Vietnam War defector was Viet Cong all along

HO CHI MINH CITY, March 29 (Reuters) - When Nguyen Thanh Trung flew low over the former Saigon 25 years ago and bombed South Vietnam's presidential palace, his raid symbolised the end of the U.S.-backed regime

Communist forces were just weeks away from routing what remained of the South Vietnamese army and winning the Vietnam War. Now one of Saigon's own pilots had turned.

For decades, Trung has been considered the war's most infamous defector. But he was not.

As Vietnam prepares to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the war's end on April 30, Trung has revealed a closely-guarded secret.

He had been in league with the Viet Cong for years after vowing to avenge the mutilation of his murdered father by South Vietnamese troops in 1963.

Now a senior pilot for national carrier Vietnam Airlines, Trung says his life changed forever when Saigon troops shot dead his father for being a Viet Cong sympathiser, then mutilated the body and threw it in the Mekong River to warn off others. Trung was 14 years old at the time.

"I could accept the war and I could accept the death of my father. These things happened on both sides (of the war),'' Trung told Reuters Television at his home in the former Saigon, now called Ho Chi Minh City".

"But I could not forgive the terrible things they did to the body of my father...and I promised my father that some day if I had the opportunity I would bomb the (presidential) palace to stop the war as soon as possible to save the people".

TRUNG TRAINED IN THE UNITED STATES

Unable to return to his village near Saigon after his father's murder for fear he too might be killed, Dinh Khac Chung was given the name Nguyen Thanh Trung by the Viet Cong in his quest to change history.

Trung lived the life of a student as political turmoil and war escalated throughout South Vietnam. In 1965 the first U.S. combat troops stepped onto the shores of Danang, ready to aid the Saigon regime in its fight against the communist North.

After finishing his studies in the late 1960s, and with Saigon authorities apparently unaware of his family history, Trung was admitted into the South Vietnamese Air Force He then trained to be a fighter pilot at U.S. bases in Texas, Louisiana, and Mississippi from 1969 to 1972.

Even before he returned to Vietnam, Trung began to plan his attack on the presidential palace and the U.S. embassy in Saigon. He was determined to end the war.

That chance came a few years later, on April 8, 1975, with communist troops engaged in a two-month offensive to win the war. He had just 10 seconds in which to act.

TRUNG'S RAID LEAVES PSYCHOLOGICAL SCAR

Trung's plane was the third in a squadron of three F-5Es, whose pilots communicated visually, in radio silence.

After takeoff from Bien Hoa airbase, north of Saigon, he signalled his generator had failed. His squadron leader thought he was grounded, while the control tower believed he was just a straggler who had taken off late.

Trung, who gives few details of his missions before the attack on the palace, flew around the city to the south and dropped four 500-lb (227-kg) bombs on his target in two runs that left a deep psychological scar.

"Before I dropped the bombs I thought 'Dad, the time is now to do what I promised to you years ago' I did it and I didn't care what happened to me,'' Trung said, adding that he never carried out his plan to bomb the American embassy".

"I didn't intend to kill anybody, I wanted to scare them. I wanted the president to panic, I wanted the Americans to panic. Then they would leave and the war would end sooner.'' No one was hurt in the attack, but little more than two weeks later South Vietnamese President Nguyen Van Thieu fled the country, saying he hoped his departure would end decades of war in Vietnam".

After Trung dropped the bombs he flew low and fast, landing on a 915-metre (3,000-foot) runway prepared by the Viet Cong at Phuoc Long, 200 km (125 miles) north of Saigon. But Trung was not finished yet.

On April 28, 1975, he led a small squadron of communist planes in bombing Saigon's Tan Son Nhat airbase.

That night, the 3,000 Americans left in Saigon began leaving by helicopter for naval carriers waiting offshore. Communist forces rolled into Saigon where their tanks smashed down the palace gates on April 30, 1975. The war was over. Twenty-five years later, Trung is philosophical about his actions. A hero in communist Vietnam, but a traitor to the vanquished, Trung says history will be his judge.

The Americans he trained with in the United States were friends, as were the South Vietnamese pilots, Trung says. Trung also hopes to pilot Vietnam Airlines' first commercial flight to the United States whenever the former foes open direct air links.

"Maybe 25 more years, history will make a final conclusion about what happened that day,'' Trung said".