Activities and affiliations

Military command Vietnam 1911–2013 ○ Natural causes

The history teacher who defeated two empires without ever attending a military academy

As a young history teacher at a Hanoi lycée, he would sketch detailed Napoleonic campaign plans on the blackboard. His students called him 'the General.' Fifteen years later he accepted the French surrender at Dien Bien Phu.

A history teacher with no formal military training who built the Viet Minh army and defeated France at Dien Bien Phu (1954), then the United States in the war that followed. As the first commander of a colonial liberation force to break a modern imperial army in pitched battle, he spent three decades building the People's Army into a mechanised combined-arms force and perfecting a people's war aimed at breaking the enemy's political will.

Military command Vietnam 1916–2001 ○ Natural causes

South Vietnamese general who led the 1963 coup and ordered the 1975 surrender

On 30 April 1975, as Saigon fell, he ordered the surrender that ended South Vietnam's war.

Dương Văn Minh was a general in the Army of the Republic of Vietnam and served under Ngô Đình Diệm. He led the 1963 coup that overthrew Diệm and headed the junta, but Nguyễn Khánh displaced him in 1964. Minh became president in April 1975 and ordered the surrender to North Vietnamese forces on 30 April, as Saigon fell. He later emigrated to France and died in California.

Military command Vietnam 1917–2002 ○ Natural causes

Vietnamese general who led the 1975 spring offensive to Saigon and directed the 1979 invasion of Cambodia and border war with China

As commander of the April 1975 Saigon–Gia Định campaign, he directed the offensive that brought down South Vietnam's government.

Born at Từ Liêm near Hanoi, he joined the Communist Party in 1936. He fought at Điện Biên Phủ and was chief of the General Staff in 1953–1954 and 1954–1978. He commanded the 1975 spring offensive in the field that ended with the fall of Saigon, then directed the invasion of Khmer Rouge Cambodia and the 1979 border war with China. Succeeding Võ Nguyên Giáp as defence minister in 1980, he served until 1987 and sat on the Politburo from 1976 to 1986. He died in Hanoi in 2002.

Military command Vietnam 1923–2001 → Died in exile

General who was president of South Vietnam from 1967 to 1975, opposed the Paris Peace Accords and resigned days before the fall of Saigon

Nguyễn Văn Thiệu headed South Vietnam’s military regime from 1965 and became president in 1967, serving until 1975. He resigned on 21 April 1975, denounced the United States for betraying South Vietnam, and left the country.

Born in Phan Rang, he joined the Viet Minh in 1945 but left after a year for the army of the State of Vietnam. He joined the November 1963 coup against Diệm, was made a general and in 1965 became the junta’s nominal head of state. He won the presidency in a rigged election in 1967 and was re-elected unopposed in 1971 after rivals were barred or withdrew. He opposed the 1973 Paris Peace Accords but signed them. On 21 April 1975 he resigned, declaring that the United States had betrayed South Vietnam, and left for Taiwan; he later lived near Boston and died in 2001.