Major General Nguyen Thanh Trung, political commissar of the Ho Chi Minh City High Command, announced the effort on June 18 at a working session with the research group behind the Vietnam Wartime Accounting Initiative (VWAI), a U.S. government-funded program whose archival work is led by Texas Tech's Vietnam Center and Sam Johnson Vietnam Archive.
It came days after a Texas Tech delegation met Deputy Prime Minister Pham Thi Thanh Tra, who leads the national search effort, in Hanoi.
The seven suspected sites were all battlefields between 1966 and 1970, Trung said, and the exact grave locations are still unknown.
In what is now Chanh Phu Hoa Ward, formerly part of Binh Duong Province, wartime records indicate 154 soldiers were buried in two B-52 bomb craters after the Hon Da Lan campaign of Jan. 21, 1966.
In Bong Trang Commune, once part of Ba Ria-Vung Tau Province, 21 soldiers were laid in two mass graves by Australian troops following the Lang Ca Thi battle on Dec. 30, 1970.
