Sailor's Life - Walking on the Waves: Vietnam's 'Four Pillars of Captains'

Sticking to the sea since their youth, Vietnamese sailors have traveled all over the world. They marked their lives with long, far-off sea voyages. From the first generation to today's successors, Vietnamese sailors have told their life stories, from the sea. Why are "Ha - Tu - Du - Khoi" the four names considered by generations of sailors in the Vietnamese maritime industry as "four pillars"? Pioneers at sea Seafarers often call captains "Capt.", an abbreviation of the word "captain" in English. At the end of October 2023, members of the Ho Chi Minh City Captains Club visited Capt. Nguyen Manh Ha, who lives in District 4, Ho Chi Minh City. At the age of 85, Capt. Ha's legs used to ride the waves across the oceans, but now he has to hold on to a chair when walking. He inched his way along a wheeled chair to open the door, his voice cheerful as he welcomed his juniors in the industry. Capt. Ha squinted to identify the visitor, joking: "My eyes have been at sea for more than 40 years, and I've been a specialist for 17 years, so I had to replace my lenses. Now they are "American eyes", not the eyes my parents gave me anymore."

From left to right: Capt. Nguyen Manh Ha, Capt. Tran Khanh Du, Capt. Nguyen Van Truong, late captain Nguyen Dinh Tu

Vietnamese maritime people often mention "the four pillars of Vietnamese captains", Capt. Ha explained: "In 1966, American aircraft fiercely attacked Vietnamese transport ships at sea. To strengthen the maritime transport industry, from June to September 1966, the Maritime Administration and the Shipping Company decided to appoint four young captains, with maritime knowledge, ready to fight and sacrifice, to take charge of the largest tonnage ships of the Vietnamese maritime industry at that time". Specifically, captain Nguyen Dinh Tu, then 29 years old, was appointed captain of the Huu Nghi ship, with a tonnage of 750 tons. Then Capt. Ha, 27 years old, became captain of the Hoa Binh ship, with a tonnage of 750 tons. In September 1966, captain Tran Khanh Du, 31 years old, commanded the ship 20 Thang 7, with a tonnage of 1,000 tons. And Mr. Ngo Dinh Khoi, a 32-year-old naval veteran, was the captain of the 800-ton cargo ship Thong Nhat. "They called us that because they compared the first captains to the pillars of the maritime industry at that time," Capt. Ha said. The mission of the first fleet during the war was to overcome the US blockade, maintain the Hai Phong - Hong Kong - Guangzhou route, transport foreign trade exports abroad and transport necessary goods back home. After April 1975, in addition to Capt. Ngo Dinh Khoi, who continued to serve in the military, the three remaining captains all played a role in paving the way for the first ocean-going cargo ships in Vietnam. Capt. Ha enthusiastically recounted his voyages in 1975: From the afternoon of September to the end of October 1975, under his command, the 20,000-ton oil tanker Cuu Long 01 left the port of Rotterdam (Netherlands), crossed the North Atlantic, passed through the Bay of Biscay into the Mediterranean Sea to the port of Porto Torres (Italy) to receive 20,000 tons of oil, then crossed the Suez Canal (Egypt) and stopped at Singapore port before anchoring in Ha Long Bay. This was Vietnam's first oil tanker, a major national asset during the period when the country was newly unified. That year, Capt. Ha was 36 years old. "Thanks to this trip, I became more mature as a captain, even though I was only trained in the domestic maritime industry," Capt. Ha confided. After the trip, he was considered the first Vietnamese captain to open the way for ocean travel.

Nguyen Manh Ha (2nd from left) and the delegation assigned to monitor the construction of the new Ro-Ro Hau Giang ship in 1977.

On the day the North and South were unified, Capt. Ha was the chief mate of the Song Huong ship - the first ship carrying 541 Southern soldiers and officers to regroup and take over Saigon. Capt. Ha was moved: "Among those soldiers and officers, there were many from Saigon. When the ship docked at Nha Rong on May 13, 1975, they burst into tears in the arms of their families and friends."

Find pencil lines on charts

The four pillars of Vietnamese captains now have only two people left, Capt. Nguyen Manh Ha and Capt. Tran Khanh Du. In the integration period, the first ocean-going ships of Vietnamese seafaring officers were led by the first captains to open the way to the sea. In September 1977, Capt. Ha was assigned to buy the first newly built ship of Vietnam, the Ro-Ro Hau Giang , 12,800 tons in the Netherlands. Mr. Tran Khanh Du was assigned as captain, together with Capt. Ha, to open the way from Copenhagen (Denmark), across the Baltic Sea to the port of Skellftehamn (Sweden) to pick up goods, then cross the North Atlantic, the Mediterranean through the Suez Canal, across the Indian Ocean to Vietnam. In 1982, for the first time in the history of Vietnamese maritime, the Thai Binh ship with a tonnage of over 15,000 tons, under the command of Captain Nguyen Dinh Tu and the SQTV crossed the Indian Ocean, passed the Cape of Good Hope (South Africa) to open the way to Ivory Coast. Then crossed the Atlantic Ocean to Cuba, then took the ship through the Panama Canal, crossed the Pacific Ocean to Japan and then returned to the Fatherland. Capt. Tu was the first Vietnamese captain to lead a large tonnage ship to circumnavigate the world from West to East (Mr. Tu passed away in 1997 due to a serious illness).

Sextant nautical instrument for measuring the angle between a celestial body and the horizon, determining the position of the ship at the time of observation

At that time, the equipment on the ship only had radar, gyro compass and radio direction to determine the position at sea. Regarding communication, at that time there was only a radio station transmitting VHF signals, there was no GPS global positioning device like today. Determining the position of a ship on the ocean mainly relied on the captain's predictions and determining the ship's direction through astronomy. Capt. Nguyen Manh Ha, a captain with more than 40 years of seafaring experience, recalled the memory of traveling on a cargo ship named Fareast: "One bright moonlit night, the sea was calm, around 2am, I was still in the cockpit to observe the ship passing through the deepest sea in the Pacific Ocean, recorded on the nautical chart as 10,000 m. Looking at the dark blue sea, I suddenly shuddered when I thought that any ship that sank here would certainly have no means of rescue". And the memorable trip with Capt. Tran Khanh Du in 1968. At that time, he was ordered to be the captain of the Cuu Long ship carrying 1,500 tons of jet fuel from Guangzhou (China) to Hai Phong to be delivered to the General Department of Logistics to supply to the air force. In 1969, the Cuu Long ship was assigned to the "VT5" campaign - the "transportation" campaign. The campaign lasted for 3 months, the main cargo transported was weapons, ammunition, military uniforms and fuel for the southern battlefield. In 3 months, the total volume transported by the Cuu Long ship was equal to the whole year of 1969. That was an unforgettable memory for Capt. Du, which he wrote about in an emotional poem in 1969: "Overcoming mines, overtaking warships, advancing under falling bombs. Navigating the open sea to bring lots of guns and ammunition. To the Central region, to the island regions. Patching the Truong Son pipeline so that oil flows forever. For the people, for the soldiers of the South". (continued)

At that time, we used the naked eye and sextant (nautical measuring instrument) to observe and measure the altitude of the sun or the brightest fixed stars in the starry sky to determine the position of the ship on the vast ocean. We often jokingly said that we were looking for a pencil dot on the distant ocean chart. Capt. Nguyen Manh Ha

Mr. Ha was the youngest of the captains during the Vietnam War. He was also the first to be sent on an ocean-going ship after 1975. Captain Tieu Van Kinh , 85 years old, former President of the Vietnam Captains Club

Thanh Nien Newspaper

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