Proud of the female general of the Coconut land

Female General Nguyen Thi Dinh visited and talked with the people of Binh Khanh commune (Mo Cay Nam) in 1976. Photo: Archive

The sea voyage opened the Ho Chi Minh trail at sea.

That girl (Mrs. Nguyen Thi Dinh) was in her youth and full of happiness with her husband Nguyen Van Bich (Ba Bich) - a revolutionary cadre, had just given birth to a son 3 days ago when Mr. Bich was captured by the enemy, she only once carried her child to the prison to visit him and ask for his opinion on naming the child. Then Mr. Bich was exiled to Con Dao by the enemy and passed away forever in the harsh prison of the enemy.

In 1940, she and her 7-month-old child were again surrounded and arrested by secret police, who took them both to Ben Tre prison. She had to send her child back to her mother before being exiled to Ba Ra. During this time, she received the bad news that her husband, Mr. Bich, had died in Con Dao. In extreme pain, she still remembered her husband's advice: "... to embark on the revolutionary path, one must endure hardship and sacrifice". From then on, it gave her more strength to firmly overcome the prison and encouraged her fellow prisoners to maintain their fighting spirit. When she was released from prison in 1943, she contacted the organization and participated in the August Revolution of 1945 with the burning enthusiasm of the Party Committee and the people to seize power in Ben Tre province. After that, she was elected to the Provincial Women's National Salvation Executive Committee.

In March 1946, at that time she was only 26 years old, she was assigned to join a delegation of cadres including Mr. Ca Van Thinh, Mr. Tran Huu Nghiep and Mr. Dao Van Truong (cadres of Zone 8) to organize a sea crossing by boat, departing from Con Loi, Thanh Phong village, now Thanh Hai commune, Thanh Phu district, to the North to report to the Party Central Committee and Uncle Ho, asking for weapons to support the Southern battlefield in the early years of the resistance war against the French. The comrades in the delegation were kept in the North by the Central Committee and Uncle Ho and went to the resistance war zone. Mrs. Ba Dinh was assigned to command the ship carrying 12 tons of weapons to Ben Tre and hand it over to Mr. Tran Van Tra, who was then Commander of Military Zone 8. This sea crossing was the premise for later opening the legendary Ho Chi Minh trail at sea with "ships without numbers" that traveled back and forth carrying cadres and weapons from the North to the South, to support the Southern battlefield against the Americans.

In 1947, Ba Dinh was elected to the Provincial Party Committee. In 1948, she became the Head of the Women's National Salvation Group and a member of the Lien Viet Front. In 1951, when the Southern revolution was in a difficult and fierce period, she was brought back to work as Deputy Secretary and then Secretary of the Mo Cay District Party Committee... After the Geneva Agreement, she held back her tears and sent her own child to her comrades who had gathered in the North.

This was the farewell and also the final farewell to her child. Later, mother and child met again with an urn of ashes, because he fell ill and died in the North. She stayed in the South, was appointed to the Provincial Party Committee Standing Committee, and worked in extremely difficult and fierce conditions, many times facing life and death situations. The enemy offered a reward of 10,000 dong to anyone who captured or just captured Mrs. Nguyen Thi Dinh, equivalent to 500 bushels of rice at that time. During that period, we cannot forget an event when Mrs. Ba Dinh worked in Phuoc Thanh commune, Chau Thanh district, in the house of a revolutionary base. That day, the soldiers sniffed out and discovered that there were cadres in the commune, so they increased the siege and searched. According to the plan, she went down to the secret cellar near the kitchen, but unfortunately, because of the algae, when she went down to the cellar, water flooded the mouth of the cellar, and the soldiers rushed into the house to search. In the morning, the parents went to work, leaving only Nguyen Thi Thanh and her sister at home. At that time, Thanh, who was only 13 years old, calmly smashed the pot of pork cracklings that was cooking on the stove to cover the secret tunnel where Miss Ba was. Then Thanh beat her sister and scolded her: "When I get back, I will beat you for breaking the pot of pork cracklings." The two sisters argued and burst into tears, and the soldiers left. So Thanh calmly and wisely saved Miss Ba from falling into the enemy's hands. Mrs. Nguyen Thi Thanh is still alive and over 80 years old, living in Phuoc Thanh commune, Chau Thanh district, Ben Tre province.

Leading the victory of the Ben Tre Uprising

In late 1959, as Deputy Secretary of the Provincial Party Committee, Ms. Nguyen Thi Dinh, then 39 years old, was instructed to receive Resolution 15 of the Central Committee in Hong Ngu (Dong Thap) convened by the Regional Party Committee of Zone 8. After returning to the province, she gathered 8 district and provincial cadres including: Hai Thuy, Ba Dao, Ba Cau, Sau Huan, comrade Secretary of the Mo Cay District Party Committee and a number of other comrades to thoroughly disseminate Resolution 15 of the Central Committee. The comrades discussed and discussed the implementation plan. The conference raised a high determination to "unite and simultaneously revolt". The cadres in the surrounding area heard that she had returned to Ben Tre and came to see her one after another. She directly conveyed Resolution 15 to each individual and assigned specific tasks in the urgent and exciting atmosphere of many years of waiting, to organize an early uprising to seize the opportunity.

Ms. Nguyen Thi Dinh visited the medical station to visit her sisters returning from the American-puppet prison, at the Central Bureau in 1973. Photo courtesy

The uprising was planned and selected 3 communes Dinh Thuy, Phuoc Hiep, Binh Khanh in Mo Cay district as the points. On the night of January 16, 1960, we sent the action team to attack the security platoon of Team Ty stationed at Dinh Ran, but failed. The next day, January 17, 1960 (ie December 19 of the lunar calendar), we destroyed Team Ty at Mrs. Nam Thieu's grocery store, then surrounded and called for surrender and attacked the security soldiers at Dinh Ran. Some of them surrendered, some ran away. The soldiers took the Vam Nuoc Trong post, we used the captured weapons to equip the armed forces and the uprising spread quickly, we captured and liberated the communes of Dinh Thuy, Binh Khanh, Phuoc Hiep. From a fire, it spread quickly, far and wide on the island of the Coconut land.

The puppet government of Ngo Dinh Diem immediately ordered to suppress the “Kien Hoa abscess”, they sent over ten thousand main force troops to the three communes above, brutally suppressing, shooting and raping women. With our young armed forces at that time, equipped with captured weapons and self-made daggers, machetes, guns, etc., we bravely stuck close to fight the enemy. The battle was unequal, but with the spirit of unity, solidarity, and uprising, implementing the motto of armed struggle combined with political struggle under the skillful and flexible leadership, we launched a series of “reverse evacuations”, that is, mobilizing women to move to the District Chief’s residence to fight for compensation and treatment for those who were raped, and to resist the sweep of the main force troops. The climax of this struggle was on April 1, 1960, when over 5 thousand people from many communes of Mo Cay district flooded the District Chief’s residence and finally forced the enemy to withdraw.

In April 1960, the Provincial Party Committee Conference was held in Chau Binh Commune, Giong Trom District to review and draw lessons from the first uprising. At this conference, the Provincial Party Committee summarized and agreed to draw major lessons:

1. Through the confrontation with the enemy here, the motto of fighting the enemy with "2 legs and 3 prongs" (armed struggle combined with politics and military agitation) appeared and this motto formed the strategy of the war throughout the South until the final victory.

2. The "hair army" that the enemy called became the "Long-hair army" of the province that went throughout the resistance war.

3. The term "unanimously and simultaneously uprising" was summarized in the two words "Dong Khoi" which was born from here.

At this conference, Ms. Nguyen Thi Dinh was elected as Secretary of the Provincial Party Committee. In May 1961, she was a member of the Regional Party Committee of Region 8. In 1964, she was elected as a member of the Presidium of the Central Committee of the National Liberation Front of South Vietnam. In 1965, she was elected as President of the Women's Union for the Liberation of South Vietnam. Also in this year, she was assigned the task of Deputy Commander of the Southern Liberation Army, and on April 17, 1974, she was promoted to the rank of Major General.

After the country's reunification, she was appointed Deputy Minister of War Invalids and Social Affairs, Vice President of the Vietnam Women's Union; Member of the Central Committee of the IV, V, VI terms; National Assembly delegate of the VI, VII, VIII terms. From June 1987 to August 26, 1992, she held the position of Vice President of the State Council; Vice President of the International Federation of Democratic Women; President of the Vietnam - Cuba Friendship Association. Ms. Nguyen Thi Dinh passed away on August 26, 1992. The veteran historian Tran Van Giau wrote: "Sister Ba Dinh! In the past, people in the countryside told each other that people like you were: Living as a general, dying as a god !" .

On the occasion of the 105th anniversary of the birth of the Hero of the People's Armed Forces, Female General Nguyen Thi Dinh, her temple was renovated and upgraded to be more spacious, expressing deep gratitude and appreciation to the outstanding daughter of the homeland, who devoted her whole life to the cause of national liberation and country building.

Tran Cong Ngu
Former Vice Chairman of the Provincial People's Committee, Chairman of the Provincial Association for the Support of Poor Patients

Source: https://baodongkhoi.vn/van-hoa/doi-song/tu-hao-vi-nu-tuong-xu-dua-a143671.html