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Thura Ma Chit Po ( my, သူရ မချစ်ပို; February 1908 – 8 April 1949) was a Burmese woman who was the one and only civilian woman to have received the Thura medal for bravery. She gathered intelligence on the
Chit Po was posthumously awarded the Thura Medal in 1950. She is still the only female recipient of the medal; 516 medals have been awarded to men. Her name is inscribed on the Memorial to the Fallen Heroes (Nay Pyi Taw) in Naypyitaw.
A statue of Chit Po was erected in the Friday Garden in her hometown of
Karen National Defence Organisation
The Karen National Defence Organisation ( my, ကရင်အမျိုးသား ကာကွယ်ရေး အဖွဲ့အစည်း; ksw, ကညီဒီကလုာ်ဂၢၤသးကရၢ; KNDO) is one of two military branche ...
(KNDO) on behalf of the Myanmar Military
Tatmadaw (, , ) is the official name of the armed forces of Myanmar (formerly Burma). It is administered by the Ministry of Defence and composed of the Myanmar Army, the Myanmar Navy and the Myanmar Air Force. Auxiliary services include th ...
before she was caught and executed by the KNDO insurgents.
Biography
Chit Po was born in February 1908 inTavoy
Dawei (, ; mnw, ဓဝဲါ, ; th, ทวาย, RTGS: ''Thawai'', ; formerly known as Tavoy) is a city in south-eastern Myanmar and is the capital of the Tanintharyi Region, formerly known as the Tenasserim Division, on the northern bank of ...
(Dawei), Tenasserim Division
Tanintharyi Region ( my, တနင်္သာရီတိုင်းဒေသကြီး, ; Mon: or ; ms, Tanah Sari; formerly Tenasserim Division and subsequently Tanintharyi Division, th, ตะนาวศรี, RTGS: ''Tanao Si'', ...
. She married Corporal Hla Maung (a cook in No.1 Military Engineer Battalion), in Maymyo
Pyin Oo Lwin or Pyin U Lwin (, ; Shan: ), formerly and colloquially referred to as Maymyo (), is a scenic hill town in the Mandalay Region, Myanmar, some east of Mandalay, and at an elevation of . The town was estimated to have a population of ...
(Pyinoolwin) in 1947.
Service
In 1949, the Myanmar Military (Tatmadaw
Tatmadaw (, , ) is the official name of the armed forces of Myanmar (formerly Burma). It is administered by the Ministry of Defence and composed of the Myanmar Army, the Myanmar Navy and the Myanmar Air Force. Auxiliary services include th ...
) was fighting against the insurgent group called Karen National Defence Organisation
The Karen National Defence Organisation ( my, ကရင်အမျိုးသား ကာကွယ်ရေး အဖွဲ့အစည်း; ksw, ကညီဒီကလုာ်ဂၢၤသးကရၢ; KNDO) is one of two military branche ...
(KNDO).
One of the issues the Tatmadaw had was a lack of access to intelligence. Chit Po, using a variety of disguises, which included a helmet, a cane for herding cows and a sleeping bag, entered the KNDO camp and reported back enemy artillery positions.
Shortly afterwards, Chit Po was arrested, interrogated, and killed by the KNDO on 8 April 1949. She was 41 (in her 42nd year). On 16 May 1949, her body was buried in a military ceremony.
Legacy
Chit Po was posthumously awarded the Thura Medal in 1950. She is still the only female recipient of the medal; 516 medals have been awarded to men. Her name is inscribed on the Memorial to the Fallen Heroes (Nay Pyi Taw) in Naypyitaw.
A statue of Chit Po was erected in the Friday Garden in her hometown of Launglon Township
Launglon ( my, လောင်းလုံးမြို့နယ်) is a town in Dawei District, in Tanintharyi Division, Burma
Myanmar, ; UK pronunciations: US pronunciations incl. . Note: Wikipedia's IPA conventions require indicat ...
, Dawei District
Dawei District ( my, ထားဝယ်ခရိုင်) is a district of the Taninthayi Division of Myanmar. The district covers an area of 13,792 km2, and had a population of 493,576 at the 2014 Census.
Administrative divisions Townships ...
, in 2017. The sculptor was Maung Kyaw; the statue is over two metres tall, and shows Chit Po holding a machete and a bag of grenades.
The 110th anniversary of Chit Po's birth was commemorated in Pyin Oo Lwin
Pyin Oo Lwin or Pyin U Lwin (, ; Shan: ), formerly and colloquially referred to as Maymyo (), is a scenic hill town in the Mandalay Region, Myanmar, some east of Mandalay, and at an elevation of . The town was estimated to have a population of ...
in February 2018, organised by the Pyin Oo Lwin Township Writers' Association.
Chit Po is the subject of Maymyo Chit Swe's biographical book ''Thura Ma Phit Po'' (မြန်မာ့သမိုင်းတွင် တစ်ဦးတည်းသော သူရဘွဲ့ရအမျိုးသမီး သူရမချစ်ပို), first published in 2014. Portrayed by Soe Myat Thuzar
Soe Myat Thuzar ( my, စိုးမြတ်သူဇာ; born 31 August 1971) is a two-times Myanmar Academy awarded Burmese actress and writer. She is best known for acting in many Burmese films.
She started her acting career in September ...
in 2017 film ''Thura Ma Chit Po''. In the Hall of Tanintharyi Region, Ma Chit Po is memorialized with a bronze bust.
See also
*References
{{Authority control 1908 births 1949 deaths Burmese women Spies by nationality Burmese soldiers People from Tanintharyi Region