"Hoang Cam Kitchen" warms the hearts of soldiers on the front lines

Facing the enemy's bombs and bullets, the simple Hoang Cam kitchen proved to be effective in practice, contributing to ensuring the health of our soldiers fighting and winning the Dien Bien Phu Campaign.

During the Dien Bien Phu campaign, faced with overwhelming enemy means and weapons of war, "secrecy" was the top motto of our army, thoroughly implemented right from the logistics work.

In the face of enemy bombs and bullets, the simple Hoang Cam kitchen proved to be practically effective, contributing to ensuring the health of our soldiers in combat and victory.

"Secret weapon" of logistics force

During the early days of the resistance war against French colonialism, our army faced countless challenges and difficulties, even in logistics. No matter how brave the army was, they still needed to be fed and well-fed to ensure their health. But with our traditional wood-fired stoves, cooking was difficult to hide, because at night you could see the fire and during the day you could see the smoke.

Those signs easily attracted enemy planes to drop bombs, causing casualties. Many logistics teams were forced to avoid it by cooking at night, and when enemy planes arrived, they put out the fire and poured water, but many times they still could not avoid the disaster. The rice was often burnt or undercooked. Cooking at night, the rice was cold during the day, and the soldiers could not eat it to ensure their health.

This difficult situation made the cook Hoang Cam of the 308th Vanguard Army very worried. He spent a lot of time researching, testing and finally creating a type of stove that could light a fire without exposing it to light, especially without sending smoke high up.

The stove is dug deep into the ground with grooves like squid tentacles extending far away, covered with tree branches or moist soil to form smoke pipes. The smoke spreads along the grooves, rising up, filtered and blocked by the trees and moist soil, spreading out, lying on the ground, light as the morning mist. In front of the stove door, a deep hole is dug, covered with nylon or leaves, both to store things and to cover the fire, and there is a smoke chamber, which absorbs the fire more strongly.

Visitors visit Hoang Cam kitchen in the relic site. (Photo: Tuan Anh/VNA)

The stove created by Hoang Cam was very suitable for soldiers during wartime, it was fireproof, the smoke did not rise high, the cook could cook all day and all night without fear of being detected by enemy planes. In October 1952, the unit decided to name the stove after the soldier who created it, calling it Hoang Cam Kitchen. This unique stove model quickly spread to other units in the army and was applied very effectively in many of our major campaigns, especially in the Dien Bien Phu campaign.

Simple and heroic

The Dien Bien Phu campaign was the largest, most persistent, longest and fiercest battle between us and the enemy. Ensuring the supply and feeding of troops for combat was an extremely important task and a great success of the campaign.

By early February 1954, our fighting force in the Dien Bien basin had reached 43,000 men, and material needs had increased many times compared to the original plan. In addition to rice, meat, and fresh food, logistics at all levels also processed dried foods, salted meat, pickled vegetables, etc. to send to the front.

During the fighting, the units also organized to increase food reserves, increase production and exploitation on the spot, consolidate sleeping bunkers, create the best conditions, and ensure the health of soldiers in fierce and prolonged fighting conditions.

General Vo Nguyen Giap assessed: “...On the Dien Bien Phu front, the issue of ensuring food and ammunition supply was an extremely important factor, no less important than tactical issues; the difficulty of food supply was no less than the difficulty of combat. The supply situation was urgent every day, every hour, no less than the combat situation.”

In the rear, our logistics had a lot of experience in organization, but at the Dien Bien Phu front, ensuring supplies faced many difficulties: constant bombardment, large numbers of troops with different missions and operational plans, extensive and complex terrain, our troops getting closer and closer to the enemy...

Visitors visit Hoang Cam kitchen in Muong Phang relic site, Dien Bien province. (Photo: Xuan Tien/VNA)

At first, most of the units that built the battlefields and defended had to eat cold rice and banh chung to get through the day. But in the siege battles, the continuous combat that lasted for months, we set the goal of solving the problem of hot food and hot drinks for the entire army.

In such harsh conditions, the Hoang Cam kitchen was able to maximize its effectiveness. But to have the kitchen located right in the company, right at the front, the units continued to have more initiatives. They dug deep, solid tunnels, turning the “Hoang Cam kitchen” into “Hoang Cam tunnels,” smokeless, lightless, heatless, and resistant to artillery, bringing the “cooks” to follow the footsteps of the soldiers on the front lines.

Thanks to that, sometimes only 50m away from the enemy, soldiers still had hot food and drinks regularly, had hot water to drink in the winter, and the field medical bunkers also had hot water to sterilize equipment...

In the actual combat operations, Hoang Cam Kitchen and Hoang Cam Tunnel have brought into play great value, contributing significantly to maintaining health and ensuring the number of troops. While the enemy was sinking deeper and deeper into panic and isolation, ensuring life in the army contributed to strengthening the spirit and confidence of our entire army, increasing the strength to bring us to the final victory.

From the patriotism and team spirit of a cook, the simple stove followed the heroic army, silently contributing to their brilliant achievements in a time of war.

Nowadays, the use of firewood is no longer popular, but the Hoang Cam stove continues to be researched, improved, perfected and widely used in training and use. The Hoang Cam stove is not only an effective invention, but also demonstrates the nature of our army: very simple but also very heroic./.

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