Heroic World War II Engineer, Scholar To Speak About Life 'between East And West'
Friday, October 25, 1996
Note: A photo of Fu Hua Chen and loan copies of his
book are available through the public relations office upon
request.
FORT COLLINS--Fu Hua Chen, a Denver civil engineer who
dodged machine gun fire to build the Burma Road across China
during World War II, will speak about his remarkable career and
new autobiography Nov. 6 at Colorado State University.
In his autobiography, "Between East and West," Chen weaves
his own reflections of Eastern and Western cultures into a
compelling story of his role in some of the world's greatest
engineering projects--notably the construction of the Burma Road.
Chen's presentation, sponsored by the geotechnical
engineering program in the university's department of civil
engineering, begins at 6 p.m. in the Lory Student Center Theatre.
A short reception will follow in the Fu Hua Chen Geotechnical
Engineering Laboratory, Room 140 Glover Building.
Chen's book, released Oct. 17 by University Press of
Colorado, outlines his life as a young engineer in China and his
achievements in business and higher education.
In addition to building the Burma Road, Chen managed
construction of the Tibet Highway and reconnaissance of the Ho
Chi Minh Trail, achievements that earned him medals from the
presidents of China and the United States.
He came to Denver with his family in 1957 and four years
later founded Chen and Associates Geotechnical Engineers, a
company with seven offices in four states. Now 85 years old, Chen
is retired and lives in Evergreen with his wife, Edna.
Chen was born in Shanghai, the son of a Chinese
revolutionary martyr, and came to the United States at age 21 to
study engineering. He received a bachelor's degree from the
University of Michigan in 1933. Chen then was accepted into the
master's program at the University of Illinois, where he studied
soil stabilization.
Chen returned to his homeland to build roads in 1936,
shortly before Japan led a major invasion into China that would
trigger eight bloody and brutal years of war. What began as the
Sino-Japanese War ultimately intersected with World War II.
On returning to China, Chen writes, "I soon realized that
what I had learned in school was far different from what was
needed to be a highway engineer in China, where an engineer
needed the strategizing ability of a general, the eloquence of a
diplomat, the courage of an explorer, and the ingenuity of an
inventor. Perhaps most important, one had to withstand severe
physical hardships."
Chen mastered each of those roles with his first project,
considered by many historians to be one of the world's greatest
feats of military engineering.
China's leader Chiang Kai-shek ordered a 29-year-old Chen to
build the Burma Road southwest of China. It would the only
available route to feed China's military with supplies and
ammunition to block the advancing Japanese.
Using 30,000 workers--many of whom had no experience
building roads--Chen chiseled the road 700 miles through three
mountain ranges and isolated terrain in little over a year. As
soon as the road opened, thousands of Chinese military trucks
began massive convoys to push ammunition and supplies back and
forth to Burma.
"It was not a long highway compared with other roads I had
built during the war, but it was one of the most difficult," Chen
wrote of the Burma Road project. "The deadline and the rough
terrain, coupled with the hostile wartime environment, compounded
our problems."
In 1942, the Burma Road fell to the Japanese--just as Chen
and his engineering companions were attempting to leave. In
retaliation against the Chinese who occupied the road, Japanese
soldiers lined Chen and his colleagues against a cliff and opened
fire. Miraculously, Chen survived the machine gun attack and fled
Japanese-occupied territory by swimming the perilous Salween
River downstream to safety.
"The instant I heard the rattle of the machine gun I could
see the faces of my mother, my brother, my sister, my wife, and
all of my friends flash through my mind," Chen recalls in his
book.
With the Burma Road gone, Chiang Kai-shek wanted another
road built from India, across the Tibetan Plateau and down into
China. Chen was named chief engineer of the Tibet Highway
project, where, to survive, one needed a "fast gun, a swift horse
and a sheepskin coat."
Building the Tibet Highway was similarly difficult. Chen's
group encountered cannibals, disease and severe altitude
sickness, making the project nearly impossible. The terrain was
so rugged that 1,500 yaks were used to carry supplies up steep,
narrow paths. At times when food was scarce, the group ate raw
yak meat in order to survive.
For his wartime contributions, Chen was named by Chiang Kai-
shek in 1944 as China's outstanding civil engineer.
Following World War II, Chen fled to Hong Kong to escape the
civil war in China between Chiang Kai-shek and Communist leader
Mao Zedong. Chen's academic career continued at the University of
Hong Kong in 1949, where he served on the faculty for six years.
Planning to obtain his doctorate degree, Chen returned to
the United States with his wife and three children. But work
quickly absorbed his time, and soon Chen started his own
geotechnical engineering firm in Denver.
Chen received an honorary doctorate of science degree from
Colorado State University in 1980. He has taught at universities
in China, Hong Kong, Colorado State, and the University of
Colorado-Denver. He also has lectured at the University of
Colorado-Boulder and Metropolitan State College of Denver.
Currently, he is an adjunct professor at Colorado State and CU-
Denver.
Note: A limited number of copies of Chen's book will be
available for sale at the Nov. 6 presentation. Order forms also
will be available.
This page © 1997-1998 World Wide Express, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Many news stories on RamLine.com come from the Colorado State University Public Relations Office. You can get copies of the news releases directly by filling out this form.