Dương Văn Minh (help·info) (February 16, 1916 – August 6, 2001), known popularly as Big Minh, was a Vietnamese general and politician. He led the South Vietnamese army under Prime Minister Ngô Đình Diệm. In 1963, he became leader of South Vietnam after a coup in which Diệm was assassinated. Dương’s rule lasted only three months, but he briefly led South Vietnam again in 1975 before surrendering the nation to Communist forces.
He got the nickname,...
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Dương Văn Minh (help·info) (February 16, 1916 – August 6, 2001), known popularly as Big Minh, was a Vietnamese general and politician. He led the South Vietnamese army under Prime Minister Ngô Đình Diệm. In 1963, he became leader of South Vietnam after a coup in which Diệm was assassinated. Dương’s rule lasted only three months, but he briefly led South Vietnam again in 1975 before surrendering the nation to Communist forces.
He got the nickname, “Big Minh”, because being 1.83 m (6 ft) tall and weighing 90 kg (198 lb), he dwarfed all the other Vietnamese soldiers. It also serves to distinguish him from another military general of South Vietnam, Trần Văn Minh.
Dương Văn Minh was born on February 16, 1916 in Mỹ Tho province in the Mekong Delta. He went to Saigon where he attended a top French colonial school, where King Norodom Sihanouk of Cambodia had also studied.
He began his military career in the 1940s when he joined the French colonial army. He was one of only 50 Vietnamese...
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