Tô Vĩnh Diện (1924–1 February 1954) was a soldier in the

Việt Minh The Việt Minh (; abbreviated from , chữ Nôm and Hán tự: ; french: Ligue pour l'indépendance du Viêt Nam, ) was a national independence coalition formed at Pác Bó by Hồ Chí Minh on 19 May 1941. Also known as the Việt Minh Fr ...

during the

First Indochina War The First Indochina War (generally known as the Indochina War in France, and as the Anti-French Resistance War in Vietnam) began in French Indochina from 19 December 1946 to 20 July 1954 between France and Việt Minh ( Democratic Republic of ...

against France in

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 it ...

. Dien was proclaimed a national hero by the Việt Minh after his death in the period leading up to the

Battle of Dien Bien Phu The Battle of Dien Bien Phu (french: Bataille de Diên Biên Phu ; vi, Chiến dịch Điện Biên Phủ, ) was a climactic confrontation of the First Indochina War that took place between 13 March and 7 May 1954. It was fought between the ...

. Before the battle, General

Võ Nguyên Giáp Võ Nguyên Giáp (; 25 August 1911 – 4 October 2013) was a Vietnamese general and communist politician who is regarded as having been one of the greatest military strategists of the 20th century. He served as interior minister in President ...

, commanding the Việt Minh, needed to move large numbers of

artillery Artillery is a class of heavy military ranged weapons that launch munitions far beyond the range and power of infantry firearms. Early artillery development focused on the ability to breach defensive walls and fortifications during sieg ...

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, Windrow, Martin, ''The Last Valley'', 2004. 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. Tô Vĩnh Diện was a soldier in the Việt 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 Việt 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.

Notes

People of the First Indochina War Vietnamese military personnel killed in action 1924 births 1954 deaths {{Vietnam-mil-bio-stub