| Photo Information |
Copyright: Terez Anon (terez93)
![Gold Star Critiquer/Gold Star Workshop Editor/Gold Note Writer [C: 57 W: 72 N: 209]](http://i1.trekearth.com/misc/g-g-g.gif) (530) |
| Genre: Places |
| Medium: Color |
| Date Taken: 2001-12 |
| Categories: Daily Life |
| Photo Version: Original Version |
| Date Submitted: 2007-12-07 10:47 |
| Viewed: 716 |
| Points: 0 |
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| [Note Guidelines] Photographer's Note |
From daily life circa 1975; this was taken at the Reunification Palace during our tour. We went down into the basement and all this equipment was stored there. Technology such as that in the photo is what people were working with at the time of the Vietnam War.
Reunificaiton Palace in Ho Chi Minh City was formerly known as Independence or Norodom Palace. It was designed by architect Ngo Viet Thu. It served as the residence and workplace of the President of South Vietnam during the war and it was the site of the oficial handover during the Fall of Saigon on April 30, 1975. A famous photo shows an NVA tank crashing through the gates. This building has been witness to some of the country's most tumultuous times. In 1962, two pilots bombed the hall in what is known as the South Vietnamese Presidential Palace Bombing. Almost all the left wing was destroyed. Then-president Ngo Dinh Diem ordered the entire structure town down and rebuilt on the site of the old one. The new palace was completed in 1966 but President Diem never saw the completed building; he and his brother were assassinated in 1963. New chairman Nguyen Van Thieu lived and worked there from October 1967 until April, 1975. The hall was again bombed in April, 1975, but not damaged significantly. Today, two painted circles (!) mark the place where the bombs fell. In November 1975, the Provisional Government of the Republic of South Vietnam renamed the building Reunification Hall. It now serves as a museum, preserved exactly as it was the day of the Fall. It's interesting because all this "old technology," state-of-the-art for the day, such as telephones and radio transmitters are still in place! It's a three-dimensional snapshot of the nerve center of one of the twentheth century's most significant events. |
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