The Ho Chi Minh trail (known in Vietnam as the "Trường Sơn trail") was a logistical system that ran from the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (North Vietnam) to the Republic of Vietnam (South Vietnam) through the neighboring kingdoms of Laos and Cambodia. The system provided support, in the form of manpower and materiel, to the National Front for the Liberation of South Vietnam (called the Vietcong or "VC" by its opponents) and the People's Army of Vietnam (PAVN), or North Vietnamese Army, during the Vietnam War.
It was named by the Americans for North Vietnamese president Hồ Chí Minh. Although the trail was mostly in Laos, the communists called it the Trường Sơn Strategic Supply Route, after the Vietnamese name for the Annamite Range mountains in central Vietnam. According to the United States National Security Agency's official history of the war, the Trail system was "one of the great achievements of military engineering of the 20th century."
Read more about Ho Chi Minh Trail: Origins (1959–1965), Interdiction and Expansion (1965–1968), Commando Hunt (1968–1970), Road To PAVN Victory (1971–1975)
Famous quotes containing the word trail:
“Perhaps of all our untamed quadrupeds, the fox has obtained the widest and most familiar reputation.... His recent tracks still give variety to a winter’s walk. I tread in the steps of the fox that has gone before me by some hours, or which perhaps I have started, with such a tip-toe of expectation as if I were on the trail of the Spirit itself which resides in the wood, and expected soon to catch it in its lair.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)