To Vinh Dien
Encyclopedia
Tô Vĩnh Diện was a soldier in the Viet Minh
during the First Indochina War
against France
in Vietnam
. Dien was proclaimed a national hero by the Viet Minh after his death in the period leading up to the Battle of Dien Bien Phu
.
Before the battle, General Vo Nguyen Giap
, commanding the Viet Minh, needed to move large numbers of artillery
through the jungle from the roads and tracks on which they had arrived into specially dug casements in the hillsides overlooking the French positions in the Dien Bien Phu valley. In process that took an average of seven nights per artillery piece, the Viet Minh used ropes, levers and pulley systems to manoeuvre weapons as heavy as two tons, in the case of the 105mm guns, through the jungle in wet weather conditions where the guns were liable to slip.
To Vinh Dien was a soldier in the Viet Minh who took part in the effort to move the artillery into firing positions, together with what may have been up to 30,000 other porters. To Vinh Dien was proclaimed as a national hero by the Viet Minh when, in early 1954, as an artillery pieces began to slip down slope he placed his own body under the wheel to serve as a wedge.
Viet Minh
Việt Minh was a national independence coalition formed at Pac Bo on May 19, 1941. The Việt Minh initially formed to seek independence for Vietnam from the French Empire. When the Japanese occupation began, the Việt Minh opposed Japan with support from the United States and the Republic of China...
during the First Indochina War
First Indochina War
The First Indochina War was fought in French Indochina from December 19, 1946, until August 1, 1954, between the French Union's French Far East...
against France
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
in Vietnam
Vietnam
Vietnam – sometimes spelled Viet Nam , officially the Socialist Republic of Vietnam – is the easternmost country on the Indochina Peninsula in Southeast Asia. It is bordered by China to the north, Laos to the northwest, Cambodia to the southwest, and the South China Sea –...
. Dien was proclaimed a national hero by the Viet Minh after his death in the period leading up to the Battle of Dien Bien Phu
Battle of Dien Bien Phu
The Battle of Dien Bien Phu was the climactic confrontation of the First Indochina War between the French Union's French Far East Expeditionary Corps and Viet Minh communist revolutionaries. The battle occurred between March and May 1954 and culminated in a comprehensive French defeat that...
.
Before the battle, General Vo Nguyen Giap
Vo Nguyen Giap
Võ Nguyên Giáp is a retired Vietnamese officer in the Vietnam People’s Army and a politician. He was a principal commander in two wars: the First Indochina War and the Vietnam War...
, commanding the Viet Minh, needed to move large numbers of artillery
Artillery
Originally applied to any group of infantry primarily armed with projectile weapons, artillery has over time become limited in meaning to refer only to those engines of war that operate by projection of munitions far beyond the range of effect of personal weapons...
through the jungle from the roads and tracks on which they had arrived into specially dug casements in the hillsides overlooking the French positions in the Dien Bien Phu valley. In process that took an average of seven nights per artillery piece, the Viet Minh used ropes, levers and pulley systems to manoeuvre weapons as heavy as two tons, in the case of the 105mm guns, through the jungle in wet weather conditions where the guns were liable to slip.
To Vinh Dien was a soldier in the Viet Minh who took part in the effort to move the artillery into firing positions, together with what may have been up to 30,000 other porters. To Vinh Dien was proclaimed as a national hero by the Viet Minh when, in early 1954, as an artillery pieces began to slip down slope he placed his own body under the wheel to serve as a wedge.