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Though Bishop Tu is also commander in chief of the private army of Phat Diem and Bui Chu, operational control is in the hands of dapper Ngo Cao Tung, who looks ten years younger than his 40 years, claims to have served as a major on Chiang Kai-shek's staff and as military counselor to the Nationalist commander in chief in South China. He arrived in Phat Diem last May. Under him are two regular battalions of 1,700 men, known as Groupe Mobile Autonome. His uniform, a strange mixture of his own and the bishop's design, includes a Sam Browne belt, rank badges of a French major and a gold cap badge showing a miter with crossed keys.
The G.M.A. has five jeeps, seven G.M.C. six-wheeler trucks, two radios. Also under Le Huu Tu's "exclusive authority" are 5,800 militiamen equipped with very little but bush hats, about 30 old rifles per company of 120 men, and a good deal of zeal.
On Phat Diem's southern border, where mountains leap suddenly from the rice plain like rocks from the sea, the Viet Minhs occasionally raid the bishop's territory. But so far there has been no big attack. Bui Chu and Phat Diem still manage to maintain their independent existence. At the back of Monsignor Le Huu Tu's episcopal palace, the lathes grind out crude grenades, mortars and one Rube Goldberg contraption, proudly described by one of the priests as "our flying bomb."