Đỗ Hữu Vị (17 February 1883 – 9 July 1916) was the first Vietnamese aviator and fighter pilot. He served in the French Army, rising to the rank of captain. He took part in the

First World War World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...

and was killed at the Battle of the Somme.

Biography

Đỗ was born on February 17, 1883, in the Cholon district of Saigon, now a ward of Ho Chi Minh City,

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 ...

, the fifth son of Đỗ Hữu Phương, who was the governor of Chợ Lớn. Đỗ gave his sons French education and sent them to study in Paris, to the

Lycée Janson-de-Sailly Lycée Janson de Sailly is a ''lycée'' located in the 16th arrondissement of Paris, France. The ''lycéens'' of Janson are called ''les jansoniens'' and they usually refer to their high school as Janson, or JdS. It is the biggest academic inst ...

then in preparatory classes at the

Lycée Louis-le-Grand The Lycée Louis-le-Grand (), also referred to simply as Louis-le-Grand or by its acronym LLG, is a public Lycée (French secondary school, also known as sixth form college) located on rue Saint-Jacques in central Paris. It was founded in the ...

. Đỗ entered the Special Military School of Saint-Cyr on October 1, 1904, and joined the Centenary class of Austerlitz. He was the fourth Indochinese to enter the academy. He was commissioned a Second Lieutenant of infantry in 1906 and assigned to the first regiment of the

French Foreign Legion The French Foreign Legion (french: Légion étrangère) is a corps of the French Army which comprises several specialties: infantry, Armoured Cavalry Arm, cavalry, Military engineering, engineers, Airborne forces, airborne troops. It was created ...

, participating in campaigns in North Africa. He was deployed to Oujda, Casablanca, and then Haut-Guir in Morocco from 1907 to August 1908, before fighting against guerrillas on the border with Algeria. Promoted to First Lieutenant and inspired by the achievements of Louis Blériot, he learned to fly, entering the military pilot's school in December 1910 and obtaining pilot's license no. 649 issued by the

Aéro-Club de France The Aéro-Club de France () was founded as the Aéro-Club on 20 October 1898 as a society 'to encourage aerial locomotion' by Ernest Archdeacon, Léon Serpollet, Henri de la Valette, Jules Verne and his wife, André Michelin, Albert de Dion, ...

in 1911. He returned to Morocco as a military pilot. At the beginning of 1914, he returned to Indochina to test Lambert seaplanes on the

Mekong River The Mekong or Mekong River is a trans-boundary river in East Asia and Southeast Asia. It is the world's twelfth longest river and the third longest in Asia. Its estimated length is , and it drains an area of , discharging of water annual ...

and to establish airbases in the colony. On October 3, 1914, Đỗ Hữu Vị asked to be transferred back to France to take part in the First World War. He then took part in numerous reconnaissance flights. In April 1915, he was caught in a storm and crashed. He spent nine days in a coma in Val-de-Grâce, with a broken left arm, jaw and skull fractured. No longer able to pilot, he briefly becomes an observer on bombing raids before requesting reassignment to the infantry. He was given command of the 7th Company in the Foreign Legion with the rank of Captain. During the Battle of the Somme, he led his men to attack Boyau de Chancelier, between Belloy-en-Santerre and Estrée on and was killed around 4 p.m. July 9, 1916. He was first buried near Dompierre with this epitaph: "Captain-aviator Do Huu, Died on the field of honor, For his country of Annam, For his homeland, France." In 1921, his brother, Colonel Đỗ Hữu Chấn, brought back his remains to rest in the ancestral plot near Cholon."Phi công thứ nhất Đông Dương Đại úy Đỗ Hữu Vị" (Indochina's First Pilot Captain Đỗ Hữu Vị), ''Trang An Newspaper'', No. 856, September 24, 1941. Archived at the National Library of Vietnam. He was awarded the Morocco Commemorative Medal, the

Colonial Medal The Colonial Medal (french: "Médaille Coloniale") was a French decoration created by the "loi de finances" of 26 July 1893 (article 75) to reward "military services in the colonies, resulting from participation in military operations, in a colon ...

, and was posthumously made a Chevalier of the Legion of Honor for being a "courageous and spirited officer" who "gloriously fell while leading his company to assault the German trenches." Streets in Casablanca,

Laffaux Laffaux () is a commune in the Aisne department in Hauts-de-France in northern France. Population See also *Communes of the Aisne department The following is a list of the 799 communes in the French department of Aisne. The commune ...

, and in Lái Thiêu ward,

Thuận An Thuận An is a city of Bình Dương Province in the Southeast region of Vietnam. It is situated about northeast of the centre of Ho Chi Minh City. As of November 3, 2021 the city had a population of 618,984. The town covers an area of 83.7 k ...

, in Bình Dương Province, Vietnam, have been named after him. A stamp featuring Đỗ Hữu Vị was issued by the French Indochinese postal service in 1930.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Do, Huu Vi 1883 births 1916 deaths École Spéciale Militaire de Saint-Cyr alumni French military personnel killed in World War I Knights of the Legion of Honour Military personnel from Ho Chi Minh City Vietnamese aviators Vietnamese people of World War I