The hard core of the pro-Communist rebel force numbers only some 2,000 tough Viet Minh guerrilla fighters.

* 1945 – August Revolution: Viet Minh led by Ho Chi Minh take power in Hanoi, Vietnam.

As a result of the Geneva Conference on Indochina, Cambodia was able to bring about the withdrawal of the Viet Minh troops from its territory and to withstand any residual impingement upon its sovereignty by external powers.

Ho Chi Minh, Vo Nguyen Giap, Viet Cong and select members of the Green Berets in the Vietnam War ( and the First Indochina War before that ).

* In Indochina the French government was facing the Viet Minh communist rebels and lost its Indochinese colonies during the First Indochina War in 1954 after the Battle of Dien Bien Phu.

General Zhang Fakui ( Chang Fa-kuei ), who based himself in Guangxi, established the Viet Nam Cach Menh Dong Minh Hoi meaning " Viet Nam Revolutionary League " in 1942, which was assisted by the VNQDD to serve the KMT's aims.

Viet Minh units occasionally made forays into Cambodian bases during their war against the French, and, in conjunction with the leftist government that ruled Thailand until 1947, the Viet Minh encouraged the formation of armed, left-wing Khmer Issarak bands.

According to the historian David P. Chandler, the leftist Issarak groups, aided by the Viet Minh, occupied a sixth of Cambodia's territory by 1952 ; and, on the eve of the Geneva Conference, they controlled as much as one half of the country.

The French Aviation navale drops napalm over Viet Minh guerrilla positions during an ambush ( December 1953 ).

* 1954 – First Indochina War: The Viet Minh take control of North Vietnam.

Among other activities, the OSS helped arm, train and supply resistance movements, including Mao Zedong's Red Army in China and the Viet Minh in French Indochina, in areas occupied by the Axis powers during World War II.

After the Soviet Union recognized the Viet Minh as the government of Vietnam in 1950, French Communists ( PCF ) took up the cause of Vietnam's independence.

In both cases, the Viet Minh and NLF were able to cut off the opposing army by capturing the surrounding rugged terrain.

* December 19 – Viet Minh forces begin a war against French occupying forces in Vietnam, succeeding in 1954 with France's surrender at Dien Bien Phu.

* May 19 – The Viet Minh is formed in Vietnam to overthrow the French Army in the nation.

* The Indochina Communist party, led by Ho Chi Minh, combines with the Nationalist party to form the Viet Minh.

* March 13 – French troops begin the battle against the Viet Minh in Dien Bien Phu.

* March 23 – In Vietnam, the Viet Minh capture the main airstrip of Dien Bien Phu.

* April 28 – U. S. Secretary of State John Foster Dulles accuses Communist China of sending combat troops to Indo-China to train the Viet Minh guerrillas.

for this are as follows: Wilfred P. Deac, " Road to the Killing Fields: The Cambodian War of 1970-1975 " ( Texas A & M University Press, 1997 ) pp. 61 – 2 ; Robert Dallek, " Nixon and Kissinger: Partners in Power ," ( Harper Collins, 2007 ), p. 191 ; Steve Heder " Cambodian Communism and the Vietnamse Model, Volume I: Imitation and Independence, 1930-1975 ," ( White Lotus Press, 2004 ), p. 156.: It seems likely that Lon Nol initially intended to strengthen his position against the North Vietnamese with the ultimate aim of preventing their troops ( and those of the Viet Cong ) from operating within Cambodian borders, and wished to apply pressure on Sihanouk to achieve this.

When the story begins, in 1971, helicopters are passing overhead, carrying supplies for what seems to be preparations for a Viet Cong offensive.

Nam Viet seems to be all that remains.

Regardless, it seems likely that the Viet Cong 5th Division did intend on ambushing the Australians, although they seem to have been ill-prepared to do so due to a lack of co-ordination which occurred following the morning of 17 August and the selection and occupation of the intended ambush position.

In this it seems that the Australians likely upset the Viet Cong plan, perhaps moving faster than the ARVN and US troops that they had previously fought, and what followed appears to have been an encounter battle as the two advancing forces clashed on open ground in a meeting engagement.

South Viet Nam's rice surplus for next year -- more than 300,000 tons -- may have been destroyed.

The Viet Cong, the Communist rebels, may have lost their stored grain and arms factories.

* 1966 – Vietnam War: The House Un-American Activities Committee begins investigations of Americans who have aided the Viet Cong.

The Red Cross of Viet Nam estimates that up to 1 million people are disabled or have health problems due to Agent Orange.

The native Montagnards of Vietnam's Central Highlands were also known to have used crossbows, as both a tool for hunting, and later, an effective weapon against the Viet Cong during the Vietnam War.

* August 16 – Vietnam War: The House Un-American Activities Committee starts investigating Americans who have aided the Viet Cong, with the intent to make these activities illegal.

** Vietnam War: The Pentagon tells U. S. President Lyndon B. Johnson that if planned major sweep operations to neutralize Viet Cong forces during the next year are to succeed, the number of American troops in Vietnam will have to be increased from 120, 000 to 400, 000.

US Army sources have claimed that the human wave attack tactic was adapted by the Viet Minh, and later by the Viet Cong and the Vietnam People's Army during the Indochina Wars.

Meanwhile, the Communist Chinese established the three-man fireteam concept as the three-man cell when they organized a regular army, and its organization seemed to have been disseminated throughout all of Asia's communist forces, perhaps the most famous of which are the PAVN / NVA ( People's Army of Vietnam / North Vietnamese Army ) and the Viet Cong.

Various accounts have asserted that during the Vietnam War, members of the Viet Cong sometimes made calculated use of disembowelment as a means of psychological warfare, to coerce and intimidate rural peasants.

The extent, however, to which this punishment was perpetrated may be impossible to gauge and while detailed accounts survive regarding how civilians were disemboweled by Viet Cong, the use of this torture appears to have been quite arbitrary and there is no record that such actions were sanctioned by the North Vietnamese government in Hanoi.

During the Vietnam War of the late 1960s, one account alleges that a village headman in South Vietnam who cooperated in some way with the South Vietnamese Army or with U. S. soldiers might have been impaled by local Viet Cong as a form of punishment for alleged collaboration.

In recent years Australia, Indonesia, New Caledonia, Maldives, Solomon Islands and Viet Nam have also successfully cultured H. scabra using the same technology and has since been expanded to other species.

Hoffman quipped for the press, " I regret that I have but one shirt to give for my country ," paraphrasing the last words of revolutionary patriot Nathan Hale ; meanwhile Rubin, who was wearing a matching Viet Cong flag, shouted that the police were Communists for not arresting him also.

There are also a large number of North Vietnamese and Viet Cong MIAs from the Vietnam war whose remains have yet to be recovered.

Many other North Vietnamese are believed to have been prevented from leaving by the Viet Minh.

The village people have no protection from the Viet Cong so they will not inform on them to the authorities .”

Underground conference rooms where campaigns such as the Tết Offensive were planned in 1968 have been restored, and visitors may enjoy a simple meal of food that Viet Cong fighters would have eaten.

Inspired in part by revolutionary Che Guevara, they have been compared to the French Maquis, Viet Cong, and the guerrillas of Josip Broz Tito in their tactics and effectiveness.

Although the Australians expected the Viet Cong to have withdrawn, a number of company-sized patrols would be dispatched in response.

The Viet Cong had been massing for another assault which would have likely destroyed D Company, yet the firepower and mobility of the armour broke their will to fight, forcing them to withdraw as night approached.