Professor Tran Dai NghiaTran Dai Nghia (Trần Đại Nghĩa) (13 September 1913 – 9 August 1997) was a scientist, military engineer, and prominent figure in the defense industry of Vietnam. He was a Major-General and an Academician. He was awarded the Order of Ho Chi Minh and named a Hero of Labor. He was elected as an Academician to the former USSR Academy of Sciences

Early lifeTran Dai Nghia (Trần Đại Nghĩa) was born Pham Quang Le (Phạm Quang Lễ) ( in Chánh Hiệp, Tam Bình commune, Vĩnh Long Province, to a poor Catholic peasant family on 13 September 1913. He received a bachelors in 1933 in Hanoi. After two years working in the U.S. embassy, he met journalist Duong Quang Nguu (Dương Quang Ngưu) who helped him obtain a Chasseloup-Laubat Fellowship to study in Paris. In 1935, he arrived in France and subsequently graduated with bachelors in engineering and mathematics having attended, among others, the École Polytechnique. He then went to work at the École nationale supérieure de l'aéronautique. In 1942, he moved to Germany, where he worked in various factories on the production of weapons and aircraft.

Revolutionary activitiesProfessor Nghia met president Ho Chi Minh in Paris in 1946 and returned to Vietnam with him on the SS Dumont de Urville, joining the rebels in the north of the country, where he participated in the organization of the production of weapons in the mountain forests.

On December 5th 1946 he received from Ho Chi Minh his new revolutionary name, Trần Đại Nghĩa, and because of his military and technical knowledge was made chief of artillery of the Vietnam People's Army.

In November 11, 1946 he and his colleagues began researching anti-tank guns based on the Bazooka model of the U.S. After a lot of failure, in February 1947, he successfully tested his design for a built-in-North-Vietnam bazooka, the first of many weapon systems that he devised for in-country manufacture.

3/3/1947 has become a landmark of the Vietnam Military in the manufacture of weapons, when the bazooka contributed to break the enemy's attacks in Chuong My, Hanoi today. Then in the Fall Winter 1947 campaign, bazooka guns made French warships sink on the Lo River. After that, the Military Weapon Department continued to produce a series of bazookas with the range of up to 600m and 50m in range of damage.

After edited bazookas, in the years 1948 - 1949, professor Tran Dai Nghia and his colleagues in the Military Weapon Department began to research and manufacture guns with strong destroy power - SKZ recoilless rifles. This was a line of modern weapons, which made its debut in the U.S. Army’s landing on the Japanese island of Okinawa at the end of the Second World War.

In 1948 he received the rank of Major General, and the following year was then given the new position as Director of Military Research (now the Institute of Military Science and Technology).

In 1950 professor Nghia left the military and began developing the industrial capacity of the North. In 1952 he was given the title Hero of Labor and inducted into the Order of Ho Chi Minh In 1996

Tran Dai Nghia continued researching and manufacturing flying bombs which are similar to V1 and V2 of Germany.

He also created missiles weighing 30kg that can attack targets 4 km away.

In the war against the US, Tran Dai Nghia made significant contributions in the fight against B - 52 aircraft, breaking the enemy's torpedo system and manufacturing special equipment for the commando forces.

On 6 March 1956 became the first rector of the Polytechnic University established in Hanoi. From 1960 to 1962 he was Minister of Heavy Industry. In 1965 he was appointed Chairman of the State Committee on Science and Technology for Vietnam.

In 1996, a year before his death, Nghia was awarded The Ho Chi Minh Prize

The King of Weapons of Vietnam Tran Dai Nghia passed away in Ho Chi Minh City on August 9, 1997, at the age of 85 and his name is always associated with the history of the Vietnam military weapon industry.

In 2013, the Vietnam Post issued a stamp honoring him on the 100th anniversary of his birth, the father of the defense industry VN.

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