Battle for Saigon was a month-long battle between theVietnamese National Army of the State of

Vietnam (later to become the Army of the Republic of Vietnam) and the private army of the Bnh
Xuyn organised crime syndicate. At the time, the Bnh Xuyn was licensed with controlling the
national police by Emperor Bo i, and Prime Minister Ng nh Dim issued an ultimatum for
them to surrender and come under state control. The battle started on April 27, 1955 and the VNA
had largely crushed the Bnh Xuyn within a week. Fighting was mostly concentrated in the inner city
Chinese business district of Cholon. The densely crowded area saw some 500-1000 deaths and up
to 20,000 civilians made homeless in the cross-fire. In the end, the Bnh Xuyn were decisively
defeated, their army disbanded and their vice operations collapsed.
Contents
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1Prelude

2Battle

3Aftermath

4References

5External links

Prelude[edit]
On the midnight of 2930 March, explosions rocked Saigon as the Bnh Xuyn responded to Dim's
removal of its police chief. 200 Bnh Xuyn troops launched an attack on VNA headquarters. The
clashes were inconclusive, with the VNA suffering six deaths to their opponents' 10, but by sunrise,
the bodies of civilians littered the sidewalk.

Battle[edit]
The final battle between Dim's VNA and the Bnh Xuyn began on April 28 at mid-day.[1] After initial
small-arms fire and mortar exchanges, the VNA resorted to the heaviest artillery in its arsenal. This
coincided with growing calls from within the Eisenhower administration to oust him because
Eisenhower believed that he was unable to subdue the Bnh Xuyn and unify the country. By
evening, a large part of the inner city was engulfed in house-to-house combat. By the morning of
April 28, the fighting had driven thousands of civilians onto the streets. A square mile of the city,
around the densely populated inner-city Chinese district of Cholon where the Bnh Xuyn had a
stronghold, became a free-fire zone. Artillery and mortars leveled the poor districts of the city, killing
five hundred civilians and leaving twenty thousand homeless. Observers described that fighting from
both sides as lacking strategy and relying on brute-force attrition tactics. One of the few maneuvers
that were considered tactical was an attempt by the VNA to cut off Bnh Xuyn reinforcements by
demolishing the bridge across the Saigon-Cholon canal. This was made moot when the Bnh Xuyn
threw pontoon bridges across the canal. It appeared that the conflict would be determined by the
side which was able to absorb the greater number of losses. Approximately 300 combatants were
killed in the first day of fighting.