It seems on the morning of March 15th a fragmentation grenade went off in an officer’s barracks in Bien Hoa killing two gung-ho lieutenants. who refuses to be a victim of racism is Billy Smith. In one broadcast, she said, “A Vietnam black G.I. Hannah regularly addressed her comments to black American G.I.s. However, they did wonder if she was as lovely as she sounded, and many considered her the most prominent enemy after Ho Chi Minh. Troops would laugh over Hannah’s attempts to scare them into defection or suggestions to frag an officer. Like the rifle butt, the radio was often wrapped in frayed black tape for protection.
A man’s radio was, after his rifle, his most valued possession. But taped interviews with downed pilots or from American antiwar advocates like Jane Fonda were heard with anger.įor bored G.I.s, Hannah’s broadcasts were often rare sources of amusement. She was mostly greeted with loud laughter. Her broadcasts were mostly exaggerated war news, encouragement to “frag” - assassinate - an officer and go AWOL, or suggestions that the soldiers’ wives or girlfriends were cheating on them. Miller, Tucson, Arizona … Sergeant Frank Hererra, Coolige, Arizona.” Samples, Canada, Alabama … Staff Sergeant Charles R. The sounds of the Animals, singing “We Gotta Get Outta This Place,” was followed by Hannah: Now for the war news. That night Hannah was interspersing Western rock music with her reports. Up there in the Central Highlands, the Voice of Vietnam boomed in loud and clear. At night after the perimeter was secured there wasn’t much to do but play cards, read, drink Ba Moi Ba beer and listen to the radio. It had been raining hard for a week, keeping the supply plane that was my ticket out from coming in. As a news correspondent, I had been on patrol with Montagnard irregulars and their American advisers. I first heard the silken voice of Hanoi Hannah in September 1965, in a Special Forces base at An Lac, about a hundred miles west of Nha Trang. Just weeks after the massacre, Hannah accurately named the location and estimated the civilian death toll, but she misidentified the American Army division involved, enabling the Americans to deny the report and treat it like another example of disinformation from North Vietnam. Hanoi Hannah broke one of the most shocking stories of the Vietnam War - the massacre of several hundred civilians in the village of My Lai in 1968. Her programs were soon extended to 30 minutes and broadcast three times a day. Hannah’s scripts were written by North Vietnam Army propaganda experts, and advised by Cubans. Working on the premise of “capture their minds and their hearts will follow,” both sides supported dozens of radio stations spewing malice and disinformation 24 hours a day. When the first American ground forces, the Marines, landed at Danang in 1965, V.O.V., which was based in the north, started propaganda broadcasts to the troops.īy then the airwaves over North and South Vietnam had become a confusing battleground of conflicting propaganda voices. Her unaccented English, correct intonation and her large vocabulary soon got her a staff job reading the news to Asia’s English-speaking countries. She joined the Voice of Vietnam, the country’s largest radio broadcaster, in 1955 as a volunteer. She wanted to enjoy films without the French or Vietnamese subtitles, so her family gave her private English lessons. Her favorite was “Gone with the Wind,” which she watched five times. Her father owned the largest glass factory in Vietnam. Nothing is more confused than to be ordered into a war to die or to be maimed for life without the faintest idea of what’s going on.” “It seems to me that most of you are poorly informed about the going of the war, to say nothing about a correct explanation of your presence over here. Joe?” she asked in a June 1967 broadcast. Her English was almost impeccable men would stumble across her while tuning their radios and be unable to turn away. Her job was to chill and frighten, not to charm and seduce.
She was North Vietnam’s chief voice of propaganda, reaching out over the airwaves to American servicemen across South Vietnam, attempting to convince them that the war was immoral and that they should lay down their arms and go home. Her name was Trinh Thi Ngo, but she called herself Thu Huong, “The Fragrance of Autumn.
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