At the end of 1953, the resistance war against the French colonialists of our army and people entered the counter-attack phase. With the decision to open the Dien Bien Phu campaign, the Government mobilized maximum human and material resources for the front.
For his contributions to the revolutionary cause and the country’s medical career, Professor, Doctor, and Meritorious Physician Ton That Tung was awarded the First Class Soldier Medal by President Ho Chi Minh. July 14, 1954); was awarded the title Hero of Labor by the Party and State (1962), Ho Chi Minh Medal (1982); Ho Chi Minh Prize for science and technology (1996). His name is solemnly named after streets in Hanoi and City. Ho Chi Minh and many other localities.
On March 23, 1954, Professor Ton That Tung received a letter from President Ho Chi Minh. In the letter, President Ho Chi Minh invited him and Doctor Vu Dinh Tung – Minister of War Invalids – to go directly to the front to perform surgical work to treat wounded soldiers. The words of the letter are simple but contain sincerity, meaning that the presence of two good surgeons at the Forward Surgery Station to take care of the health of the soldiers at this time is extremely necessary for the resistance. This also aims to make our soldiers feel secure in defeating the enemy.
Doctor Ton That Tung was then a surgical advisor to the General Command of the Vietnam People’s Army. Coming from a patriotic family, early enlightened to the revolution, benevolent and famous as a skilled doctor, Dr. Ton That Tung was trusted with the task of taking care of President Ho’s health. From the first day of the successful August Revolution, Chi Minh was honored to be close to Uncle Ho and be directly guided by him with special love and affection.
Receiving President Ho Chi Minh’s letter, doctor Ton That Tung was not surprised because going to the battlefield to serve the army and treat wounded soldiers had been something he had planned for very early.
On the morning of March 23, we received the letter and did the preparations. On the afternoon of March 25, the group departed. From Chiem Hoa – where he was working, he and the doctors boarded a bamboo boat straight towards the center of Tuyen Quang province. Professor Ton That Tung’s diary also clearly records: “Waiting for the plane to “go to sleep”, with a separate dissecting team, I took a bamboo boat down the fast-flowing Lo river, passing many green mountains and silver waterfalls to arrive on time. meeting place. We know the Dien Bien Phu Campaign is about to enter phase 2, which will be more fierce.”
When we arrived at Tuyen Quang, there was a car waiting, the group of doctors got in the car and went immediately… The road to Dien Bien was as crowded as a festival, thousands of people working in carts, carrying gongs, loading food, weapons, and medicine towards Dien Bien. Record; Each group of soldiers went to battle, their momentum was like flowing water. There was also a group of French prisoners of war on vehicles under the control of our troops, traveling to the plain.
Through winding, steep roads filled with potholes and bomb craters, on April 3, the group arrived at the station of treatment team I. Doctor Ton That Tung was arranged to live in a small shack along the stream. Treatment Team I, led by student Dao Ba Khu, performs the duties of a field hospital, collecting wounded and sick soldiers from the front, specializing in treating head and cranial injuries, which are The most dangerous. The hospital was built under a forest with an operating room and wounded soldiers’ tents located on bamboo floors.
Along with completing the camp, the doctor and the working group began examining the wounded soldiers. On April 4, he began operating on brain injuries. Standing in front of the wounded soldiers, even though they were in pain from wounds that could threaten their lives, they were very calm and gritted their teeth to endure, emotion and admiration filled him. He said to himself: “Our soldiers are especially precious people and your brains are the most precious. I hope that your brain injuries will recover quickly so you can continue to think, work and fight.” be normal”. Then he remembered President Ho Chi Minh’s instructions: “This year the battlefield is open far away, soldiers can suffer, so can civil servants, but don’t let wounded or sick soldiers suffer.”
In the sacred forest, poisonous water, stressful working conditions, hardships and harsh climate, snake bites are everywhere, and yellow flies are everywhere in the forest. Yellow flies lay in the soft tissue wounds of wounded soldiers, causing the wounds to become infected and even produce maggots, causing more pain. After several days and nights of thinking and testing, Professor. Dr. Ton That Tung decided to use available quinacrin (quinine – antimalarial drug), dissolved with water into a 1% solution to wash maggot-infested wounds. The results were surprising, the wounds were clean and dried quickly. This initiative was disseminated to military medical staff across the front to treat similar injuries.
The battlefield becomes more and more fierce, the wounded soldiers increase every day. There was a time when the number of wounded soldiers reached 700 but the treatment team only had 6 doctors and 20 nurses. Team members stay up all night to work. While cooking utensils are lacking. Usually breakfast is sometimes very late, dinner is at 11 pm. Many nights after surgery, Dr. Tung was very tired and could not finish his rice bowl. But the fatigue was nothing compared to the lack of equipment for especially difficult cases, so there were times when he and his teammates had to give up. During those times, every night, he buried his face in a corner of pain and torment. Many nights he could not sleep. Every time he closed his eyes, the images of wounded soldiers appeared clearly in his vision, making him even more eager to find a way to overcome the conditions to best treat the wounded soldiers. .
He often told his colleagues: “A physician who is not determined to perform surgery is not one who knows how to perform surgery. We must build a tradition of surgery and a medicine for the people. Must be worthy of the Party’s medical system. We must always remember Uncle Ho’s teachings.”
He is a person who upholds the ideal of life, is loyal to the Party, to Uncle Ho, serves the revolution, and serves the people. He once wrote in his diary: “If it weren’t for this great resistance war, perhaps I would never have clearly seen the heroic spirit of our people, a heroic nation that fought against foreign invaders. The resistance war, the battlefield, changed many of my people, and greatly revolutionized my thoughts and actions.”
In his diary, he spent many pages writing about work, had a lot of love for the soldiers and soldiers, and cared for wounded soldiers. He wrote: “April 5, 1954: Preparing to visit the seriously injured. Last night, when it rained, thinking about the wounded soldiers on the front lines under the traffic trenches brought tears to my eyes and a feeling of pain in my stomach. I have never felt so sorry for the soldiers as I do today. Early in the morning, the weather stopped. Lucky for you guys who are fighting”…; “April 9: Persistent rain all day and night, all week. Outside, the soldiers soaked in the mud of the trenches and became limp…
He lived through the most arduous and fierce days at the Dien Bien Phu battlefield, forgetting to eat, forget to sleep, and forget about time. Only on the afternoon of May 7, 1954, when he learned that Commander-in-Chief Vo Nguyen Giap was about to visit the treatment teams, when he was preparing to get in the car to go to a fire village at kilometer 64 to pick up the General, he suddenly heard a voice. very loud shouts: “Dien Bien Phu is liberated! Liberated”. His heart seemed to stop for a few seconds and then sprang up. Then, a teammate ran up and shouted: “Brother Tung, we have occupied Dien Bien Phu!”. At that moment, he hugged Vu Dinh Tung and shouted loudly: “Bravo! Hooray!”. From the green forest, there was a sound of “Hosanna! Hooray!” recoil.
…
Our army and people won a complete victory at the Dien Bien Phu front. A new page of history has begun. At the end of the Dien Bien campaign, he returned to Hanoi and proposed to be handed over the position of Deputy Minister of Health to focus on his expertise. A coincidence is that the date of his death was May 7. For many years he was away, but his revolutionary qualities, medical ethics, and reputation were still engraved in people’s hearts, in the golden table of medicine, in the history of the country and in the world medical field.
