Đặng Thùy Trâm (November 26, 1942 – June 22, 1970) was a Vietnamese doctor. She worked as a battlefield

surgeon In modern medicine, a surgeon is a medical professional who performs surgery. Although there are different traditions in different times and places, a modern surgeon usually is also a licensed physician or received the same medical training as ...

for the

People's Army of Vietnam The People's Army of Vietnam (PAVN; vi, Quân đội nhân dân Việt Nam, QĐNDVN), also recognized as the Vietnam People's Army (VPA) or the Vietnamese Army (), is the military force of the Vietnam, Socialist Republic of Vietnam and the ...

and

Vietcong , , war = the Vietnam War , image = FNL Flag.svg , caption = The flag of the Viet Cong, adopted in 1960, is a variation on the flag of North Vietnam. Sometimes the lower stripe was green. , active ...

during the

Vietnam War The Vietnam War (also known by #Names, other names) was a conflict in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia from 1 November 1955 to the fall of Saigon on 30 April 1975. It was the second of the Indochina Wars and was officially fought between North Vie ...

. Her wartime diaries, which chronicle the last two years of her life, attracted international attention following their publication in 2005.

Early life

Trâm was born on November 26, 1942 in

Hà Nội Hanoi or Ha Noi ( or ; vi, Hà Nội ) is the capital and second-largest city of Vietnam. It covers an area of . It consists of 12 urban districts, one district-leveled town and 17 rural districts. Located within the Red River Delta, Hanoi is ...

Vietnam Vietnam or Viet Nam ( vi, Việt Nam, ), officially the Socialist Republic of Vietnam,., group="n" is a country in Southeast Asia, at the eastern edge of mainland Southeast Asia, with an area of and population of 96 million, making i ...

to a family of doctors that had spanned three generations. Her father, Đặng Ngọc Khuê, was a surgeon and her mother, Doãn Ngọc Trâm, was a pharmacist. Trâm was also the eldest of five siblings, which included three other younger sisters and a younger brother. She went to high school at

Chu Văn An High School (Hanoi) Chu Van An High School (Vietnamese: Trường Trung học phổ thông Quốc gia Chu Văn An), also known as Chu Van An National School or Pomelo School (trường Bưởi, before 1945) one of the three national high schools for the gifted in Vi ...

and later attended the

Hanoi Medical University Hanoi Medical University (HMU, vi, Đại học Y Hà Nội) is the oldest university of Vietnam and is located in Hanoi. HMU was founded in 1902 by French during the French colonisation under the name ''Indochina Medical College''. The first he ...

during college. On December 23, 1966, Trâm, along with many other civilians, boarded a truck to the Quảng Bình Province and began working as a battlefield surgeon.

Diaries

One of Trâm's handwritten diaries was captured by US forces in December 1969. Following her death in a gun battle on June 22, 1970, a second diary was taken by Frederic (Fred) Whitehurst, a then 22-year-old military

intelligence specialist Intelligence Specialist (IS) is a US Navy enlisted rating within the Information Warfare community. The Intelligence Specialist rating was established in 1975 by combining the Photographic Intelligenceman (PT) rating (first established in 1957) an ...

. Whitehurst defied an order to burn the diaries, instead following the advice of a

South Vietnam South Vietnam, officially the Republic of Vietnam ( vi, Việt Nam Cộng hòa), was a state in Southeast Asia that existed from 1955 to 1975, the period when the southern portion of Vietnam was a member of the Western Bloc during part of th ...

ese translator not to destroy them. He kept them for 35 years, with the intention of eventually returning them to Trâm's family. After returning to the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...

, Whitehurst's search for Trâm's family initially proved unsuccessful. After earning a Ph.D. in

chemistry Chemistry is the science, scientific study of the properties and behavior of matter. It is a natural science that covers the Chemical element, elements that make up matter to the chemical compound, compounds made of atoms, molecules and ions ...

he joined the

FBI The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is the domestic Intelligence agency, intelligence and Security agency, security service of the United States and its principal Federal law enforcement in the United States, federal law enforcement age ...

, but was unable to reach anyone from the Vietnamese

embassy A diplomatic mission or foreign mission is a group of people from a state or organization present in another state to represent the sending state or organization officially in the receiving or host state. In practice, the phrase usually deno ...

. In March 2005, he and his brother Robert – another Vietnam veteran – brought the diaries to a conference at

Texas Tech University Texas Tech University (Texas Tech, Tech, or TTU) is a public research university in Lubbock, Texas. Established on , and called Texas Technological College until 1969, it is the main institution of the five-institution Texas Tech University Sys ...

. There, they met photographer Ted Engelmann (also a Vietnam veteran), who offered to look for the family during his trip to Vietnam. With the assistance of Do Xuan Anh, a staff member in the

Hanoi Hanoi or Ha Noi ( or ; vi, Hà Nội ) is the capital and second-largest city of Vietnam. It covers an area of . It consists of 12 urban districts, one district-leveled town and 17 rural districts. Located within the Red River Delta, Hanoi is ...

Quaker Quakers are people who belong to a historically Protestant Christian set of Christian denomination, denominations known formally as the Religious Society of Friends. Members of these movements ("theFriends") are generally united by a belie ...

office, Engelmann was able to locate Trâm's mother, Doan Ngoc Tram, and subsequently reached the rest of her family. In July 2005, Trâm's diaries were published in Vietnam under the title ''Nhật ký Đặng Thùy Trâm'' (''Đặng Thùy Trâm's Diary'' (''Last Night I Dreamed Of Peace'')), which quickly became a bestseller. In less than a year, the volume sold more than 300,000 copies and comparisons were drawn between Trâm's writings and that of

Anne Frank Annelies Marie "Anne" Frank (, ; 12 June 1929 – )Research by The Anne Frank House in 2015 revealed that Frank may have died in February 1945 rather than in March, as Dutch authorities had long assumed"New research sheds new light on Anne Fra ...

. In August 2005, Fred and Robert Whitehurst traveled to Hanoi to meet Trâm's family. In October of that year, Trâm's family visited

Lubbock, Texas Lubbock ( ) is the 10th-most populous city in the U.S. state of Texas and the seat of government of Lubbock County. With a population of 260,993 in 2021, the city is also the 85th-most populous in the United States. The city is in the northw ...

to view the diaries archived at Texas Tech University Vietnam Archive, and then visited Fred Whitehurst and his family. The diaries wer
translated into English
and published in September 2007. They include family photographs and images of Trâm. Translations of the diaries have been published in at least sixteen different languages. In 2009, a film about Tram by Vietnamese director

Đặng Nhật Minh Đặng Nhật Minh (b. Huế, Vietnam, 1938) is one of Vietnam's foremost film directors. He began making documentary films around 1965 and is the first Vietnamese person to be awarded the Nikkei Asia Prize for Culture, in 1999. His films have w ...

, entitled ''Đừng Đốt'' (''Do Not Burn It''), was released.

Death

Tram was 27 years old when she died on June 22, 1970 in Đức Phổ, Quảng Ngãi Province, Vietnam. She and another colleague were killed by a patrol from the US 4th Battalion, 21st Infantry Regiment in a

Free-fire zone A freedom zone to fire in U.S. military parlance is a fire control measure, used for coordination between adjacent combat units. The definition used in the Vietnam War by U.S. troops may be found in field manual FM 6-20: :A specific designated ar ...

while traveling on a trail in the ''Ba Tơ'' jungle in Quảng Ngãi Province.

External links

"Trở lại một khát vọng hòa bình"
September 14, 2007)
"Nhật ký Đặng Thùy Trâm có giá trị toàn cầu và vĩnh cửu"
(September 18, 2007)
"Last night I dreamed of peace"
published worldwide by Random House, September 11, 2007. * '
Full text of ''The Diary of Dr. Dang Thuy Tram''
'' from The Vietnam Center site at Texas Tech University (scans of original Vietnamese text; English translation removed at request of family)
"Tram Diaries: Soldiers Preserve Writings of Vietnam War"

''Charlotte Observer'' (Charlotte, North Carolina), October 6, 2005
"Vietcong Doctor's Diary of War, Sacrifice"

"Mother Reads Daughter's Vietnam Diaries... 35 Years Later"
(October 6, 2005)
"The real stuff: what a Vietnamese army doctor saw"
(September 22, 2005)

(October 12, 2005)
"Best-selling diary transformed into television show"
(August 15, 2005)
"Diarist's mother visits US, holds daughter's manuscript"
(October 7, 2005)
"The Diary of Dr Tram"
(February 13, 2006)
"Day to Day Among the Viet Cong"
(August 4, 2006)

Video

Dang Thuy Tram video
from Texas Tech University

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Dang, Tram Thuy Vietnamese diarists Vietnamese military doctors 1943 births 1970 deaths People from Huế Women in the Vietnam War Vietnamese people of the Vietnam War Women diarists 20th-century Vietnamese physicians Vietnamese women physicians Vietnam War casualties 20th-century diarists