Bến Tre is the capital city of Bến Tre Province in the Mekong Delta area of southern Vietnam. The city is connected to surrounding provinces by the Rạch Miễu Bridge, which played a significant role in the Second Indochina War (1955-1975). Bến Tre Province is regarded as the location of “the start of the Vietnam War”, when, in January and February 1960, National Liberation Front (NLF) forces attacked and took temporary control of several districts in Kiến Hòa Province (now Bến Tre Province). They set up “people’s committees”, and confiscated land from landlords and redistributed it to poor farmers. One of the leaders of the uprising was Madame Nguyễn Thị Định who led the all-female “Long Hair Army”. Định was the secretary of the Bến Tre Communist Party and later a Major General in the NLF.
