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The Battle of Dien Bien Phu

There is a book in the Kinsley Kansas library called The 20 Most Decisive Battles in World History, or it might be called The 20 Most Decisive Battles in Vietnam. I can’t remember which is true. Whatever is true, I am amazed that I was personally involved with two of these battles in my relative short military career. The two battles I was associated with were the 2nd Battle of Bau Bang in Operation Junction City and The Battle of Snoopy Nose in the early phase of Operation Coronado. All the battles were brutal, fierce, ferocious and decisive. Another battle talked about in the book includes all of these things and was truly decisive. That was the Battle of Dien Bien Phu.

The Setting:

The Vietnamese are no strangers to foreign intervention. Throughout their long history, they have been subjugated to foreign rule from time to time. The longest rule was by the Chinese which lasted about one thousand years and ended in 938 AD in the battle of Bach Dang River. France's intervention followed French Catholic Missionaries, explorers, adventures and business interest. Often, the French government was asked by one Vietnamese Emperor to help fight another Vietnamese Kingdom.
Haphazardly and without any preconceived plan the French ended up controlling all of Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia by the year 1883. The French had conquered a feudal state. They set out to bring Indochina into the 20th century. From 1883 to 1914 there was an amazing amount of building. Roads, bridges, railroads, administrative buildings and play houses such as the Opera House were all built during this time. On my bike ride from Hanoi to Ho Chi Minh City, I was amazed at the number of Churches built dating back to this period. All of this was done with the French Colonial government’s monopoly on salt, opium and heavy taxes on the peasantry. The French Colonials and five percent of the Vietnamese which included the Imperial Court, Mandarins and the wealthy land owners did well.
During World War One thousands of Vietnamese were pressed into service in France. Then another great building boom from 1919 to World War II. During that war, French Indochina was in a different situation than all the other European Colonies in the Far East. All the European Colonies that were conquered by the Japanese were terrible places if you were a captive European. In French Indochina, the Mother country was now Vichy France, which was allied with Germany and Japan. Japan was invited in to use the airbases and ports but the French and their colonial army were left to run the country. Basically, nothing changed from the French Colonials except, they were cut off from importing goods from France.
For the Vietnamese peasant, life went from bad to worse. The Japanese demand for more and more rice meant less for the peasant. They also were told to grow more crops for clothing, which meant less land for food. It is estimated that two million Vietnamese out of a population of 10 million in North Vietnam died of starvation during this period. Rene Defourneaux the author of The Winking Fox, an OSS agent sent to Vietnam to work with the Viet Minh stated in his book that he saw a lot of Vietnamese who had made their clothing out of straw.
Things changed for the French Colonials when the free French took over France. The Japanese were leery of the new French government, so they staged a coup in March of 1945 and locked up the French. Emperor Bao Dai declared Vietnam Independent. Eighty years of French rule came to an end.
When the Japanese were defeated, in August, it left a power vacuum. Ho Chi Minh and his Viet Minh, the only group that had actively fought the Japanese marched into Hanoi and declared Vietnamese Independence on September 2, 1945.
It was a confused state of affairs then. Ho Chi Minh's Viet Minh were not strong enough to govern. The great powers had agreed that Nationalist China would occupy the North and the British the south. The French were being released from jail and a French force sent from France was landing in South Vietnam. The Nationalist Chinese were raping and looting the country so Ho Chi Minh decided it was worth inviting the French back in for a while than putting up with the Chinese.
They tried to rule together but that soon broke down and Ho and his Viet Minh left Hanoi and headed for the mountains. He would remain there for eight years as his Viet Minh forces got continually stronger. The French fought for eight long years trying to regain their colony. Their war was a war against an army that had or demanded the allegiance of most of the people. An army that fought guerrilla style, that carefully chose the time and where they would attack. Their tactics were at least as old as the American Revolution. As the United States found out in our own experience here and in Iraq and in Afghanistan, these kinds of wars are the hardest to fight.
That is where the French found themselves in December 1953, under the command of a new General, who ordered them to fight in a distant place in the empire, a place called Dien Bien Phu.

Great battles change the entire course of events, create new standards of values, new moods, in armies and in nations. Sir Winston S. Churchill

That new General was Henri Navarre who was given a single order by his friend the French Premier Rene Mayer-create military conditions that would lead to an “honorable political solution.”
General Navarre was shocked to find when he took command of the French forces there had been little planning since General Jean de Lattre had been in command. What the French command was doing was reacting to operations of the Viet Minh.
There was also the confusion about defending Laos. Navarre claimed in a meeting that he was not told not to defend Laos. So Navarre looked for a plan that would defend Laos and also create a victory on the battlefield that would enhance the French position at the Geneva Conference of the great powers which was convening in May to settle some issues of the cold war.

Dien Bien Phu was in the main valley entering Laos. Once that valley was blocked, Viet Minh supply lines would be severely cut. A military victory at Dien Bien Phu would enhance the French negotiating hand.
A successful operation of the French was Na San, near present day Son La, about half way between Hanoi and Dien Bien Phu. There the French had fortified a valley and developed a Land/Airbase which they successfully defended from October to 2nd December of 1952. It was called the hedgehog, (le herisson), There, the French forces had successfully defended the valley and had inflicted heavy casualties on the Viet Minh, who attacked them using human wave tactics. They were expecting to do the same on a larger scale at Dien Bien Phu.
The difference between Na San and Dien Bien Phu was the French occupied most of the surrounding hills, outnumbered the Viet Minh in artillery four to one and the position of Na San was about half the distance to Hanoi then Dien Bien Phu.
When Ho Chi Minh got to Dien Bien Phu he took off his hat, turned it over and explained to his commanders, Dien Bien Phu is a rice bowl, the French are at the bottom, and we are around the rim and we are not going to let them out.

The Viet Minh

The Viet Minh were commanded by General, Vo Nguyen Giap a former student of the school Lycee Albert Sarraut. He was a former teacher of history and philosophy at the school Lycee Thang Long. There is a book called Adieu Hanoi about a French boy who grew up in Hanoi and attended the school where Giap taught. He commented how good a teacher Giap was and how he never gave a hint of his Marxist leanings. The truth was he was a long time Marxist and one day he simply disappeared. Giap had dropped out of sight to join Ho Chi Minh in China and begin the revolution.
At this time Giap was married and had a small baby. He described his last evening with his wife this way to an American writer:
Quang Thai (his wife) also wanted to go Luckily, Quang Thai's younger sister could take the baby to the home of its paternal grandfather, Vo Quang Nghiem, and grandmother, Nguyen Thi Keen, in Quang Binh province. (Most writers claim the baby died at about the same time as her mother. They have been wrong. Hong Anh grew to adulthood and became one

On Hill A 1

of Viet Nam's leading physicists!)
Giap also had the services of Communist China’s military advisors. The Korean War was over and China greatly increased their aid to the Viet Minh. This included many artillery pieces which the French didn’t know about.
The bulk of Giap’s forces were Vietnamese, communist and non-communist. Some were also from the minority tribes found in the area. I have only had the opportunity to talk to one Dien Bien Phu veteran. I met him on a plane coming to visit Vietnam. He was an interesting person. After the battle, he had taken the opportunity to move south. After being in South Vietnam for a few years he found himself in another war, fighting for the South.
At first, he was eager to talk but after awhile so many bad memories were brought up; he became sad and didn’t want to talk anymore.
For sure, the Viet Minh had the most to gain. Independence from the French. Those who had thoughts of gaining a true democracy were probably few and far between. How could they even conceive something they had never had in the thousands of years of history they claim?

The French Expeditionary Force

The

Display of Hill A 1

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Shows extensive French defensive work.

commander of the French forces was Colonel Christian Marie Ferdinand de la Croix de Castries. He was a descendant from a famous family in France, 15th -century French baron
Guillaume de la Croix whose line produced eight lieutenant generals four lieutenant governors, five knights and a Marshal of France.
Castries enlisted in the army at the age of 19. He was sent to the Saumur Cavalry School and in 1926 was commissioned an officer. He was an accomplished equestrian and once held the world record for horse jumping.
. After rejoining the army at the start of World War II, he was captured (1940), escaped from a German prison-of-war camp (1941), and fought with the Allied forces in North Africa, Italy, and southern France.
In 1946 Castries, soon to become a lieutenant colonel, was sent to Indochina. He was wounded and spent a year recuperating in France before returning to Vietnam as a full colonel. In December 1953 he was charged with defending Dien Bien Phu. During the battle he was given a rare battle field promotion to Brig. General.
His leadership was very questionable. After Dien Bien Phu he was hailed as a hero. Actually he was so shocked

French trench.

by the fury of the battle, he retreated to his bunker. Some officers confronted him and demanded he relinquish the operational command to Lt. Colonel Langlais, which he agreed to.
At 5:30PM on May 7th, 21954, Ta Quoc Luat, head of Company 360, Regiment 209, Division 312 captured alive General De Castries who was sitting at his desk in the corner of the bunker.
The men who fought at Dien Bien Phu were some of the bravest soldiers in the world. They were of these backgrounds: Soldiers of Metropolitan France (French Citizens), Indigenous troops (Vietnam, Lao and Cambodian), Colonial Troops (from African colonies -- primarily Senegal, Morocco, and Algeria) and Foreign Legionnaires (troops from all over the world.
The Viet Minh treated the soldiers of Metropolitan France as invaders and France was given an accounting of them. Indigenous troops were considered traitors and given a chance to switch sides or sit in jail. Colonial Troops were considered brothers from oppressed lands and were returned home via Russia or China. The French were not given an accounting of them. All Foreign Legionnaires were repatriated to their home country through Russia and China. The French were not notified of this.
The French

Hill A 1

Foreign Legion today has a high number of Germans. It was more so then. After WW II, Legion recruiters were active in Germany. Also, the French POW camps were so bad that a lot of German soldiers volunteered for the legion.
Phil Callahan in his book My Walk in the Sun, a story about an American soldier who after WW II walked around the world wrote in his book about meeting former German soldiers in Thailand, who had volunteered for the Legion to get out of the POW camps. After being deployed in French Indochina they deserted and were trying to get back to Germany.
Absent from duty was French Indochina Colonial Force. The French presence in Vietnam was always small. Their willingness to fight in the armed forces was even smaller. They had the most to lose but the history of French Indochina before is they always got someone else to fight their wars.

The Battle

I am not going to give a blow by blow account of the battle. I will write of the unusual things that happened.
Artillery is usually indirect fire. A spotter in a forward base is in contact with the gun crew and brings

Hill A 1

fire in on the target. The artillery round is usually more effective when it is fired this way. At DBP, Giap’s forces were not sophisticated to do that. So he had them roll the guns out of limestone caves and direct sight them on the target. This was actually more effective because the round would penetrate the French trench and cave it in. That combined with the rainy season, buried a lot of French soldiers.
Giap had over 75,000 people working in support of his war effort. They built over 100 KM of a road to get a supply line from China.
At one point in the battle the Viet Minh's losses were so great they were going to mutiny. General Giap brought in replacements from Laos to defuse the situation.
During the battle, about 2,000 men announced to their commanders that they were deserting. Their commanders let them go. However, there was no place for them to go, as the base was surrounded on all sides. So the deserters deserted - to the middle of the camp - and made themselves as comfortable as possible while the fighting raged non-stop around them, draining the steadily dwindling resources of the

Hill A 1

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This is the bunker the Viet Minh tunneled to blow up. The French could hear them digging but couldn't do anything about it.

base, and even relaxing with some prostitutes.
The 10,863 POWs were in Vietnamese hands for only three months before their release subsequent to the Geneva accords. However, only 3,280 returned. Losing that many men in three months could be classified a war crime. Indeed, those returning told about the horrible conditions which they lived.
One explanation is that some of the missing were Vietnamese, who accepted re- education. The Viet Minh never accounted for those men. Another explanation about the hard life and lack of food and medical care at the camps was these were hard times for everyone. Food was often in short supply in the North. Also, the French force had been living on coffee and cigarettes for two months. They were in bad shape to begin with.
Charlie Plumb in his book I’m No Hero told about his life in six years as an American POW in North Vietnam during the war. He told about how little of food they got but he said the guards didn’t have it much better. One day when he was released to exercise, he noticed the guards cooking a big pot of something and were really excited. He walked over there

Hill A 1

and found out they were boiling weeds.
Vietnamese sources acknowledge 7,900 killed and 15,000 wounded. French sources say the Viet Minh losses were much more. The French lost 1726 killed, 1694 missing, 5234 wounded at the end of the battle. The lost much more in captivity. The question should be asked: Who really won? As Ho Chi Minh said: We can lose 10 and you only one, but we will still win. Victory made this battle decisive and decisive battles make decisive wars, which make history.
The tourist manuals say there is not much to see or do in Dien Bien Phu. I disagree. Going to Dien Bien Phu should do in daytime. By driving, you can get a sense of how heroic the Viet Minh were dragging all those artillery pieces and supplies to DBP. The genius of General Giap was he conquered the logistical problems. Remember, the French thought he couldn’t do it. Furthermore, you get to enjoy some of the most beautiful parts of Vietnam.
Once there, I rented a bicycle from my hotel and easily rode around to the different sights. The important sights are kept in good condition, or if they are gone a marker

Hill A 1---main bunker

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The Viet Minh tunneled to blow up.

stands there. You can get on hill A1 and see the whole valley. All the other French hill fortresses are visible from hill A-1. On hill A1 is a hole which is from the Viet Minh digging a tunnel into the hill. They came to a brick wall and thought that was the center of the hill and the French bunker they were trying to destroy. So, they packed in 970kg of explosive there and detonated them at 20h30pm on May 6th, 1954. They missed the bunker but the explosion was so terrific that it made the French Captain in charge of the bunker ears bleed and he thought he heard a new special weapon. So he surrendered.
The museum is outstanding with many great displays.
Vietnam is filled with memorial cemeteries. Dien Bien Phu’s military cemeteries are beautiful but very sobering. There is a stand you can climb and look out over the graves. Just remember that there are three or four times that amount that are buried along with the French soldiers in the rice fields of the valley. In one of General Giap’s books he mentioned that cleaning up the battlefield was one of his concerns. He

Memorial Prayer Altar on Hill A 1

commissioned limestone be processed into lime and brought to the battlefield to speed up the process of decomposing the bodies and body parts that seemed to be everywhere.
Dien Bien Phu teaches you that war glorified is really as Bernard Fall said: Hell in a Small Place.

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