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Dương Hiếu Nghĩa ( – 14 April 2019) was a
Colonel Colonel ( ; abbreviated as Col., Col, or COL) is a senior military Officer (armed forces), officer rank used in many countries. It is also used in some police forces and paramilitary organizations. In the 17th, 18th, and 19th centuries, a colon ...
in the
South Vietnam South Vietnam, officially the Republic of Vietnam (RVN; , VNCH), was a country in Southeast Asia that existed from 1955 to 1975. It first garnered Diplomatic recognition, international recognition in 1949 as the State of Vietnam within the ...
ese
Army of the Republic of Vietnam The Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN; ; ) composed the ground forces of the Republic of Vietnam Military Forces, South Vietnamese military from its inception in 1955 to the Fall of Saigon on 30 April 1975. Its predecessor was the ground forc ...
(ARVN). He graduated from the Đà Lạt National Military Academy. During the
Vietnam War The Vietnam War (1 November 1955 – 30 April 1975) was an armed conflict in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia fought between North Vietnam (Democratic Republic of Vietnam) and South Vietnam (Republic of Vietnam) and their allies. North Vietnam w ...
, he served in various infantry and armored units. His highest administrative position was Province Chief of Vĩnh Long. Dương, along with Captain Nguyễn Văn Nhung, executed President
Ngô Đình Diệm Ngô Đình Diệm ( , or ; ; 3 January 1901 – 2 November 1963) was a South Vietnamese politician who was the final prime minister of the State of Vietnam (1954–1955) and later the first president of South Vietnam ( Republic of ...
and the President's confidant, his brother Ngô Đình Nhu after the latter were arrested at the end of an army coup. After the
Fall of Saigon The fall of Saigon, known in Vietnam as Reunification Day (), was the capture of Saigon, the capital of South Vietnam, by North Vietnam on 30 April 1975. As part of the 1975 spring offensive, this decisive event led to the collapse of the So ...
in 1975, Nghĩa spent at least a dozen years in various re-education camps.


Execution of Diem

Nghĩa was part of a group of military personnel sent to arrest Diem and Nhu at the conclusion of the successful coup. After arresting the brothers and tying them with their hands behind their backs, Nghĩa and Major Nguyen Van Nhung sat with Diệm and Nhu inside an
M113 armored personnel carrier The M113 is a fully tracked armored personnel carrier (APC) that was developed and produced by the FMC Corporation. The M113 was sent to United States Army Europe in 1961 to replace the mechanized infantry's M59 armored personnel carrier, M59 A ...
, and the
convoy A convoy is a group of vehicles, typically motor vehicles or ships, traveling together for mutual support and protection. Often, a convoy is organized with armed defensive support and can help maintain cohesion within a unit. It may also be used ...
departed for Tân Sơn Nhứt Air Base. They stopped at a railroad crossing on the return trip where, by all accounts, the brothers were assassinated. An investigation by General Tran Van Don later determined that Nghĩa had shot the brothers at
point-blank range Point-blank range is any distance over which a certain firearm or gun can hit a target without the need to elevate the barrel to compensate for bullet drop, i.e. the gun can be pointed horizontally at the target. For targets beyond-blank range ...
with a
semi-automatic firearm A semi-automatic firearm, also called a self-loading or autoloading firearm ( fully automatic and selective fire firearms are also variations on self-loading firearms), is a repeating firearm whose action mechanism automatically loads a follo ...
and that Nhung sprayed them with bullets before repeatedly stabbing their bodies with a knife.Karnow, p. 326. Nghĩa gave his account of the assassinations to military headquarters: “As we rode back to the Joint General Staff headquarters, Diệm sat silently, but Nhu and the captain hungbegan to insult each other. I don’t know who started it. The name-calling grew passionate. The captain had hated Nhu before. Now he was charged with emotion.” When the convoy reached a train crossing, Nghĩa said that Nhung “lunged at Nhu with a bayonet and stabbed him again and again, maybe fifteen or twenty times. Still in a rage, he turned to Diệm, took out his revolver and shot him in the head. Then he looked back at Nhu, who was lying on the floor, twitching. He put a bullet into his head too. Neither Diệm nor Nhu ever defended themselves. Their hands were tied.”Jones, p. 429.


1964 coup

Nghĩa was then involved in a January 1964 coup, just three months later, against the military junta led by General Duong Van Minh that had toppled Diem. The plotters, led by General Nguyen Khanh, needed help from Nghĩa, one of the leading Đại Việt officers and temporary head of the Capital Armored Command. A friend and appointee of Minh, Nghĩa caused difficulties by failing to respond to General Nguyen Van Thieu's order that all armor be moved north out of Saigon to Thiệu's 5th Division headquarters at
Biên Hòa Biên Hòa (Northern accent: , Southern accent: ) is the capital city of Đồng Nai Province, Vietnam, and is part of the Ho Chi Minh City metropolitan area. Situated northeast of Ho Chi Minh City (also known as Saigon), Biên Hòa is connect ...
, a satellite city on the northeastern edge of the capital. A CIA cable reported that Nghĩa was aware that the movements were part of a coup against Minh and told Thieu that he would not deploy out of the capital and declared his support for Minh. This caught the plotters off guard, and as Harkins left on his "fieldtrip" at the same time, historian George McTurnan Kahin conjectured that he had actually gone to lobby Nghĩa to support the coup or at least partially back it by agreeing to help depose Minh's confidants Đôn, Ton That Dinh, Le Van Kim and Mai Huu Xuan. However, it was then reported that Nghĩa had agreed to support Thieu, who had apparently then gained the control of both the armored and Marine elements in Saigon.Kahin, p. 199. When the coup began, Nghĩa showed his mixed feelings about the junta through the selective use of his armored troops. They supported Khánh's move against Đính, Đôn, Kim and Xuân, but tried to protect Minh by using tanks to shield Minh's house from Duong Ngoc Lam's Civil Guard units, which were also used to arrest the four other leading junta members.Kahin, p. 200.


Death

Duong died in
Richland, Washington Richland () is a city in Benton County, Washington, United States. It is located in southeastern Washington at the confluence of the Yakima River, Yakima and the Columbia River, Columbia Rivers. As of the 2020 census, the city's population was ...
on 14 April 2019, at the age of 94.


See also

* Arrest and assassination of Ngo Dinh Diem * 1963 South Vietnamese coup


Notes


References

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Duong, Hieu Nghia 1920s births Year of birth uncertain 2019 deaths Vietnamese anti-communists Vietnamese assassins South Vietnamese military personnel of the Vietnam War South Vietnamese prisoners and detainees Assassins of heads of state Vietnamese people of the Vietnam War Vietnamese exiles People from Đồng Tháp province 20th-century murderers Prisoners and detainees of Vietnam