BBC News Online: World: Asia-Pacific

Vietnam marks anniversary of giant leap

On 23 July, 1980 one-time water buffalo herder Lieutenant General Pham Tuan was blasted into space on board a Soviet Soyuz spacecraft.

Hailed as the Third World's first cosmonaut, Lieutenant Tuan was instantly elevated to the status of national hero.

Attending what the official Vietnam News described as a "solemn meeting" on Sunday to mark the anniversary, Lieutenant Tuan, who is now deputy head of Vietnam's defence industry, recalled what he said was "the greatest day in my life".

"As everybody watched us enter the spacecraft at Baikonur cosmodrome, I felt almost as if time was standing still," he said.

"Suddenly we and everything in the capsule were thrown into a weightless environment."

Taking place just five years after the reunification of Vietnam and the end of the bitter war with the US, the mission was a huge propaganda victory for the communist government.

Twenty years later, speaking alongside Russian co-pilot Vasilevich Gorebasko, Lieutenant Tuan recalled how he carried with him images of Ho Chi Minh - known to many Vietnamese as "Uncle Ho" - part of a veritable shrine of communist icons.

Back on Earth Lieutenant Tuan was lauded with party and state honours, including one of the highest accolades of the Eastern Bloc, Hero of the Soviet Union.

However it was not the first time that he had won the praise of party officials.

During the United States' Chistmas 1972 bombing campaign over North Vietnam, Lieutenant Tuan was the first Vietnamese fighter pilot to shoot down a giant B-52 bomber.