Đỗ Cao Trí

Lieutenant General Đỗ Cao Trí (20 November 1929 – 23 February 1971) was a general in the Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN) known for his fighting prowess and flamboyant style.

Trí started out in the French Army before transferring to the Vietnamese National Army and the ARVN.

Under President Ngô Đình Diệm, Trí was the commander of I Corps where he was noted for harsh crackdowns on Buddhist civil rights demonstrations against the Diệm government.

After entering the French colonial forces in 1947, he graduated from Do Huu Vi Officer Class and the following year was sent to Auvour, France to attend infantry school.

In 1953, while an officer in the Vietnamese National Army, he graduated from General Staff and Command Class in Hanoi.

His first command was as a young airborne officer, and until his death he survived three attempts on his life, leading him to his belief that he had an "immunity from death on the battlefield".

As a young lieutenant colonel, he was made the commander of the Airborne Brigade in 1954 and was based in Saigon.

Towards the end of the May 1955 Battle for Saigon, in which Prime Minister Diệm asserted his rule over the State of Vietnam by defeating the Bình Xuyên organised crime syndicate, some of Diệm's supporters tried to move against some generals whom they accused of questionable loyalty.

When he heard that three top generals, including Nguyễn Văn Vy, were being detained in the palace by one of the factions backing Prime Minister Diệm, Trí telephoned and threatened them: "Free the generals in one half-hour or I will destroy the palace and everything inside it."

In 1958, he attended the United States Command and General Staff College at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas.

That same year he graduated from Air-Ground Operations School at Fort Kisler, Washington.

Trí later participated in the November 1963 coup which resulted in the assassination of Diệm on 2 November 1963.

Years later, Trí was exiled by Nguyễn Cao Kỳ, the most powerful member of the junta, but when Nguyễn Văn Thiệu came to power, he was called back to command III Corps.

During the Buddhist crisis of 1963, Trí garnered considerable notoriety for his crackdown on Buddhist protests against the Diệm regime in the central region of Vietnam.

In Huế, demonstrations were banned and Trí's forces were ordered to arrest those who engaged in civil disobedience.

At 13:00 on 3 June, some 1,500 protestors attempted to march towards the Từ Đàm Pagoda in Huế for a rally, having gathered at Bến Ngự bridge near the Perfume River.

A confrontation ensued when the protestors attempted to cross the bridge.

Six waves of ARVN tear gas and attack dogs failed to disperse the crowd.

At 18:30, military personnel at the scene dispersed the crowd by emptying vials of brownish-red liquid on the heads of praying protestors, resulting in 67 Buddhists being hospitalised for chemical injuries.

The symptoms consisted of severe blistering of the skin and respiratory ailments.

By midnight, tensions were high as curfews and martial law were enacted.

Rumours circulated that three people had been killed.

Newsweek reported the police had lobbed blister gas into the crowd.

The incident raised concerns among the Americans that poison gas was used, and the U.S. threatened to publicly condemn and distance itself from Saigon.

An investigation, however, cleared the troops of using blister or poison gas.

The main raids in Saigon were accompanied by attacks across the country.

Under Trí, the violence was worse in Huế than in the capital.

The approach of Trí's forces was met by the beating of Buddhist drums and cymbals to alert the populace.

The townsfolk left their homes in the middle of the night in an attempt to defend the city's pagodas.

At the Từ Đàm Pagoda, which was the base of leading Buddhist activist leader, Thích Trí Quang, Monks tried to cremate as per their custom the coffin of their colleague who had self-immolated.

ARVN soldiers, firing M1 rifles, overran the pagoda and confiscated the coffin.

They demolished a statue of Gautama Buddha and looted and vandalized the pagoda before detonating explosives and leveling much of the pagoda.

A number of Buddhists were shot or clubbed to death.

The most determined resistance occurred outside the Diệu Đế Pagoda in Huế.

He led III Corps during the 1970 Cambodian Campaign, earning the laudatory sobriquet as "the Patton of the Parrot's Beak".

In 1971, Trí was ordered north to take command of I Corps in Operation Lam Son 719, an incursion into Laos, which had gone astray.

He was killed, aged 41, in a helicopter accident before being able to take control.

Trí was born in Bình Tuoc, Biên Hòa, Đồng Nai Province, French Indochina, just northeast of Saigon.

His father was a wealthy landowner and his grandfather served as a Nguyễn dynasty mandarin during the French colonial era.

He earned his baccalaureate (Part II) from Petrus Ký High School, Saigon.