As the PRG and NLF headquarters prepared to follow the COSVN into Cambodia on March 30, they were surrounded in their bunkers by South Vietnamese forces flown in by helicopter. Surrounded, they awaited till nightfall and then with security provided by the 7th they broke out of the encirclement and fled north to unite with the COSVN in the Cambodian Kratié province. Trương Như Tảng, then Minister of Justice in the PRG, recounts the march to the northern bases as day after day of forced marches in the rain. Just before the column crossed route 7 heading north, they received word that on April 3 the 9th Division had fought and won in a battle near the city of Krek, Cambodia against ARVN forces. Years later, Trương would recall that during the escape of the Provisional Revolutionary Government just how "close Vietnamese were to annihilating or capturing the core of the Southern resistance - elite units of our frontline fighters along with the civilian and much of the military leadership.