters long, two meters wide, and two and a half meters deep has survived; a concealed latch opens a passage through which one person could crawl. The cellar was dug beneath the floor for almost a year, and the soil was carried away in cardboard boxes so that no suspicious pile would grow in the yard. After the war, the family returned to the house, and the cellar was recognized as a national historic landmark.

In nineteen sixty-five, Trần Văn Lai was assigned to find a house near the presidential residence of South Vietnam. Lai belonged to the Saigon underground, but earned his living as a wealthy interior-finishing contractor. Under the name Mai Hồng Quế, he also worked at Independence Palace, had a pass, and knew its guards well. Now this profession was to help bring weapons almost to the very target of a future attack.

Lai sold two of his villas, bought three adjoining houses in an alley near Phan Đình Phùng Street, and acquired cars. Such an investment would have been hard to recover even if the operation succeeded. In one of the houses, he began digging a cellar. By day, the contractor continued his ordinary work, and by night he went beneath the floor with his wife, Đặng Thị Thiệp. She was about twenty years old. For almost a year, they removed soil, put it into cardboard boxes, and carried it away by car so that no suspicious pile would grow in the yard.

The result was a concrete chamber more than eight meters long, two meters wide, and two and a half meters deep. The entrance was made near the stairs. The cover was assembled from six glued floor tiles and fitted with a concealed latch: when the entire piece of floor was lifted, it opened a hole through which one person could crawl.

Lai's work explains both the choice of this house and the way it was supplied. A palace contractor did not arouse as much suspicion among patrols as an unfamiliar truck from the outskirts. Weapons arrived in batches, hidden inside wooden furniture, baskets, and other household loads. Over several trips, more than two tons were collected beneath the floor: automatic weapons, grenades, anti-tank grenade launchers, and hundreds of kilograms of explosives. All of this was among residential houses, a fifteen-minute drive from the palace.

On the night of January thirty-first, nineteen sixty-eight, fifteen fighters from the fifth detachment of the Saigon underground arrived here. They made up a small urban assault group of the National Liberation Front of South Vietnam. Their commander, Trương Hoàng Thanh, known in the underground as Tô Hoài Thanh, was to lead the men into Independence Palace. The fighters took the weapons from the cellar, distributed them among the cars, and left the alley at half past one. Fifteen minutes later, the cars stopped at the palace's side gate on Nguyễn Du Street.

The explosive charge at the gate did not go off. The detachment could not get inside, and the fighting continued outside. By morning, seven people had been killed, including Trương Hoàng Thanh. The remaining eight, half of them wounded, took shelter in a neighboring house and held out for almost another day. When their ammunition ran out, seven were taken prisoner; the eighth fighter was killed. So of the fifteen people who armed themselves in this cellar, not one returned here free.

Four days later, the house itself was found. The property was confiscated, and Trần Văn Lai was declared wanted. He left Saigon and continued to hide under an assumed name; Đặng Thị Thiệp was left alone to raise six children and earned money through small-scale trading. After the war, the family returned to this house, and in nineteen eighty-eight the cellar was recognized as a national historic landmark.

Near the stairs, the cover made of six tiles still lies in place. Beneath it, the concrete chamber has survived, and weapons for fifteen people were brought up from it fifteen minutes before the battle.