The historical site of Khue Ngoc Dien cave complex, about 74 km from Buon Ma Thuot city center, is a system of caves located on the southern hillside of the Tu Yang Sin range, in the area of Khue Ngoc Dien commune - the area. The main living area of Quang Nam people, Quang Ngai was forced to follow the immigration regime of Ngo Dinh Diem's government in order to reduce the struggles in the plains and exile the masses to the sacred forests of poisonous water to easily control surface. Therefore, this area is also named after the local name of the people who migrated, Khue Ngoc Dien (meaning pearl land of the mountain).
Khue Ngoc Dien rock cave complex was a hiding place, revolutionary activities of the people, guerrillas of Khue Ngoc Dien commune and a number of provincial departments and agencies during the period from 1966 to 1975. In which there were a number of caves. The main points are: Stone cave in Hamlet 1 is the headquarters of the Dak Lak Provincial Command, in this cave many fierce battles took place, also where our troops and people sacrificed the most, some villages were captured by the enemy and locked almost all of them to only 4 people; Muoi Than cave (also known as Ba Muoi cave - where Uncle Ho's church is located) is the place where the 401st regiment and the people of hamlet 3, Khue Ngoc Dien commune, are stationed; Village 3 rock cave (also known as Ong Ngo's rock cave); Village 4 rock cave and some other caves.
All the caves are located deep in the mountain, covered by dense forest, murky, creating a cover of discreet and secret camouflage. No matter where you stand with a distance of 30m or more, you can't see the cave because the cave is surrounded by a forest of trees and interlaced vines.
Most of the caves are made up of large rocks about 5m high, uneven convex and uneven, located in a rather dangerous position, the path is very difficult, the rocks are tight, close to each other. On the mountainside, some places lean on an edge or a corner of the adjacent rock, creating interconnected openings, in some places only one person can pass through, and some places are about 2-5 m wide. The smallest rocks in the cave also weigh 3-4 tons. The back of the cave is leaning against a mountainside, the right side is spread out into nooks and crannies, some places are connected, some places are tight.
The roof of the cave is made up of large blocks of rock, there are places where the surface is flat, there are also places where the stones are stacked on top of each other, most of the area of the caves is not very large. The largest cave is Ong Bo cave (or hamlet 2) with an area of about 60m2, with a capacity of 30-40 people, during the war, mainly villagers living in village 2 lived here. Some smaller caves can only accommodate 7-8 people. On the roof, there are countless large and small rocks lying on top of each other with an uneven thickness and thin layer of soil. Above there are all kinds of plants growing alternately, mostly shrubs and climbing stems. It is this feature that camouflages the cave more discreet, secret and difficult to be detected. In general, the bottom of all caves is uneven, walking on the cave floor is quite dangerous, there are rocks standing close enough to step over, and rocks far away have to make bridges to cross. In many places, people make bridges with giant umbrellas that are smashed and woven together to easily move between caves.
All activities of the people in the cave are carried out in a very secret way with the motto "walk without traces, cook without smoke, speak without sound, those who follow must erase traces so that the enemy cannot detect". . In order for all activities to go smoothly, at each cave, there are elected village chiefs, deputy village heads and other organizations such as youth, women, farmers, children, etc.
In 1969, at Ba Muoi cave, an event held a memorial ceremony for Uncle Ho. This is a small rock cave, with a capacity of about 10 people, but the terrain around the cave is quite flat. Upon hearing the news of Uncle Ho's death, all the people in the four hamlets gathered together to clear the grass in a high place behind the cave to build Uncle Ho's church with the materials of thatch, bamboo, and bamboo with an area of about approx. 12 m2. The memorial service includes banners, flags and slogans. The Chairman of Khue Ngoc Dien commune at that time, Comrade Pham An, read Uncle Ho's will and biography and then a silence ceremony.
Khue Ngoc Dien stone cave complex, Khue Ngoc Dien commune, Krong Bong district belongs to the type of historical relic, revolutionary base, associated with the process of heroic and resilient revolutionary activities and glorious feats. of the army and people of Khue Ngoc Dien commune in particular, and Krong Bong district in general during the years of resistance war against the US for national salvation:
In June 1965, while we were consolidating the government and consolidating the liberated area, the enemy continuously launched raids deep into H9 in order to destroy the logistics base, destroy our forces and gather the people. The local army force H9, along with guerrillas Khue Ngoc Dien as the core, deployed the plan to fight the invasion and fought resounding victories. With the motto "clinging to the enemy's belts and fighting", in the anti-coup battle at Khue Ngoc Dien on June 26, 1965, we had only 40 gunmen but defeated an enemy battalion and set fire to an armored vehicle. Next, the enemy used security and secret commandos to raid Khue Ngoc Dien, but was also attacked by commune guerrillas and V100 soldiers and lost nearly 1 company.
Since the Resolution to establish the resistance base area, the Provincial Party Committee agencies gradually moved to Krong Bong, this was also the time when the enemy focused on fierce bombardment of the liberated area. After the failure of the sweeping operations on Khue Ngoc Dien, the enemy turned to tricks to destroy the palaces, find all ways to encircle, blockade, and prevent all supplies of salt, cloth, and medicine from entering the area. liberate, release, free; has just used psychological warfare to call for a recall, to sway the will of the people, in order to paralyze all production and combat activities of the Krong Bong army and people.
From the end of 1966, the enemy intensified sweeping and raiding revolutionary facilities, calling on the people to withdraw and sending bombers to any large or small target in the liberated area. of the population of Khue Ngoc Dien commune and implement the policy of burning and killing. Despite being in such a difficult and fierce situation, the overwhelming majority of the people in the liberated area still stubbornly held on and did not back down from the barbaric attack of the enemy.
In order to protect the people and protect production, the Party cell of Khue Ngoc Dien commune issued a policy to thoroughly evacuate people to the Black cave area along the foot of Tu Yang Sin mountain or upstream of the stream to establish a fighting village. With a very high revolutionary spirit and will, the people of Dinh Dien urgently both evacuate and cling to Dinh Dien for production. During the day the enemy bombarded and dropped bombs continuously along the mountainside, people switched to night production. There was a time when the enemy swept too hard and the people could not move and had to stay in one place, in many cases people were entangled with mines, sacrificed their lives but still did not leave the fields.
In addition to mobilizing material talents, we also mobilized the entire people to build a people's war posture; The elderly and children in the village were displaced, while the vast majority of young people remained in the palaces, built defenses, dug trenches, fortifications, personal tunnels, set up hundreds of traps, and built defenses to protect them. liberated area. Guerrilla forces in the palaces of Le Giao, Quang Cu, Khue Ngoc Dien…. took the initiative to dig up anti-aircraft embankments, build alarm systems connecting many areas.
Guerrilla Khue Ngoc Dien also had the initiative to launch an emulation movement against enemy aircraft and set up groups to shoot planes with rifles. Typically, the guerrilla group Nguyen Van De (commander), Do Van An and Truong Quang Thien organized a fake battlefield using dummies (wearing real clothes and hats) pretending to be standing people, arranged under a canopy of trees and nearby planting a flag about 70m southeast of the battlefield to defraud the enemy, wait for enemy aircraft to suddenly come close and simultaneously shoot to destroy.
At 9:00 a.m. on April 24, 1966, an enemy helicopter flew in from the Yang Sin mountain, saw our liberation flag, and suddenly lowered its altitude to about 50 meters above the ground and flew. straight into the direction of the ambush battlefield that we have arranged. When the enemy aircraft arrived about 100m from the battlefield, Comrade To ordered the whole team to open fire at the same time. The enemy helicopter was hit by bullets, lost its balance and plunged into the area near Tul stream on fire. From the battle above, we destroyed 1 plane and 4 enemies. With that victory, the movement of low-altitude aircraft shooting opened up throughout the entire revolutionary base area, limiting many losses caused by enemy aircraft to our troops and people in the region.
In order to save the increasingly deteriorating situation on the battlefield, the enemy expanded and escalated the war in order to avoid defeat by opening large-scale sweeping battles, continuously bombarding the liberated area. Khue Ngoc Dien area was the focus of the enemy's bombardment and sweep, and carpet bombing became more and more intense. In particular, for the first time, the US - Wei used B52 bombs to destroy the area from Khue Ngoc Dien to Nang Duong village and 12 times to spray toxic substances into the liberated area to destroy people's lives, destroy economically. blockade all supplies, making the people flinch from the liberated area to run into the enemy area.
Faced with that situation, in April 1969, the Provincial Party Committee held the 4th Provincial Party Congress and set out urgent tasks in 1969-1970: "Developing armed forces, fighting "pacification". encroachment, comprehensively consolidate in all aspects, step up the guerrilla struggle movement, bring guerrilla warfare into enemy-controlled areas and the outskirts of towns and district capitals. To carry out the urgent tasks set out by the Congress, the army and people of Khue Ngoc Dien commune focused on building up the armed forces, improving the quality of the guerrilla war movement, and smashed many large-scale raids. of the enemy. Typically, the battle against the invaders at Ong Ngo Hill (where the Security Board was located).
On April 14, 1971, the enemy mobilized a reconnaissance company with two support planes to raid our An Ninh camp to rescue the prisoners being held here. Knowing that plot of the enemy, we actively arranged minefields, combined with hand-made weapons and arranged guerrilla forces on the road behind the minefields to be ready to destroy the enemy when they come in. The force participating in the battle consisted of 16 comrades, equipped with 2 B40 guns, 14 submachine guns with grenades and 32 homemade mines of all kinds, which destroyed two reconnaissance teams (62 names) of the enemy, defeating the enemy. plot an attack on our An Ninh camp.
Summarizing in the whole wave, the army and people of Khue Ngoc Dien commune destroyed 300 American - Wei names; shot down 6 planes, damaged 4; capture and destroy 9 military vehicles; knocked down 2 bridges and broke many enemy attacks and ambushes. For many consecutive years, Khue Ngoc Dien's army and people still maintained the revolutionary government and promoted the emulation movement to build strength and strengthen the base area among the entire H9 people.
With such achievements, on February 20, 1973, the Advisory Council of the Provisional Revolutionary Government of the Republic of South Vietnam awarded the title "Hero of the People's Armed Forces for the Liberation of Khue Ngoc Dien Commune, who made outstanding achievements in the resistance war against the US to save the country”.
The relic of Khue Ngoc Dien cave complex is a place to mark the event, the heroic fighting spirit and sacrifice of the soldiers and people of Khue Ngoc Dien commune during the years of resistance war against the US, to save the country overcame all difficulties, before the rain. Bombs and bullets of the enemy, fought and won against the power of American bombs and bullets in the war to keep the traffic corridor smooth. It is the crystallization of the nation's spiritual values of determination to fight and win, the pinnacle of revolutionary heroism.
The monument of Khue Ngoc Dien cave is also a valuable historical source for us to learn, study and draw lessons learned in the history of the struggle for national liberation, especially in the organization of forces. The three armies, coordinated to fight in many terrains and flexibly used homemade weapons on the battlefield, ensured to maintain the countryside and become a solid rear of the revolution.
In addition, the relic also has great value in educating the patriotic tradition, the tradition of revolutionary struggle for the future young generations of the country.
With historical values, on January 27, 2015, the People's Committee of Dak Lak province issued Decision No. 245/QD-UBND ranking Khue Ngoc Dien cave complex as a provincial historical relic.
Some pictures of the Monument:
