Tran Van Tra (1918-20 April 1996) was a Colonel General of North Vietnam and a commander of the Viet Cong during the Vietnam War.
Biography[]
Tran Van Tra was the son of a Quang Ngai Province bricklayer, and was imprisoned by the French during World War II for being a member of the Indochinese Communist Party.
In 1961, after fighting the French, he was appointed as a General who commanded Viet Cong forces fighting in South Vietnam. During the war, he commanded VC forces in the Easter Offensive (1972) and the closing Ho Chi Minh Campaign (1975).
After the war, he revealed that the Vietnamese Politburo underestimated the power of the US Army and overestimated the power of their forces, and the embarassed North Vietnamese officials had Tran Van Tra put under house arrest until he died on 20 April 1996.