A Brief History
On May 19, 1959, the North Vietnamese Army formed Group 559 and gave the group the job of establishing a reliable supply route for NVA and Viet Cong forces in South Vietnam. The result became the Ho Chi Minh Trail, a network of roads and footpaths used by the communist North to funnel people and supplies to the South, via Laos and Cambodia.
Digging Deeper
Called by the American spy group the NSA “one of the great achievements of military engineering of the 20th century,” the Ho Chi Minh trail was a constant target of US bombing and interdiction but was never shut down.
Another great military road is the ALCAN Highway, or simply the Alaska Highway, built at an emergency pace under extreme conditions in early World War II to allow the US military overland access to Alaska through Western Canada. About one third of the US Army soldiers building the 1700-mile highway were African Americans.
Note: Some other epic military routes include the German Autobahn built in the 1930s to serve the German military in the upcoming World War II; Hannibal and his war elephants crossing the Alps in 218 BC to attack Italy; the American “Red Ball Express” in 1944 and 1945 that supplied the US Army in Europe, mostly courtesy of African American truck drivers; and the Burma Road built by 200,000 Chinese during their fight with Japan in the Second Sino-Japanese War, later used by the British and Americans. What other great military roads would you include on a list of epic roads and routes?
Question for students (and subscribers): What was or is the greatest military road or route ever made? Please let us know in the comments section below this article.
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Historical Evidence
For more information, please see…
Buchanan, Sherry. On The Ho Chi Minh Trail: The Blood Road, The Women Who Defended It, The Legacy. Asia Ink, 2021.
US Army Engineers. Alcan Trail Blazers. 648th Memorial Fund, 1992.
The featured image in this article, a map by the History and Museums Division, Headquarters, US Marine Corps of the Ho Chi Minh Trail network, is a work of a United States Marine or employee, taken or made as part of that person’s official duties. As a work of the U.S. federal government, it is in the public domain.
You can also watch video versions of this article on YouTube.
