Saigon Naval Shipyard is a former

French Navy The French Navy (, , ), informally (, ), is the Navy, maritime arm of the French Armed Forces and one of the four military service branches of History of France, France. It is among the largest and most powerful List of navies, naval forces i ...

, Republic of Vietnam Navy (RVNN) and

Vietnam People's Navy The Vietnam People's Navy (VPN; ), internally the Naval Service (), also known as the Vietnamese People's Navy or simply Vietnam/Vietnamese Navy (), is the naval branch of the Vietnam People's Army and is responsible for the protection of the ...

(VPN) base in

Saigon Ho Chi Minh City (HCMC) ('','' TP.HCM; ), commonly known as Saigon (; ), is the most populous city in Vietnam with a population of around 14 million in 2025. The city's geography is defined by rivers and canals, of which the largest is Saigo ...

Vietnam Vietnam, officially the Socialist Republic of Vietnam (SRV), is a country at the eastern edge of mainland Southeast Asia, with an area of about and a population of over 100 million, making it the world's List of countries and depende ...

. The base, located on the southwest bank of the

Saigon River The Saigon River () is a river located in southern Vietnam that rises near Phum Daung in southeastern Cambodia, flows south and southeast for about and empties into the Nhà Bè River, which in its turn empties into the South China Sea some no ...

about from the

South China Sea The South China Sea is a marginal sea of the Western Pacific Ocean. It is bounded in the north by South China, in the west by the Indochinese Peninsula, in the east by the islands of Taiwan island, Taiwan and northwestern Philippines (mainly Luz ...

, represented the largest single industrial complex in South East Asia. Officially known as the Ba Son Corporation (), the modern incarnation of the shipyard is now based in the

Bà Rịa–Vũng Tàu province Bà Rịa–Vũng Tàu (abbreviated BRVT) was formerly a province of Vietnam. It was located on the coast of the country's Southeast region. It bordered Đồng Nai to the north, Bình Thuận to the northeast and Ho Chi Minh City metropolit ...

, being one of the major shipyards in Vietnam.

History

The shipyard was originally created around 1788 by Lord (''Chúa'') Nguyễn Phúc Ánh as the Chu Sư Naval workshop (

Vietnamese Vietnamese may refer to: * Something of, from, or related to Vietnam, a country in Southeast Asia * Vietnamese people, or Kinh people, a Southeast Asian ethnic group native to Vietnam ** Overseas Vietnamese, Vietnamese people living outside Vietna ...

: ''Xưởng Chu Sư''). With help from French engineers Lord Nguyen built a fleet of ships that helped him defeat the

Tây Sơn dynasty The Tây Sơn dynasty (; , (chữ Hán: 朝西山; Chữ Nôm: 茹西山), officially Đại Việt (Chữ Hán: 大越), was an imperial dynasty of Vietnam. It originated in a revolt led by three peasant brothers with the surname Nguyễn, r ...

and establish him as Emperor Gia Long. The naval workshop was progressively expanded and after the French conquered Cochinchina in 1862 they expanded the area as the Port de la Marine (Naval Port) under the control of the

. The French Navy expanded the base facilities making it the Navy headquarters and home to the Naval Artillery and barracks. In 1864, the Navy expanded the Chu Su Naval workshop into the Naval Arsenal and Shipyard which by 1888 had modern facilities including a 168m drydock. In 1902, the base became the headquarters of the Naval Forces of the Oriental Seas under the command of a Vice Admiral who controlled 38 ships and over 3800 officers and sailors. By 1918, the shipyard was capable of building vessels of up to 3500

Deadweight tonnage Deadweight tonnage (also known as deadweight; abbreviated to DWT, D.W.T., d.w.t., or dwt) or tons deadweight (DWT) is a measure of how much weight a ship can carry. It is the sum of the weights of cargo, fuel, fresh water Fresh water or ...

(DWT). With the departure of the French the base passed to the control of the RVNN. In 1955 the shipyard was renamed the Ba Son Shipyard and it was capable of building vessels up to 10,000 DWT and repairing vessels up to 35,000 DWT. Starting in 1965, the shipyard built 90 ''Yabuta'' junks for the Junk Force to replace their wooden junks. Mr. Yabuta, a Japanese engineer at the shipyard in 1961, originally designed the junk. Armed with a .30-caliber machine gun, it featured a 110-horsepower diesel engine capable of generating ten knots of speed and was built entirely out of fiberglass, which obviated the need to treat the hulls for wood-boring Teredo worms. Wooden junks, by contrast, needed to have their hulls scraped, blow-torched and resealed every three months. The U.S. Military Assistance Program provided funds for building materials and engines, and the Vietnamese paid the wages of the shipyard laborers who built the junks. After the first ''Yabutas'' were completed, output slowed significantly. In 1966 the shipyard built only nine junks and in 1967, just 15. Production went from three junks a week in 1965 to one every five weeks in 1967 as private construction firms lured shipyard workers away with salaries, on average, three times higher than what the government had paid them. At 03:00 on 31 January 1968 at the start of the

Tet Offensive The Tet Offensive was a major escalation and one of the largest military campaigns of the Vietnam War. The Viet Cong (VC) and North Vietnamese People's Army of Vietnam (PAVN) launched a surprise attack on 30 January 1968 against the forces of ...

, twelve

Viet Cong The Viet Cong (VC) was an epithet and umbrella term to refer to the communist-driven armed movement and united front organization in South Vietnam. It was formally organized as and led by the National Liberation Front of South Vietnam, and ...

(VC) sappers approached the base in two civilian cars, killing two guards at a barricade at Me Linh Square and then advanced towards the base gate. The sound of gunfire alerted base sentries who secured the gate and sounded the alarm. A .30-caliber machine gun on the second floor of the headquarters disabled both cars and killed or wounded several sappers while the Navy security force organized a counterattack. Simultaneously a U.S. Navy advisor contacted the U.S. military police who soon attacked the VC from adjoining streets, the resulting crossfire ended the attack, killing eight sappers with two captured.

Post-Vietnam War

With 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 ...

the base was taken over by the VPN which continues to use the barracks at 1A Ton Duc Thang () to the present day. In 2015, the Ba Son Shipyard was closed and sold to a private developer who later demolished all the facilities to make way for apartment development.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Saigon Naval Shipyard Military installations of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam Naval installations of the Republic of Vietnam Buildings and structures in Ho Chi Minh City 1788 establishments in Asia 2015 disestablishments in Vietnam