Vietnam: A Television History; Interview with Pham Van Thu, 1981

Interviewer: Could you tell us what happened on the night of the bombing? Pham Van Thu: I am Pham Van Thu. I live on 151 Kham Thien . At around 10 pm on the 26th of December , I heard the siren as I was sitting there sipping tea. The radio announced that the American airplanes were about 100 miles from Hanoi. I put on my helmet and a red arm band. When I walked out of the house and looked into the sky, I saw streaks of light all over the sky and heard rumbling noises. I went into the shelter. A moment later, a flash of light entered the shelter and there was dust everywhere. Pham Van Thu: I fell unconscious then. It rained, and I came to my senses again, feeling cold rain on my head. I heard people crying and moaning, and climbed out of the shelter. I ran into a woman who was screaming and moaning and told her to get settled down to allow me to go on with my work. Then I heard people yelling for help. I asked the woman whose house had been there, and she said that the house belong to Brother Chi. So I went straight there, and under a big pile of rubble I felt the corpse of somebody. Pham Van Thu: I could not pull the body out so I called on six other men to come and help. We picked the rubble apart with our bare hands and found out that, below the dead body and in the shelter, water had come up to the necks of the rest of the members of his family. When we pulled Mr. Chi out, blood had come out of his mouth. We carried him out into the street and put him on an ambulance for emergency treatment. We then went back to work and were able to pull out 8 other persons in the next house. After that we met with the self defense unit leader who told us to go and get rested since we all looked dead tired. Interviewer: Please give us a little more detail on how you rescued other people besides the Chi's family.

Pham Van Thu: After rescuing the Chi family, I went next door to the neighbors' and, together with my six other friends, pulled away the beams, the pieces of the wooden walls, the bricks and slabs of concrete to expose the entrance to the shelter and was able to pull out five members of the Cao family. We all felt almost suffocated, but we came out alright. Interviewer: Please tell us how you went home get your rest.

Pham Van Thu: I had nine persons living in my house in a space of twenty-four square meters. When I went home, there was only smoldering ash. Everything had been flattened to the ground. I felt not too outraged at the time because I had lost only material things, things that I have been able to replace somewhat ever since, thanks to the help of the government.