Giao-Lien

The Vietnam War is one of the most documented conflicts in recent history but one of the forgotten aspects of the war was the vast underground network of the Viet Cong which ran from each American Base straight to the war rooms of Hanoi. This book concentrates on the women who carried out this exceedingly dangerous work who were known as giao lien - translated as 'communications and guides'. The giao lien were a mass underground organization linking military nerve-centres to grassroots Communist Party cells. Some were guerrilla fighters, others spies or links between individual agents. Their aim was to join Communist cells across Indochina directly to General Giap's general Headquarters in Hanoi. Using personal diaries, battle plans and the help of Vietnamese veteran associations, the authors tell the stories of these brave fighters: the woman who blew up a Boeing 707 in Honolulu in 1962 leading to America thinking that Vietnam would invade them on their soil, the woman who guided soldiers during the Tet offensive and who for the first time reveals the official battle plans for it, and the now Vice Prime Minister of Vietnam who spent nine months in a 'tiger cage' torture cell.