Nui Lon, also known as Tuong Ky mountain, is a 245m high mountain located in Vung Tau city, Ba Ria – Vung Tau province. There is still the largest ancient artillery battle in Indochina that existed over the past 100 years.
Nui Lon – Vung Tau artillery battlefield is considered the largest ancient artillery battle in Indochina; imprints on the history and hard work of prisoners and colonial French colonialists. The site has been recognized as a National Historic Site.This military work was built in the late 19th century and completed in 1905, located atop Nui Lon, 100m above sea level. The construction, transport and erection are done entirely by manual methods, which mobilize the majority of the labor of Vietnamese prisoners and villagers.The cannons were made of steel, had three parts: the barrel, the support and the rotating wheel. The gun barrel is longer than 4m, the bracket allows to raise or lower the range, the rotation plate allows the gun to rotate in directions, the base of the turntable is permanently linked to the concrete foundation.Here placed 06 cannons, arranged in an arc towards the East Sea, The cannons were placed on the gun pylons built down from the common ground, 17.5m apart. The caliber (inside diameter) of these guns was 240mm.Behind the gun barrel, where the gunners fire.On the barrel of the cannon there is clearly production information (model, weight) and specifications of the cannon. Accordingly, these 6 cannons were produced from 1872 – 1876, weighing from 15,390kg – 15,764kg.Correlated images showed that the cannons were very large.Behind each gun base is the ammunition cellar and the gunner tunnel, linked together by a trench transport system. Construction materials used are concrete and monolithic.Close-up of an ammunition cellar.Behind the artillery staging about 20m is the artillery command cellar, built like a bunker floating on the ground.About 200 meters from the battlefield to the west, there is an artillery storehouse, also known as a mine shaft. These are two tunnels that are dug into the mountain bed. In 1944 the Japanese army used this tunnel to store mines to block Ganh Rai Bay and Vung Tau estuary.Inside the mines, each tunnel has an area of more than 100m2. During the anti-French period (1945 – 1954), Vung Tau army and people secretly took dozens of mines (each weighing over 100kg) to manufacture bombs and mines, destroying the enemy.
