Printing Base of the Association for Supporting the National Guard

A wooden house in a Ngo Gia Tu alley hiding "Bunker B", where secret documents were printed; dug in 1952 and entered through a wardrobe

In a small alley off Ngo Gia Tu Street stands a 62 m² wooden house with plank walls that hides an underground secret: "Bunker B", the printing base of the Association for Supporting the National Guard during the resistance war against the French. At the time, the house was divided in two: one side was a home with secret documents printed below, the other a musical-instrument workshop to deflect outside attention, all surrounded by a bamboo fence. The bunker was dug between 3 February and 19 May 1952. The main chamber is 3.5 m long, 3.2 m wide and 1.7 m high, with a 1.7 m thick ceiling and cement-rendered walls and floor for waterproofing. Two metres from the bunker is a well; half a metre below the mouth of the well, a 10 cm ventilation hole brings air into the bunker. The way down is through a wooden wardrobe compartment full of hanging clothes. Above the main chamber is a decoy chamber dug upwards to mislead searchers, connected to the main chamber by a short tunnel just wide enough for one person to crawl through, its hatch concealed by a bookshelf. From February 1952 to July 1954, this was Office B of the Association for Supporting the National Guard and the Dong Nai Regiment. Members took turns listening to the radio stations "Voice of Vietnam" and "Voice of the Southern Resistance", edited the news, then mimeographed it into leaflets distributed far and wide. From August 1954, it became the Printing Section of the Saigon – Cho Lon City Party Committee, printing resolutions calling for implementation of the Geneva Accords. The base was discovered in late 1957; after 1975, the bunker was restored for preservation. In 1988, it was designated a National Historical Relic. Today, the main chamber still holds a Gestetner mimeograph machine, a typewriter, a radio, lamps and an alarm system of flashing lights. The most memorable moment is opening the wooden wardrobe door, sliding the panel aside and seeing a dark staircase leading underground. The site is in a residential area, has a caretaker, and is often visited on the heritage tour "District 10 – Where History Left Its Mark". No opening hours have been published, so contact ahead or join a tour.

English text: machine translation from the Localis platform — proper names kept in Vietnamese.