Local Viet Cong Platoon Leader and Communist Party Secretary |
This photo of Thi was seized from a Viet Cong way station bunker and separate hidden cache located along the Buong River in the 720th MP Battalion Tactical Area Of Responsibility in the fall of 1968.
Thi was a platoon leader and Communist Party Secretary of the local Viet Cong forces originally from the An Xuan Village area, Bien Hoa Provence, III Corps Tactical Zone, Long Binh, Vietnam. At the time he was acting as a scout for the 274th Viet Cong (Dong Nai) Main Force Regiment attached to the 5th NVA Division.
A joint B Company Ambush Platoon operation under the command of 2LT Robert Chavis resulted in the discovery of his way station bunker along the Buong River. CPL Thomas T. Watson, Squad Leader of Ambush Team-76 later discovered a cache of materials hidden in an old 55 gallon drum that contained a Mackarov PM (Russian) pistol and Chi Com hand grenade, 7.62mm and 5.56mm rifle and pistol ammunition, propaganda materials, civilian clothing, food and medical supplies, copies of North Vietnamese newspapers, letters, and forged identification papers in which this photograph was used.
Thi was later killed in an ambush outside the Village of An Xuan while on a scouting mission.
