NU students engage with witness to history
On November 27, students in Dr. Stephen Connor’s third-year history course, Indochina at War, 1940-1975, had an opportunity to speak with a witness to history, Major Hoi B. Tran. Speaking from his home in California, Major Tran engaged with Nipissing students and answered questions for over an hour, recalling his own personal story of life and conflict in Vietnam.
Major Tran was born in Ha Noi Vietnam in 1935. A decade later, as a member of the Vanguard Youth Troop, he participated in Ho Chi Minh’s public declaration of an independent Vietnam. In 1953, Major Tran was conscripted into the French dominated Vietnamese Air Force as mechanic, participating in a number of actions including the Battle of Dien Bien Phu in 1954. When Vietnam was divided in 1954, he was evacuated to the South and would not see his family again until 1999.
In 1955, Major Tran transferred to the newly formed Republic of Vietnam Air Force (RVNAF) and graduated from the US Air Force Air Training Command in Texas. After the Gulf of Tonkin incident, he flew in the first mission over North Vietnam. During his time in the Vietnamese Air Force, Major Tran served in a number of roles: Instructor, Pilot, Flight Leader, Group Commander and Commander of the Political Warfare Division. In late 1968, Major Tran was transferred to the national commercial airline, Air Vietnam, serving as the personal pilot to Vice-President Nguyen Cao Ky as he attended the Paris Peace Talks that ultimately ended direct US participation in the Vietnam War.
In the wake of the 1975 invasion and collapse of the Republic of Vietnam, Major Tran was again a displaced person. Ultimately relocating to the United States, he worked for a number of government-sponsored agencies including the Demonstration Project for Asian Americans and Indochinese Service Center as well as in the private sector. In 1999, Major Tran was allowed to return to Ha Noi to visit his mother. He had not seen her in 45 years. Major Tran is the author of the highly praised memoir: A Vietnamese Fighter Pilot in an American War, published in 2011.