"Conductor" of science and technology in the war to protect the Fatherland

With his profound intellect and patriotic heart, Professor Ta Quang Buu turned knowledge into strength, contributing greatly to the journey of defending and building the country.

On September 2, 1945, at historic Ba Dinh Square, President Ho Chi Minh read the Declaration of Independence, giving birth to the Democratic Republic of Vietnam.

During the journey of defending and building the Fatherland, besides the sacrifices of millions of soldiers and people, there was also a silent force that contributed to the strength of the revolution: the team of intellectuals and scientists. Among them, Professor Ta Quang Buu was a typical face, who was both attached to the battlefield and laid the foundation for modern Vietnamese science and university education .

Professor Ta Quang Buu. Photo: Document.

The founder of science and higher education in Vietnam

He came from a famous Confucian family: his father was Bachelor Ta Quang Diem, who was the Thanh Hoa Inspector and a professor in Quang Nam; his mother was the female poet Sam Pho Nguyen Thi Dao, the granddaughter of the third-ranked Nguyen Duc Dat. From a young age, Ta Quang Buu showed his intelligence and good study skills. At the age of 7, he won first prize in the Math, Chinese and Vietnamese exams organized by Tam Ky prefecture. In 1922, he passed the National School of Hue with high scores; in 1929, he excelled in both the local Baccalaureate and the Spanish Baccalaureate in Mathematics, and then received a scholarship to study in France.

In Europe, Ta Quang Buu studied Mathematics at the Sorbonne and Bordeaux, then moved to Oxford (UK) to study Quantum Physics. He is also famous for being fluent in many foreign languages: French, English, German, Russian, Latin and ancient Greek.

Returning to the Fatherland, throughout his revolutionary career, Professor Ta Quang Buu held many important positions: Minister of National Defense (1947–1948), Deputy Minister of National Defense (1946–1947 and 1955–1958), Minister of Universities and Vocational Secondary Schools, first Director of Hanoi University of Science and Technology... In any position, he left a deep impression.

Professor Ta Quang Buu (standing on the right) during his time as Minister of Higher Education and Training. Photo: Document.

During his tenure as Minister of Universities and Vocational Secondary Education, Professor Ta Quang Buu proposed a strategic idea: to establish Branch II of Hanoi University of Science and Technology with a special training mechanism. The curriculum is directly directed by the Ministry of Universities and Vocational Secondary Education and the Ministry of National Defense, selecting excellent students from the third year to train according to a separate curriculum. Upon graduation, they are sent to the army, becoming the first military engineers trained domestically by Vietnam.

In 1956, Professor Ta Quang Buu (white shirt, sitting in the middle) became the Principal of Hanoi University of Science and Technology. Photo: Document.

From this special school, many people later grew up to become Heroes of the People's Armed Forces, generals and outstanding military scientists. After two training courses, Branch II developed into the Military Technical University, now the Military Technical Academy, a national key institution in training engineers and military technical officers at both undergraduate and postgraduate levels.

Not only an educational administrator, Ta Quang Buu was also the one who laid the foundation for modern Vietnamese science. He contributed to the establishment of the Vietnam Academy of Science and developed many basic sciences: Geography, Geology, Han Nom, and at the same time paved the way for new fields such as Archeology, Informatics, Nuclear Physics, and Information Science.

In 1996, he was posthumously awarded the Ho Chi Minh Prize. Since 2014, the Ministry of Science and Technology has named the Ta Quang Buu Prize after him to honor outstanding scientific works published in prestigious international journals. This is a testament to his great stature and lasting legacy to the country's science.

When science becomes a weapon on the battlefield

During the resistance war against the US, Professor Ta Quang Buu’s scientific and technical contributions were outstanding in his role as a “conductor”, someone who knew how to mobilize the power of universities to solve vital technological problems. A typical example was the war to break the waterway blockade in 1972.

During his 5 years studying abroad, Professor Ta Quang Buu (left cover) took advantage of the opportunity to gain a lot of knowledge and study with many famous professors, not for the sake of a degree. Photo: HUST.

At that time, despite shouldering many important responsibilities of the Party and the State, he still continuously followed and directly contributed to the efforts of the army, especially in the field of military science and technology. In 1972, while the Paris negotiations were taking place tensely, US President Richard Nixon suddenly ordered the resumption of bombing and blockade of the North, launching into the battlefield the MK-52 strategic mine with enough destructive power to sink a 100,000-ton ship. This plot aimed to lock down Hai Phong port, the lifeline of the rear, to cut off the international aid line and strangle the survival of the North.

Faced with that challenge, the task of researching the operating mechanism of American mines and manufacturing devices to neutralize them became an urgent requirement. Although he was no longer directly commanding the army, as Minister of Universities and Vocational Secondary Education, Professor Ta Quang Buu promoted his prestige and experience, quickly mobilizing scientific intellectuals. He directed the establishment of a special research team codenamed GK1 (G - traffic, K - polytechnic) specializing in mine clearance, and GK2 specializing in handling magnetic bombs, led by Dr. Vu Dinh Cu.

Under the close guidance of Professor Ta Quang Buu, in a short time, weapons such as GK72-2, GK72-3, GK72-4... were born one after another and quickly put into combat. These inventions helped the Northern army and people neutralize a series of modern American mines, open up strategic transportation routes, ensure the flow of aid to the front line, and directly contribute to the victory of the resistance war against the second destructive war.

Professor Ta Quang Buu's scientific mark is also associated with the glorious victory of "Dien Bien Phu in the air" at the end of 1972. He, along with scientists inside and outside the military, successfully researched a method of separating interference, forcing the B-52s, known as "invulnerable flying fortresses", to appear on the radar screen. Thanks to that invention, the Vietnamese missile troops closely followed the target and shot down a series of B-52s right in the sky of Hanoi, creating a victory of decisive significance for the war situation.

“Your father is a brave man”

On the night of August 14, 1986, Professor Ta Quang Buu suddenly stopped working due to cerebral circulation disorder and a week later, at noon on August 21, he passed away.

Throughout his journey of dedication to the cause of independence, unification and national construction, Professor Ta Quang Buu has excellently fulfilled all assigned responsibilities, always devoted, loyal and pure. He not only devoted all his intelligence and talent as a great scientist to serve the Fatherland, but also left for posterity an exemplary personality.

According to Major General Ta Quang Chinh, son of Professor Ta Quang Buu, on the day his father passed away, the late Prime Minister Pham Van Dong said something that Major General Chinh will always remember: “Your father was a brave man. You must learn from that.”

In the book “Living”, published in the Viet Bac resistance zone in 1948, in the early days of the resistance war against France, Professor Ta Quang Buu wrote:

“The essential question is not: What is life?

The essential: What to do while living”.

That saying is also a self-reminder, and also the philosophy of life of a revolutionary intellectual. And throughout his life, Professor Ta Quang Buu lived fully according to his beliefs.

Source: https://khoahocdoisong.vn/nhac-truong-khoa-hoc-ky-thuat-trong-chien-tranh-bao-ve-to-quoc-post2149047320.html