Dien Bien Phu
CSC 1985
SUBJECT AREA History
WAR SINCE 1945 SEMINAR
DIEN BIEN PHU
Major Vincent J. Goulding, Jr.
1 April 1985
Marine Corps Command and Staff College
Marine Corps Development and Education Command
Quantico, Virginia 22134
Table of Contents
Intorduction i
Chapter I: An "Asphyxiating Atmosphere" 1
Chapter II: A Tale of Two Armies 15
The Victors 15
The Vanquished 19
Chapter III: A Long and Cruel War 24
Chapter IV: Operation CASTOR 38
Political Background 38
Setting the Stage 41
Base Aero-Terrestre 46
Into the Valley of Death 54
Chapter V: Conclusion 78
Chronology 82
Endnotes 84
Bibliography 91
MAPS
Regions of Vietnam 3
Viet Minh Operations: October 1950-February 1952 30
Battles of 1952 and Operation LORRAINE 36
Map of Dien Bien Phu 49
D-Day at Dien Bien Phu 55
Isabelle Alone 66
Introduction
May Fance, once illustrious among the peoples
of slaves, eclipse the glory of all free peoples
that have existed, become the model to the nations,
the terror of oppressors, the consolation of the
oppressed, the ornament or the oppressed, the orn-
ament of the universe....
- Robespierre
Report on the Principles of Public Morality
Peoples of Italy, the French army comes to break
your chains; the French people is the friend of
all peoples. You may receive them with confidence.
Your property, your religion, and your customs will
be respected... We have no grudge except against the
tyrants who oppress you.
- Bonaparte
Address at Cherasco, Italy, April 1796
The ideas of liberty and conquest have been getting mixed up
for as long as there have been men around to confuse them. Admit-
tedly, confuse might well be a poor choice of words; yet, it is
undeniably one of history's most consistent inconsistencies that
the terms are invariably uttered in the same breath by men try-
ing to use the former to justify the latter. The ingredient re-
quired to make either a reality is power. A weak nation's days
of feedom are numbered and only a strong state can forcibly
extend or defend its boundaries.
There is no nation on earth which should have been more
aware of this fact than the France of 1945; yet, it was this
same France which chose to look beyond its own national condition
before setting out to reimpose its own particular brand of free-
dom on a dedicated people halfway around the world whose strength
it severely and tragically underestimated. Under the guise of
anti-communism, a politically weakened and militarily second-
rate European "Great Power" sought to restore itself in Southeast
Asia after the Second World War. France, which in 1940 had been
dealt a stunning and humiliating defeat, turning over Paris to
the Nazis and Saigon to the Japanese, now sought, five years later,
to remount the pedestal of greatness as though what had just tran-
spired was little more than a figment of the world's imagination.
The Vietnamese saw through the charade instantly; the rest of
the world would very quickly. Unfortunately, the French them-
selves would be slow to grasp what to nearly everyone else was
rapidly becoming self-evident, and in the very same decade that
the defenders of Dien Bien Phu would trudge into captivity after
military defeat, so also would the Quai d'Orsay discover, in Al-
geria, that even victory on the battlefield is no guarantee of
success in a newly emerging type of war. The lessons were there
for the learning, and, most assuredly, not only for the French
Fourth Republic.
The May 7, 1954 surrender of the garrison at Dien Bien Phu
unquestionably terminated France's Indochinese adventure; but,
like the epitaph gouged on a dead man's headstone, hardly tells
an entire story. That Vo Nguyen Giap's People's Army soundly
defeated the flower of the French Expeditionary Force in a battle
of conventional arms and style is clear. It is important to re-
member, however, that Dien Bien Phu was the culmination of a
protracted war and as such cannot be studied in a vacuum.
It is the intent of this paper to examine the events which
led to this particularly famous and often misunderstood campaign.
To do this, the study must begin before the year 1954, for as
early as 1930, Ho Chi Minh was establishing himself as a force
with which to be reckoned. A decade later, the fall of France
and the establishment of Henri Petain's Vichy Government would
bring Japanese occupation and opportunity for Ho to consolidate
Vietnamese nationalism well before the reintroduction of the
"victorious" French in the autumn of 1945. Giap's creation of
a People's Army is no less worthy of study, and both his force
and that of the French will be examined. Most important, the
strategy each chose to employ in order to accomplish their de-
sired goals, however clearly or poorly perceived, will be an-
alyzed. Perhaps history provides us no better example of how
a progressive guerrilla war can be successfully waged against
a well-trained conventional army; more significantly, Dien Bien
Phu illustrates how the cohesion and consistency of state policy
manifests itself directly in the performance of its soldiers.
Operation CASTOR is itself examined in some detail. Much
more than the heroic siege which is commonly, and rightfully,
associated with the campaign for Dien Bien Phu, it is important
to remember and comprehend the political machinations which took
place in cities far removed from Tonkin, or even Paris. In many
ways, the 1953-1954 struggle in Indochina's northwest corner was
the misbegotten child of policies, and in some instances, lack
of policies, formulated in numerous unlikely locations around the
globe. Just as we all had a stake in what happened at Dien Bien
Phu, we all have a great deal to learn from it.
For instance, formal military training does not necessarily
create a successful professional soldier. Vo Nguyen Giap showed
a grasp of tactics and logistics far beyond that of even St. Cyr's
most distinguished graduates. Thus, the question is raised as to
how a military leadership which is steeped in political goals and
ideology can be beaten by a basically expeditionary force, led
by conventionally educated officers. The answer is more than
just cutting off sources of external support to the guerrilla,
although history proves that this too must be accomplished.
The French lost in Indochina, but it is critical that today's
officer understand why. For the same reason that Gallipoli was
invaluable to the architects of America's amphibious techniques
of World War II, so also should Dien Bien Phu be important to the
professional military planner confronted by the world of 1985 and
beyond.
I
AN "ASPHYXIATING ATMOSPHERE"
In 1938, at the time of the Indochinese Democratic
Front there emerged in Vietnam a big mass movement
such as was never seen before, while in dance the
Daladier government surrendered to the fascists and
itself became fascist.
- Vo Nguyen Giap
The Military Art of People's War
Even if you should manage to re-establish a French
administration here, it would no longer be obeyed:
each village would be a nest of resistance, each
former collaborator an enemy, and your officials
and colonials themselves would beg to be freed
from this asphyxiating atmosphere.
- Emperor Bao Dai
letter to DeGaulle August 20. 1945
Beginning in the second year of our own American Civil War
and continuing until nearly the turn of the century, the French
incrementally occupied and consolidated their grip on Indochina.
Vietnam was the centerpiece and was divided into the three king-
doms of Tonkin in the north, Annam in the center and Cochin China
in the south. The battle that was destined to break France's
power in Indochina would be fought in Tonkin, but the two Viet-
namese leaders who would fight it were from Annam. Neither was
new to the idea of nationalism and they both understood that pro-
tracted guerrilla war was its manifestation.
In 1931 Nguyen Ai Quoc, celebrated throughout the world as
the legendary "Uncle" Ho Chi Minh, founded the Indochinese Com-
munist Party (ICP) in Canton, as much on a nationalist as commu-
nist platform. Forced to remain underground in its early days
due to French military supremacy, the party was granted a semi-
legal status only after the 1936 election of a Popular Front gov-
ernment in France.1 In 1937, members of the French Communist
Party, representing the government of France, were dispatched to
nurture their ideologically infant relative in Indochina. In spite
of the fact that the respite granted by the election of this Pop-
ular Front government was short-lived, the fledgling organization
proliferated. The previously unknown Vo Nguyen Giap, heretofor
earning his keep as professor of history, was given the opportu-
nity to dedicate his efforts toward political writing. Ho, al-
ready possessed of an active pen from his refuge in China, now had
his writing freely circulated throughout the French colony. The
seeds of change were being sown under the benevolent wings of a
future mortal enemy.
When the Popular Front Government in Paris fell, however,
the reaction was quick throughout French colonial possessions.
On September 26, 1939, communist parties were outlawed and whole-
sale arrests were made. As is so frequently the case, adversity
provided the impetus for a renewal of dedication, in this instance
on the part of the communist leadership. The 1940 collapse of
France, establishment of Petain's Vichy Government, and the intro-
duction of a Japanese army of occupation into Indcchina had mixed
results for Vietnamese nationalists.
Click here to view image
Although it is true that the facade of a French colonial ad-
ministration was left largely intact by the Japanese, it soon be-
came clear that the real power in most of Indochina was in fact
the Japanese army. For the most part, however, it was not the
Japanese army which became the target of the rapidly emerging
Vietnamese maquis. Men destined to raise their flag over the
fallen garrison of Dien Bien Phu cut their teeth as guerrilla
fighters in operations against isolated French posts in a Japanese
occupied country. Most such raids were planned and organized just
a handful of miles across the Chinese border, often under the tu-
telage of that bastion of anti-communism, the Kuomintang.2 In all
liklihood, it was this unusual and oppressive double occupation
which provided the catalyst for the development of a real nation-
alist leadership within Vietnam. In any case, Ho Chi Minh return-
ed to his native country in May 1941 and quickly established him-
self as political chieftain and outspoken champion of national
liberation. Drawing divergent nationalist groups together, Ho
quickly founded the League for the Independence of Vietnam. The
French came to know his organization as the Viet Minh.3
If Ho was to become the pen of the Viet Minh, its sword would
be Vo Nguyen Giap, the man who gave his party "the fearsome mili-
tary apparatus that makes the Vietnam People's Army the strongest
native military force in Southeast Asia today." Giap is a most
interesting character; his very life provides a graphic illustra-
tion of not only what was taking place in his country during the
years of the Second World War, but also what a profound impact it
had on the people who lived there. During the early years of Japan-
ese occupation, warrants were issued by the French for the arrest of
both Giap and his young wife. Although the future general himself
eluded his captors, his wife and infant daughter were not so for-
tunate. Arrested and then tried in a French military court for
conspiracy against the security of France, Mme. Giap was sentenced
to life imprisonment. She and the baby died in a French jail, in
a Japanese occupied Vietnam in 1943. Giap's sister-in-law, Minh
Khai, was executed on the guillotine.5 The man who was later to
be dubbed by the Fench as the "Snow-Covered Volcano" personally
understood the meaning of foreign occupation, be it political or
military. Giap, and thousands like him, longed for the day when
Vietnam would be returned to its people. Hatred had transformed
idealists and scholars into zealots and soldiers.
It was not until late 1944 that Vietnamese soldiers were
actually organized into military units in order to take up arms
against their unwelcome guests from France and Japan. In fact,
the official birthday of the Vietnam People's Army (VPA) is Decem-
ber 22, 1944, a date which commemorates the day that a platoon of
Vietnamese soldiers overran two small French garrisons near the
Chinese border. By V-J Day, Giap's troops were militarily quite
potent, well-trained and adequately armed with an assortment of
French, Japanese, and even American, weapons (those of American
manufacture, parachuted in by the OSS).6 Of course, from this
day in August 1944 until after the capture of Dien Bien Phu, nine
years later, it was to be the soldiers of France who were to suffer
the wrath of Vietnam's rapidly maturing army.
September 2, 1945 saw the creation of the Democratic Republic
of Vietnam, founded in Hanoi, capital of Tonkin. Even such politi-
cal moderates as the recently abdicated Emperor Bao Dai seeming-
ly took interest in the prospect of a viable Vietnamese government
and therefore lent support to the Viet Minh. Bao Dai, in fact,
stepped down attesting that he would prefer to be "a common cit-
izen in an independent state than a king of a subjugated nation."7
Warnings to the Euopean powers that the Vietnamese would
not accept any attempt to restore the old order of things fell on
deaf ears.8 In any case the Second World War had barely ended
when, at the Potsdam Conference, the victors decided to return
foreign troops to Vietnam: Chiang Kai-shek's Chinese north of
the 16th Parallel, Admiral Lord Louis Mountbatten's tommies to
the south. By late 1945 the overtaxed British were quite anxious
to leave, and during this time frame the arrival of French polit-
ical and military advance forces in Cochin China made it abun-
dantly clear that an independant Vietnam was not one of the press-
ing issues on the French (or British) political agenda. Fearful
that unless the former colony was reclaimed quickly, the newly
emerging American gospel of anti-colonialism would reach too many
sympathetic ears, President Charles de Gaulle acted quickly to
restore the status quo ante bellum.9 Thus, by early February
1946, Mountbatten's British occupation force had been replaced
south of the 16th Parallel by Marshall Jean Leclerc's Frenchmen.
The French wouldn't find their reinstatement quite as easy
in the northern part of the country (northern Annam and Tonkin).
Here they were confronted by Ho Chi Minh's Viet Minh and not a
war-weary European ally and colonial power. The Nationalist Chi-
nese who moved in to fill the postwar void were of no consequence
militarily or otherwise; Generalissimo Chiang was adequately chal-
lenged by a communist movement in his own country. He had shown
the priorities which drove his military effort throughout the
Second World War, diverting the lion's share of his military ef-
fort to the crippling of the Chinese communists rather than the
defeat of the Japanese (from the Chinese view, this pre-World War
II civil war would continue after the Japanese had been defeated).
Thus, there was no reason to expect Chiang to become too involved
in Vietnam after 1945. As far as the French were concerned, the
writing was on the wall. The time had come when Paris would have
to fight if it expected to regain control over its former colony;
clearly, the followers of Ho Chi Minh and the soldiers of Vo Nguyen
Giap were not prepared to acquiesce to a return to a subjugated
status. The latter especially was a strong advocate of fighting
the French with weapons as opposed to words, describing the Viet-
namese people as "indissolubly united to fight to the death."10
The manner in which the situation took shape in 1946 and 1947,
however, suggests that the People's Army would remain first and
foremost a tool designed to attain the Viet Minh's political ends.
It is worthwhile to pause briefly at this point in order to
examine in a little more detail the motivation behind the Viet-
nam People's Army overall strategy, and the impact it had on how
the struggle in Indochina assumed a character all its own. The
Vietnam People's Army was a loyal disciple of Clausewitz' famous
dictum that military action was nothing short of the last resort
of political policy. What is so intriguing about this entire
business is that only grudgingly is credit given where credit is
due, which is to say, Mao Tse-tung. Without question, the concept
of protracted guerrilla warfare was the cornerstone of Mao's
method of achieving political victory. As the Chinese communist
wrote in May 1938, in an essay entitled "On Protracted War:"
...it can reasonably be assumed that this pro-
tracted war will pass through three stages.
The first stage covers the period of the en-
emy's strategic offensive and our strategic
defensive. The second stage will be the per-
iod of the enemy's strategic consolidation
and our preparation for the counteroffensive.
The third stage will be the period of our
strategic counteroffensive and the enemy's
strategic de feat.11
Mao summarized his thoughts on mobile guerrilla warfare in a
short article he wrote in 1936 entitled "Problems of Strategy
in China's Revolutionary War" by boiling the entire essence of
protracted warfare into the single statement of "fight when you
can win, move away when you can't win." General Giap refers to
this form of strategy as the "long-term Resistance War:" which
would progress through the three stages of defensive, equilibrium
and offensive.12 In his accounts of the fighting against the
French, especially from 1950 on, the former history teacher re-
flects personal pride in his accomplishment and seems reluctant
to acknowledge a military debt to anyone. The evidence would
seem to indicate otherwise. General Giap's strategy and tactics
smack heavily of the thoughts of Chairman Mao.
What is of considerable importance is the fact that the Viet-
namese nationalist movement was being guided by men who had no in-
tention of acting hastily in the face of French generals who
boasted openly that the pacification of Indochina would entail
only a month or so of mopping up. French politicians, however,
were showing that they could be circumspect as well. With the
formal withdrawl of Chinese Nationalist troops from northern
Vietnam, the returning colonialists quickly realized that the
real power there belonged wholly to the Viet Minh and that Gen-
eral Leclerc (despite his boasting) hardly possessed the means
to alter the situation. Thus, on March 6, 1946, Jean Sainteny,
assistant military attache in Chungking, signed a modus vivendi
with the Viet Minh.13 At this particular time, many Frenchmen
in Indochina, and in Paris as well, were rightfully of the opin-
ion that Ho Chi Minh was not yet a bitter enemy of France, but
rather a high-minded nationalist who probably had no objections
to maintaining diplomatic relations with the Quai d'Orsay and
could thus accept Vietnam's status as an Associated State. To
a point, Ho was a Francophile; but, where the misunderstanding
would always occur was in determining exactly where that point
was. Ho was an ideological nationalist before all else. Free-
dom for his country was much more important to him than hatred
for the nation which precluded it from becoming a fact. In the
Democratic Republic of Vietnam's Declaration of Independence
(drafted by Chairman Ho in September 1945), it is made clear that
the Vietnamese had no intention of returning to their former sta-
tus. The preamble has a familiar ring to it:
We hold truths that all men are created equal,
that they are endowed by their Creator with
certain unalienable Rights, among these are
Life, Liberty and the pursuit of happiness...14
Continuing in the same September 2nd speech in which he introduced
the Declaration, Ho reminded the French, as well as the rest of
the world that:
...during and throughout the last eighty years,
the French imperialists, abusing the principles
of "freedom, equality and fraternity," have vio-
lated the integrity of our ancestral land and
oppressed our countrymen. Their deeds run coun-
ter to the ideals of humanity and justice.
In the political field, they have denied
us every freedom. They have forced upon us
inhuman laws. They have set up three differ-
ent political regimes...in an attempt to dis-
rupt our national, historical and ethnical
unity.
In the autumn of 1940, when the Japanese
fascists, in order to fight the Allies, in-
vaded Indochina and set up new bases of war,
the French imperialists surrendered on bended
knees and handed over our country to the in-
vaders...
On March 9, 1945, the Japanese disarmed
the French troops. Again the French either
fled or surrendered unconditionally. Thus in
no way have they proved capable of "protecting
us"; on the contrary, within five years they
have twice sold our country to the Japanese...
In fact, since the autumn of 1940, our
country ceased to be a French colony and be-
came a Japanese possession.
After the Japanese surrender, our people,
as a whole rose up and proclaimed their sover-
eignty and founded the Democratic Republic of
Vietnam.
The truth is that we have wrung back our
independence from Japanese hands and not from
the French.15
Admitting that the above is not devoid of classic propaganda, it
is nonetheless clear that French influence and French domination
were two entirely different concepts and that Chairman Ho was
never likely to confuse them. He summarized the situation as it
existed in 1946 thusly:
We have no hatred for France. We want to re-
establish contact with her, all the more since
others are interferring in our affairs. A
settlement is possible. But if we have to,
we will fight.
By this period both the French and Vietnamese nationalists
had strong ideas concerning the future of the former colony, and
it is clear that the concepts were hardly agreeable. Both sides
seem to have realized, however, that early 1946 was not yet the
right time for them to attempt an imposition of their will on
the adversary. Thus, as is so often the case, the modus vivendi
was an attempt by both sides to better organize themselves before
setting out to achieve their long term objectives. In this regard,
it would seem that the French were the more deceitful of the two.
Everyone knew what the Viet Minh wanted; the French played a shell
game. Could it have been because they themselves were somewhat
unsure of what they wanted?
In any case, less than a month after Ho and Sainteny signed
the documents which made northern Vietnam a free state and a mem-
ber of the French Union, Generals Giap and Raoul Salan closed the
loop by putting their respective signatures on a military pact.
The terms were simple enough: France would provide aid for the
training of a Vietnamese army and for five years the French Army
would man its posts, principally on the Chinese border, augmented
by Vietnamese troops. Most noteworthy was one final item, however,
which stated that, at the expiration of the five year period (when
the Vietnamese army would be sufficiently trained), the French
would evacuate Vietnam.17 Even to the most diehard pessimist,
there seemed every reason to believe that a bloodless solution had
been discovered. General Leclerc, who had masterminded the French
end of the bargain, was proud that due to his effort a war-weary
France would be spared a costly war in an underdeveloped country
halfway around the world. Unfortunately for Leclerc, he was only
the first of many French soldiers destined to be undercut by his
political leaders, after being guilty only of acting according to
his own instincts in the environment of non-existent national pol-
icy which was apparently in vogue in Paris. The one great oppor-
tunity France had to stave off a long and costly war was tragical-
ly lost when Marshal Leclerc was recalled from Indochina after
being branded an appeaser by men who had chosen neither to guide
nor support him.
Subsequent meetings, both in Asia and in France, between
French and Vietnamese delegates during the summer of 1946 accom-
plished little except to convince Ho Chi Minh that the French
were dragging their feet. After the highly publicized Fontaine-
bleau Conference of mid 1946, Ho hoped for a satisfactory agree-
ment even after most of his fellow delegates had long since re-
turned home in despair. The pragmatist in the man made him re-
alize that his country was not ready to take on the French dir-
ectly just yet. As a consequence, on September 14th, he engineer-
ed yet another modus vivendi, which this time brought recognition
to the Viet Minh south of the 16th Parallel.18 Upon his return
in October 1946, Ho urged his countrymen to avoid violence, rea-
soning that the French were "coming around" on the issue of Viet-
namese independence. It is doubtful that he really believed what
he was saying; in any case, events were racing toward a far dif-
ferent conclusion. He was attempting to buy time for his country.
On November 20, 1946, fighting broke out between French troops
and Vietnamese militia in the port of Haiphong after a distur-
bance developed over the issue of customs jurisdiction in that
city. To say that the French commander on the scene, one Colonel
Debes, overreacted would be a vast understatement. Acting on
guidance received directly from Saigon, which was never routed
through the more liberal Minister Sainteny and General Louis
Morliere in Hanoi, the colonel unleashed all the means at his
disposal to settle the issue, with the predictable loss of life
to Vietnamese soldiers and civilians alike (the French admitted
to 6,000 Vietnamese killed; probably too high a figure).19 Gen-
eral Jean Valluy, commander of all French troops in Indochina now
sought to keep the initiative by gaining total control of the en-
tire city, not just the port, and so ordered from his headquarters
in Saigon. Debes, of course, was only too willing to comply. Ap-
peals by Ho Chi Minh to General Valluy urging restraint fell on
deaf ears.20 Even the volatile General Giap tried to rely on
words to preclude armed hostility; he also failed.21 When, on
December 15, 1946, Ho tried to alert Premier Leon Blum in Paris
as to what was taking place, his message was intentionally delay-
ed for nearly two weeks by French diplomats in Saigon. Given the
chaotic political situation in Paris, however, it is anything but
certain that Blum would have acted forcefully in any case.
Two weeks is a long time, certainly it was long enough for
the single-minded French soldiers and hawkish statesmen in Viet-
nam to reap the seeds they had sown in northern Vietnam. Between
December 15 and 19, 1946, Ho sent four unanswered telegrams to
Paris.22 While he was writing, French troops were marching.
On December 18th, Hanoi was formally occupied. That same day,
General Morliere, apparently now abandoning his stance of moder-
ation, called for the disarming of the Vietnamese militia in the
city. As far as "The Snow-Covered Volcano" was concerned, this
was the straw which broke the camel's back. Vo Nguyen Giap signed
the order for nationwide armed resistance the following day. It
is worth recounting it here:
Officers of the National Guard, Commanders of
units and members of the self-defense militia
and self-defense forces,
At 8 o'clock tonight, December 19, 1946,
the French troops have provoked hostilities in
the capital of the Democratic Republic of
Vietnam.
The Fatherland is in danger!
The hour of combat has come!
In accordance with the order of Chairman
Ho and the Government, as Minister of National
Defense, I order all soldiers of the National
Guard and Self-Defense militia in the Center,
South and North to:
Stand up in unison,
Dash into battle,
Destroy the invaders and cave the
country.
Sacrifice to the last drop of blood in the
struggle for the Independence and Unification
of the Fatherland.
The resistance will be long and extremely
hard, but the just cause is on our side, and
we will definitely be victorious.
Annihilate the French colonialists!
Long live independence and unified
Viet-nam!
Long live the victory of the resistance!
Determine to fight!23
Ho Chi Minh followed two days later with a similar appeal to his
people, telling the Vietnamese that they could either "fold their
arms and bow their heads and fall back into slavery, or to strug-
gle to the end for freedom and independence."24 A shooting war,
a revolutionary war, was on and no one was going to stop it.
II
A TALE OF TWO ARMIES
From the military point of view, the Vietnam-
ese people's war of liberation proved that an
insurriciently equipped people's army, but an
army fighting for a just cause, can, with ap-
propriate strategy and tactics, combine the
conditions needed to conquer a modern army of
aggressive imperialism.
- Vo Nguyen Giap
The Military Art of People's War
L'Armee frangaise etait desorganisee par une
demobilisation hative et desordonnee, par les
reductions massives de credits, les epurations
arbitraires et les degagements de cadres in-
consideres.
- General Henri Navarre
Agonie de l'Indochine
The Victors
The two armies which squared off in 1946 occupied positions
on quite the opposite ends of the military spectrum. From the
standpoint of organization, equipment and tactics they had little
in common, until, ironically, the very last campaign of the war
when the time became propitious for General Giap to beat his
French counterparts at their very own game, which is to say, con-
ventional warrare. Perhaps that eventuality more than anything
else makes the war in Indochina as intriguing as it is. One can
never lose sight of the fact, however that ALL WARS, AND PARTICU-
LARLY THOSE OF NATIONAL LIBERATION, ARE FOUGHT FOR POLITICAL PUR-
POSES. Here, even more than in the purely military aspect, is to
be found the greatest single dichotomy between the opposing armed
forces and the ultimate reason why one emerged victorious and the
other bowed its head in humiliating defeat. This discussion of
political and national objectives will be treated more extensively
in a subsequent chapter; our attention is now focused on the com-
batants. It seems only fair to examine the victors first, how
they were organized and the methods they used to win.
The military arm of the Viet Minh was a truly revolutionary
force, organized along standard military lines but under the con-
stant supervision of political officers at every level. It would
be difficult to find an European army that could provide a better
example of a military force being used to achieve purely political
ends. The complexion of the Vietnamese military establishment
changed as the war progressed, but what never changed was that
establishment's allegiance to the clearly stated goals of its
political leadership. As had been the armies of late 18th Cen-
tury Revolutionary France itself, the Vietnamese People's Army
was based on the concept of levee en masse. Vietnam was a nation
at war, in fact, in the early stages it was even more than that.
When the fighting first started in 1946, Indochina in its entirety
was broken down into fourteen regions, each administered by a
political committee answerable to Ho Chi Minh, who spent most of
his time in the nearly inaccessible Viet Bac mountains of north-
eastern Tonkin Province. Two years later, the political organi-
zation changed as Ho began to confine the war to Vietnam. While
unnecessary to describe each of the six new "inter-zones;" suffice
it to say that each was responsible for the recruiting and train-
ing of its own guerrilla forces.1
At the lowest end of the Vietnamese military spectrum was the
village militia, who although not a factor in the purely military
sense, did serve the crucial purpose of widening the base of com-
munist support throughout the country. The militia additionally
could be counted on to gather intelligence and act as laborers.
To underestimate this particular group's value would be to make
the same mistake the French high command did in planning for the
ill-fated Operation CASTOR in late 1953. The "customized" bicycle
and sinewy back of the village militia had every bit as much to do
with the great victory at Dien Bien Phu as did the automatic rifle
and pith helmet of the Viet Minh regular who raised his country's
flag over the French commandant's bunker there. Men and women
both served in the militia, as its place of duty was usually not
at the "front lines," but in the shadowy rear areas. Giap spares
no praise for the work of the militiamen in their role of provid-
ing "the main instrument of the people's power," and in general
supporting his more combat oriented units.2
Once a viable militia organization had been established in a
given zone, selected members were reassigned to regional "Home
Guard" units. Although political training was continued in such
units, their military purpose was a more active one. Not only
responsible for the physical secruity of specific georaphic areas,
regional troops were formally trained in guerrilla tactics. Au-
thor Robert Thompson regards this particular organization as "a
central factor in eventual Viet Minh victory."3 Certainly, there
is no disputing the fact that regional troops were eminently suc-
cessful in causing the French to dilute their military presence
throughout the entire country in order to maintain vital lines of
communication, and control of populated areas. To the American
soldier and Marine who came to fight after the French had been
defeated, the regional soldier was known as "Charlie," or Viet
Cong.
Protracted guerrilla war was unquestionably the cornerstone
of General Giap's strategy; but, like any good soldier, Giap re-
tained strategic flexibility for the changes he knew success would
bring:
According to our military theory, in order to
ensure victory for the people's war when we
are stronger than the enemy politically and
the enemy is stronger than we materially, it
is necessary to promote an extensive guerrilla
war which will develop gradually into a regular
war combined with guerrilla war. Regular war
and guerrilla war are closely combined, stimu-
late each other, deplete and annihilate enemy
forces, and bring final victory.4
It was the Chuc Luc, or regular force which was designed to train
in the conventional methods of fighting, in order to apply the
coup de grace to the French Expeditionary Force when the time
came. By early 1950, there "uniformed" regular units were formed
into five infantry divisions. Previously, they had operated for
the most part as independent battalions. Four of these divisions,
numbering approximately 11,000 men each, operated in the Viet Bac
area (the 304th, 308th, 312th and 316th). The 320th remained
south of the 16th Parallel. Before 1950 came to a close the
351st "Heavy" Division was organized, with a much heavier con-
centration of artillery (57mm and 75mm field guns) and 37mm anti-
aircraft weapons. The conventional divisions mentioned above were
organized along the familiar light infantry model with three in-
fantry regiments of two or three battalions each, heavy mortars,
some anti-aircraft weapons and, machine guns and small arms. By
the time the battle was raging for Dien Bien Phu, a seventh divi-
sion, the 325th, was in the process of being raised.
The Viet Minh had neither an air force nor navy, but as the
war progressed they received an increasing amount of material as-
sistance and technical advice from the Chinese Communists; how-
ever, always regarded the fight as one wholly its own. The three
types of armed forces created by the Viet Minh constituted "the
expression of the general mobilisation of the people in arms.
They [the three types] co-operated closely with one another to an-
nihilate the enemy."5
The Vanquished
To fight the three major elements which comprised the Viet-
namese People's Army, the French offered the French Expeditionary
Force; it was a predictably conventional werstern army which sought
to take advantage of superior firepower and technology to defeat
the Viet Minh. There are a number of reasons why the French Ex-
peditionary Force failed, some of which can be attributed to the
army itself, just as many others cannot.
The average size of the Expeditionary Force in Indochina
hovered around a figure of 150,000 men; yet, generally only a
third were French regulars. The army was quite diverse in nature.
In addition to ethnic French units, the French Expeditionary
Force relied heavily on colonial troops, which fought in units
organized identically to the regular French. The Moroccans, Tu-
nisians and Senegalese organizations were led by French officers.
Interestingly, Algerian units, because of their status as metro-
politian French troops, had their own officers.16 It goes without
saying that this fact had a profound impact on the war of national
liberation France found herself fighting in that country beginning
as she crawled out of Vietnam in 1954.
Two other elements rounded out the international flavor which
mainfested itself in the French Expeditionary Force. One is fa-
mous for its exploits, the other graphically points out France's
failure at "winning the hearts and minds," so to speak. The For-
eign Legion (Legion Estranger) fought hard and well throughout
the war, usually where the fighting was at its heaviest. The fact
that over 11,000 Legionnaires never returned from Indochina is
grim testament to the quality of the Legion's service there.7
Certainly, Dien Bien Phu deserves a place of honor alongside Cam-
erone and Magental as a legend in that renowned fighting unit's
glorious history.
In direct contrast stands the performance of the soldiers
France recruited from the "Associated States" of Indochina, par-
ticularly the Vietnamese. Organized haphazardly into conventional
and guerrilla units, the full potential of this tremendous man-
power source was never effectively tapped. The individual courage
and fighting ability of these native troops need not be questioned
now any more than it was then by the French. The problem lay whol-
ly in Paris' vacillation concerning how much reliance would be
placed on the indigenous troops and to what degree they would be
recruited and organized.
For the most part, the war in Indochina remained French in
character and never approached becoming a fraternal fight. Credit
for this must be given more to the Viet Minh's efforts than to
Paris' lack. The struggle at the grass roots was won handily by
Uncle Ho's political officers, although it cannot be ignored that
27,000 Indochinese soldiers died while fighting on the French pay-
roll.8
As has every conventional force attempting to defeat the in-
surgent, so also did that of France put its faith in a misplaced
reliance on the mobility born of modern tehnology, at least in
the initial stages of the war. Military units of the Expedition-
ary Force would hardly look unusual to the American analyst ex-
amining their organization and weapons. The heavy weapons which
were organic to the infantry battalions were the 81mm and 60mm
mortars, as well as the .50 calibre machine gun. Artillery sup-
port was provided primarily by 75mm recoilless guns, 105 mm and
155mm howitzers, and 120mm heavy mortars. Heavier artillery such
as the 175mm gun, proved ineffective due to its inherent lack of
responsiveness and mobility.
Mobility had to be the cornerstone of any stratey aimed
against an elusive enemy who espoused Mao's tenets of guerrilla
warfare. For infantry units it was provided by the ponderous
World War II vintage half-track and armored cars. More mobile
firepower came out of the muzzles of M-4 Sherman and M-24 Chaffee
tanks.9 Both of these veterans of the Second World War had ex-
cellent combat records, and at times proved effective in Indo-
china; however, in the cat and mouse scenario of guerrilla war-
fare, their value was limited at best.
The ultimate in mobile warfare was provided by the parachute
units, which went into the fight with self-contained artillery
and engineer support. Of course, just as such units are forced
to do today parachute units then were forced to look skyward for
resupply. Foreign Legion, Colonial, French and even Indochinese
troops comprised the various parachute battalions which fought
with nothing short of distinction during the entire war. During
the early stages of the conflict, air transportation for these
elite units was provided by the venerable Junkers JU-52, replaced
later by the American supplied C-47 Dakota and C-119 Flying Boxcar.
Of all of these there was never enough, and it was not unusual for
French commercial aircraft with civilian crews to be pressed into
emergency service. Later, even Americans became involved.
Troops on the ground looked to the skies for more than resup-
ply, and although French aircrews turned in yeoman service in the
close air support role, they were never equal to the task. The
principal bomber was the B-26 Marauder, while the F-8F Bearcat
and Navy F-4U provided the bulk of close air support. Helicopters
(the U.S. built H-19B) appeared only very late in the war and were
used principally for the medical evacuation. From the overall
tactical standpoint, the lack of adequate airpower sealed the fate
of the defenders of Dien Bien Phu in 1954, and, as we shall see,
brought on one of the great controversies of that particular cam-
paign.
III
A LONG AND CRUEL WAR
Guerrilla warfare does not bring as quick results
or as great renown as regular warfare, but "a
long road tests a horse's strength and a long
task proves a man's heart," and in the course of
this long and cruel war guerrilla warfare will
demonstrate its immense power; it is indeed no
ordinary undertaking
- Mao Tse-tung
"On Protracted War." May 1998
France will remain in Indochina and Indochina
within the French Union. This is the first
principle of our policy... The continued
presence of France in this country is now and
henceforth a fact that realists must not leave
out of their considerations.
- High Commissioner Emile Bollaert
Speech in Hanoi. May 15. 1947
When in early 1947, both sides decided to take off their
gloves, the French Expeditionary Force was represented in Viet-
nam by one infantry division, assorted armored units, two battal-
ions of paratroopers and the equivalent of three fighter squadrons.
The total came out to roughly 40,000, a figure which would almost
double by the end of the year. In any case, the French derived
some satisfaction from limited successes in 1947, especially in
capturing fixed objectives which, contrary to their "doctrine,"
the Viet Minh sometimes tried to defend and hold. Toward the end
of the year, General Giap's strategy shifted to the more logical
one of hit and run. With this transition, the Expeditionary Force
found itself pursuing the standard objective of all conventional
forces in a guerrilla war, the "set-piece battle."
It didn't take the French high command long to realize that
the division was far too unwieldy an organization to right its
elusive enemy, considering the mountains and lack of good routes
of communication in the principle theatre of operations, Tonkin
(North Vietnam). By 1949, the battalion had become the basic com-
bat unit of the Indochinese war. This was an overreaction which
frequently gave the Viet Minh the opportunity to achieve isolated
numerical superiority and some resultant tactical victories. In
fact, 1949 saw such a pronounced reversal of the military situa-
tion in Tonkin that Dean Acheson was prompted to comment that the
U.S. State Department felt strongly that the Vietnamese "independ-
ence movement was too strong to be defeated."1 There were indica-
tions that his counterparts in Paris were beginning to feel the
same way. Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam were granted "independence,"
and that most malleable of emperors, Bao Dai was set up as a French
puppet in order to offer a non-communist alternative to the people
of Vietnam. This very same man who had abdicated in protest of
French policies now became the Quai d'Orsay's official representa-
tive, but he was still certainly no match for Ho Chi Minh. The
year 1949 was pivotal for other reasons as well. Chiang Kai-shek
was defeated and forced to displace to Formosa and suddenly a
friendly neighbor to the north provided support and sanctuary to
the legions of General Giap, enabling them to refit and train with-
out the worry of French interference. American equipment which
Generalissimo Chiang had carefully husbanded during the Second
World War now made its way to the Vietnamese People's Army.
Thus, 1950 loomed as a watershed, and it quickly became ap-
parent that both sides were determined to reap any benefits it
might produce. Not until late in the year did things begin to
happen. After conducting intensive training in China, General Giap
decided to escalate the war by synchronizing a series of attacks on
the widely separated French strong points located near the Chinese
border. The offensive began on October 1, 1950, with fourteen bat-
talions of infantry supported by three of artillery.2 By October 17,
the French had lost 6,000 men, 13 artillery pieces, 125 mortars, 450
trucks, three armored platoons, 940 machine guns and over 9,000 ri-
fles and automatic rifles.3 What was particularly disconcerting to
French officers was the fact that three elite parachute battalions,
dropped in to preserve the supply route to the isolated garrison of
Lang-Son, had been completely destroyed. The rabbit had become a
tiger; perhaps the set-piece battle French generals had all longed
for was more than what they had bargained for. To use the words of
Bernard Fall, "the French had suffered their greatest colonial de-
feat since Montcalm died at Quebec. Their abandoned stocks alone
sufficed for the equipment of a whole Viet-Minh division."
As 1950 drew to a close it became apparent that with the ex-
ception of the Red River Delta, the French had lost control of Ton-
kin. Giap had created his previously mentioned divisions in the
safe haven of China; now they had been bloodied, thus making the
critical transition to the status of veteran units. The Vietnam-
ese commander in chief now decided to deliver his knockout blow,
attempting to break France's military back before the stagnating
situation in Korea led to a wider participation by the United
States. This, at least, is what Giap would have us believe.4 and
unquestionably, there is some validity to the premise. What is
more likely, however, is that the unqualified success of the au-
tumn offensive had had a heady effect on the rookie general. In-
terestingly, in two of his published works, General Giap has very
little to say about the 1951 attempt to follow up his 1950 success
and expel the French from the Red River Delta. For one thing, the
campaign was unsuccessful; for another, it violated his own (and
Mao's) precepts of protracted guerrilla war and showed a certain
lack of judgement on his part which one would guess the general
would just as soon forget.
It might be opportune at this time to examine briefly what
was taking place in the camp of Giap's adversary before beginning
an analysis of the campaigns of 1951. On December 17, 1950, General
de Lattre de Tassigny assumed command as Commander in Chief of the
French Expeditionary Force, and the concomitant duties of High Com-
missioner. In the minds of many, he was then France's greatest
living soldier.5 De Lattre put an indelible mark on the French
conduct of the war, but tragically, became terminally ill with
cancer and was forced to return home to die in less than a year.
Knowing fully that a communist offensive was in the making,* the
future Marshal of France set about making the reception for Giap's
*It should be noted that French intelligence services per-
formed in excellent fashion during the war, very rarely not pro-
viding timely and accurate information. It was ill-considered
actions of commanders, in the face of such information, which
generally brought defeat.
minions as warm as time would allow him.
For the First time, the soldiers of the Expeditionary Force
observed some leadership at the top. DeLattre had his share of
idiocyncracies, and behind his back the men might fondly call him
"Le Roi Jean," but face to face the general was a fighter. One
anecdote aptly describes the man. Upon arrival in Saigon to as-
sume command of all French forces, de Lattre was, of course,
treated to a military review. As soon as the band struck up the
"Marseillais," the new commander immediately noticed that one of
the bandsmen was out of tune. De Lattre immediately rushed over
and verbally castigated the offending musician.6 A legend was
born. But General de Lattre did other unorthodox things as well.
The commander in chief sent a passenger ship back to France loaded
with wounded soldiers rather than the French civilians it had been
sent to evacuate. De Lattre reasoned that the men would fight
harder with their families in the war zone. He was (in addition
to creating a legend) making it clear that despite Vo Nguyen
Giap's boasts to the effect that the Viet Minh would be in Hanoi
by Tet (February), "Le Roi Jean" disagreed. The general also
pressed civilians and civilian aircrart into military service
(for use in rear areas) in order to put more soldiers in the field
and keep them adequately supplied.7
When Giap launched his assault on January 16, 1951, centered
around the village Vinh Yen, approximately twenty-fve miles north-
west of Hanoi, de Lattre quickly showed his ability to mass super-
ior firepower (particularly artillery and napalm) in the face of
poorly thought out human wave assaults. The result was 6,000
dead Viet Minh soldiers and a sharp slap in the face to General
Giap. Two more times the Vietnamese People's Army tried to break
into the Red River Delta and reach Hanoi; both times the result
was the same: costly defeats, first at Mao Khe in March and then
along the Day River in late May (see map page 30).
Two things were obvious. First, General Giap had severely
miscalculated the readiness of his own army; second, he had mis-
calculated the ability of his opposite number to mass forces, com-
mit reserves and bring air power to bear with decisive results.
In the case of Mao Khe and the Day River, de Lattre orchestrated
the use of river gun boats in coordination with parachute units
and fast moving mobile groups to crush Viet Minh assaults by con-
centrating superior firepower against them.
Forced to face the fact that the first six months of 1951
had cost him 11,000 troops, General Giap quickly decided to revert
to guerrilla warfare; but not before spreading the blame for de-
feat around widely. H graciously accepted some culpability, but
was also uncharitable enough to accuse some of his troops of being
cowards.8 De Lattre also made adjustments. His military exper-
ience told him that with his available resources he could never
hope to hold the seven thousand square miles of Red River Delta.
As a result, the French general commenced construction of the "de
Lettre Line," a series of fortified posts located around the bor-
ders of the delta, with a strong mobile reserve to concentrate
where needed. Obviously, in a guerrilla environment the value of
such a strategy was marginal and only serves to underscore the
mentality of even a brilliant soldier when faced with a threat
he is not sure how to deal with.
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On a more positive note, General de Lattre convinced the
French government that if the number of French troops in Indochina
could not be increased, then a Vietnamese National Army had to be
created to help shoulder the load. Paris had always resisted this
idea. The puppet Bao Dai did as well, fearing mass defections of
armed troops to Ho Chi Minh; but, in November 1950, de Lattre's
influence resulted in the opening of Vietnamese Military Academy.
Graduates, as well as private soldiers, however, continued to be
integrated into French units. As might be expected, the experi-
ment was a limited success at best; relatively few Vietnamese saw
the wisdom in fighting for the French, much to the exasperation
of "Le Roi Jean."9
The real legacy of General de Lattre de Tassigny would only
be seen after his death. De Lattre had vindicated the theory that
prepared defensive positions, supported by all the weapons to be
found in a modern western army, were more than a match for Vo
Nguyen Giap's People's Army. It was a strategy "which was ulti-
mately to prove fatal" to France's attempt to retain her former
colony.10 What is so tragic about de Lattre's impact is that it
should have had the opposite effect on not only the ailing general
himselr, but his successors as well. The final campaign which de
Lattre was to engineer, before his departure on December 19, 1951,
was the attack on the peaceful capital city of the pro-French
Muong tribesmen, Hoa Binh, located approximately forty miles south-
east of Hanoi. General de Lattre can be excused from missing the
significance of the battle, for he was a dying man. The same can-
not be said for a string of future generals and politicians in
Paris who chose only to see what they wanted to see and not face
reality until they were rudely awakened by a Vietnamese general
who was not too proud to learn his lessons from the early battled
in 1951.
As dawn broke on November 14, 1951, three battalions of
French paratroopers jumped out of their decrepit Junkers JU-52's
for the last time before the planes were to be replaced by equally
old American C-47's. The landings encountered no resistance, and
the French had seemingly cut Colonial Route 6, the road used by
the communists to keep their forces in central and southern Viet-
nam supplied. By sunset, the French paratroopers had linked up
with fifteen infantry battalions, seven artillery battalions, two
armored groups, two Dinaussaut river patrol craft, and a detach-
ment of engineers --- all having arrived via the Black River.
Clearly, the French not only expected, but very much desired a
scrap. They "had stabbed with all their might --- and had en-
countered empty space."11 In any case, what they were about to
get was certainly not what General de Lattre, nor his successor,
General Rauol Salan, were expecting.
Still smarting from his defeats at Vinh Yen, Mao Khe and the
Day River, General Giap had decided to revert back to Phase II of
Mao's guerrilla principles. He is uncharacteristically modest re-
garding the Hoa Binh campaign, relating that his army "took advan-
tage of their [French] exposed disposition of troops to get our di-
visions to strike blows at their rear.... Hoa Binh was released.
De Lattre's plan was checked."12
To elaborate somewhat, as the French were consolidating their
positions in and around Hoa Binh prior to launching a follow on
offensive to the northeast, Giap began to concentrate nearly all
of his available regular forces (304th, 308th, 312th, 316th, and
320th Divisions with artillery, anti-aircrart and engineer sup-
port).13 This time, however, he would not waste his soldiers in
futile assaults against the strength of the enemy, instead General
Giap would slash at the French lines of communications (Colonial
Route 6 and the Black River) and the string of isolated posts
which "secured" them. Before long, the "pistol pointed at the
heart of the enemy"14 by the French had become a death trap. On
December 9, 1951, General Giap ordered the attack of Tu Ve, a key
French outpost on the Black River about twelve miles north of Hoa
Binh.
Operation LOTUS now became a meat grinder in reverse. In-
stead of conducting an offensive against a Viet Minh stronghold,
the French soldiers found themselves fighting hard just to keep
open the lines of communication upon which their very lives de-
pended. By the end of January 1952, General Salan had no alterna-
tive but to withdraw his battered units from the Hoa Binh salient.15
A conventional western army needed to be resupplied constantly.
Cut off the tail and the head will eventually die. Given the size
of the territory to be controlled, the limited number of troops to
control it, and the miles of roads and rivers involved, it is not
surprising that the French encountered great difficulties in the
logistical area. What is amazing is that they persisted at their
"deep strike' strategy so long. Fighting an enemy which special-
ized in the ambush, the French Expeditionary Force seemed almost
eager to put itself in a position where it was forced to run a
veritable gauntlet in order to sustain itself in the field. Hoa
Binh would not be the final example of this folly.
Once the autumn monsoon ended, Giap set out once again to
lure the ever-eager French command to the limits of its sustaina-
bility. In October he again showed his knack for battlefield con-
centration, overwhelming a number of isolated French positions
about twenty-five miles northwest of the de Lattre Line. The
fight was on for the northwestern highlands of Vietnam. To keep
the irrepressable General Giap's thoughts away from the Red River
Delta, Salan decided to take up where his predecessor had left
off and launch a deep offensive into the Viet Minh rear. By so
doing, he reasoned that he would be covering Laos as well as forc-
ing Giap to fight for his own supply lines. Thus was born Opera-
tion LORRAINE, Salan's swan song and yet another indication to
the French that the Viet Minh danced to the beat of its own drum,
not that of the French Expeditionary Force.
The idea behind the plan was to trap the Vietnamese in a
classic hammer and anvil, where superior French fire power would
prove decisive. Operation LORRAINE failed for the same reason
LOTUS had and CASTOR would; it could not be supported logistically
in the face of Vo Nguyen Giap's well-founded fixation with lines
of communication. Four mobile groups ventured out of their Red
River Delta defenses on October 29, 1952, along two separate routes,
planning to link up at Phu Tho, which they accomplished on November
5th. The only opposition they encountered along the way had been
sporadic delaying actions by regional forces and militia units.
Instead of smelling a trap, the French continued their drive ever
deeper into Viet Minh territory, capturing sizeable amounts of
supplies (including a number of Soviet-built Moltava trucks).
Meanwhile, on November 9, paratroopers seized Phu Doan. They
justified their isolated position in enemy territory on the
grounds that the armored/mechanized force moving toward them
along Colonial Route 2 would soon join them there. This juncture
occurred as planned and the French set up blocking positions fur-
ther north in preparation for the expected counterattack. Since
Salan had dedicated 30,000 men to Operation LORRAINE, General
Giap decided to ignore it for the most part, assigning only two
regiments to stop it as they saw fit.16 These two regimental
commanders justified their general's confidence and in the ensu-
ing campaign showed that they had been well-schooled in the nu-
ances of guerrilla warfare. Rather than take the French on nose
to nose, they let the heavily equipped task force trudge slowly
ahead through the marshy terrain. By flooding selected areas and
damaging the few existing roads, the wily Vietnamese literally
wore out the French engineers; but, much more importantly, they
allowed the French lines of communication to steadily lengthen,
thus drawing off substantial numbers of troops to keep them secure.
Since air transport was over-committed, most supplies had to come
by road or river.17 Strongpoints established along these routes
were easily overrun by the Viet Minh and supplies arrived at for-
ward units in ever-decreasing amounts.
As he had been forced to do less than a year earlier, Gen-
eral Salan ordered a withdrawl, this time on November 14, 1952.
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Such a move, of course, was precisely what Giap's two trusted reg-
imental commanders were waiting for, and on November 17, they am-
bushed the column as it worked its way through a steep-sided,
heavily vegetated gorge. From this point onward, the French had
to fight for their very lives in order to return to the relative
safety of the de Lattre Line. The brilliantly conducted ambush
at Chan Muong alone cost the French over three hundred casualties;
by the time the column reached friendly lines, it would have spent
a battalion and never seen General Giap's main force. Two regi-
ments, properly employed, had proven beyond the shadow of a doubt
that in guerrilla warfare, it is not brawn, but brains, that sep-
arates the winner from the loser. Tragically, however, even in
the face of what had transpired during the conduct of Operation
LORRAINE, the French high command more than ever sought the great
"set-piece" battle which had thus far eluded it. Beginning in
November of 1953 it would find it.
IV
OPERATION CASTOR
We had no plan at all... After seven years of
war we were in a complete imbroglio, and no one
from private to commander in chief, knew just
why we were fighting
- General Henri Navarre
a lecture in Paris, 1957
A commander in chief cannot take as an excuse
for his mistakes in wartime an order given by
his sovereign of his minister....
- Bonaparte
Military Maxims and Thoughts
The determination to fight and win of our army
...was a manifestation of the boundless loyalty
of our People's Army to the revolutionary strug-
gle of the people and the Party.
- Vo Nguyen Giap
The Military Art of People's War
Political Background
The supreme irony of France's war in Indochina is that for
four years a string of Expeditionary Force commanders failed to
come to grips with the intricacies of guerrilla warfare. They
longed instead for the great "set-piece" battle that would enable
them to crush the People's Army once and for all; yet, when the
great showdown occurred it was the French who marched off into
captivity. The sentiments of Napoleon notwithstanding, the blame
for the defeat at Dien Bien Phu cannot be allowed to fall fully
on the shoulders of the soldiers alone. It is, in fact, in this
very area that the most significant lesson of the entire conflict
can be found.
The reconquest of Indochina was never very popular in Fance.
As is true in the case of most protracted wars, when the casual-
ties began to mount and few tangible results were seen, support
waned all the more. It is not within the scope of this paper to
recount the political machinations in Paris dealing with the con-
duct of the war in their entirety; there are, however, a number
of things which must be mentioned, even if only briefly. France
fought her la salle guerre on a shoestring, never formally ele-
vating it above the status of a pacification operation:
The government made the war, but it seemed re-
luctant to provide the means of winning it.
Operational plans drawn up and proposed by the
local command were emasculated in Paris... As
this was officially no more than a colonial
pacification, it was understood from the begin-
ning that only volunteers could be sent to
Indochina.... Despite the bounty given for en-
listments, the number of volunteers remained
inadequate.
As the Radical Deputy Pierre Mendes-France stated in a November
1950 speech, either France had to make the economic sacrifices
required to win militarily or initiate negotiations for a settle-
ment.2 The French government was never willing to do either.
The problem was a complex one, with roots far removed from
the Asian land mass and which reflect Paris' acute paranoia dur-
ing the years following the Second World War. If troop strengths
in Indochina were to be raised, the men were going to have to come
from units mandated for European service by the NATO Ten Division
Plan. This in and of itself could probably be accepted except
for the fact that if France could not provide the requisite num-
bers, the United States would clamor all the more for the rearma-
ment of West Germany.3 Thus, after General de Lattre's campaign
in 1951, the French govenment made the decision to find a way to
"disengage itself discreetly" by increasing its reliance on Ameri-
can money and Vietnamese manpower.4 Indochina was importance, but
the spectre of an armed West Germany and the resultant diminish-
ment of French bargaining power in Europe made it pale by compari-
son. Besides, America was willing to pay to keep France in Indo-
china, to the tune of ten million dollars in 1950 and one billion
four years later.5 What the United States could never seem to
understand, however, was that as much as Washington wanted a
military solution, Paris more and more sought a purely political
one.
France's last commander in Indochina, General Henri Eugene
Navarre, left Paris armed only with the vaguest of guidance: he
was to find an honorable way out of the morass (une sortie honor-
able).6 Reinforcements were out of the question according to
Prime Minister Rene Mayer, who underscored his comments by re-
ferring to Edouard Daladier's sentiment that "Parliament will op-
pose such a folly."7 Mayer's successor, Joseph Laniel, would
continue with a policy of ambiguity toward Indochina. In fact,
Laniel would exacerbate the problem by placing Indochina under
the auspices of the Resident Commissioner General, thus appointing
a civilian to a position of total control there. For a soldier,
it was an inauspicious beginning.
Setting the Stage
Not surprisingly, Henri Navarre initially declined the assign-
ment in Indochina, and had to be shamed into accepting it by the
soon to be retired Prime Minister.8 In any case, the reluctant
general arrived in Saigon on May 19, 1953 as a replacement for
Salan. At approximately the same time, Major General Rene Cogny
was promoted to lieutenant general and assigned the duties as
military commader in Tonkin. Dien Bien Phu is located in north-
western Tonkin, and the two general's mutual interest in the bitter
stuggle which was to take place there would be one of the few
things Navarre and Cogny would ever have in common. That their
finger pointing would continue long after the war was over is ad-
equate commentary on the similarity of their views as to how the
campaign should have been conducted.
All that would come later. Following General Salan's failure
in the previously discussed Operation LORRAINE, his opposite num-
ber began looking ahead at 1953. General Giap's strategy was to
broaden the war, and by so doing, stretch the already taut French
Union forces even thinner. To accomplish this he attacked north-
ern Laos in the spring of 1953, threatening its capital of Luang
Prabang. Even as early as 1953 the domino theory had its adher-
ents, and thus France assumed the position that it could not allow
a Viet Minh initiative in another of the Associated States to go
unanswered. Additionally, from the side lines, the United States
pushed hard for a renewed effort on the part of France to effect
"the speedy defeat of Viet Minh forces in Indochina [which] would
deter rather than provoke Chinese Communist aggression in Tonkin
since it would be a clear indication of our joint determination
to meet force with effective force."9 Thus, even to the Americans,
Vietnam was more a means than an end, and especially as long as it
was the French who were fighting there. In any case, there had to
be a counter to Giap's threatening gambit. The reaction was what
is known to history as the Navarre Plan, easily the least defini-
tive, most over-emphasized and least understood military strategy
to emerge from the entire war.
The reasons for the confusion are many. For one thing, even
Navarre himself agreed that the plan was more a philosophy than a
strategy. In his own words the whole concept was very general in
nature:
Pendant la campagne 1953-1954, consideree comme
le cap dangereux, chercher a eviter le bataille
generale avec le Corps de bataille ennemi et con-
stituer notre Corps de bataille.
Pendant la campagne 1954-1955, au contraire, re-
chercher la bataille generale, une fois notre
Corps de bataille porte a un volume et a un en-
trainement suffisants.10
Probably the best description is provided by an author who calls
it an amalgamation of the ideas of both de Lattre and Salan.11
As Navarre says above, it called for a strategic defensive in 1953
and early 1954 (a la de Lattre), followed by a general offensive
in Tonkin in the autumn of 1954. By so doing, the commander in
chief hoped to force a political settlement on the Viet Minh while
the military situation was at least temporarily favorable to France.
The Chief of the newly established U.S. Military Mission in Viet-
nam, Lieutenant General John W. O'Daniel, approved heartily of
the plan and recommended to Washington on July 14, 1953 that it
be given full support. Interestingly, however, O'Daniel's inter-
pretation of the plan was characterized by an expectation of early
offensive action.12 The Americans wanted to see their military
aid being used to kill communists and one cannot help but get the
idea that the American general was telling his superiors in Wash-
ington what they wanted to hear, as well as what would keep the
money pouring in. France (Premier Laniel) made it abundantly
clear that without 150 billion francs the Navarre Plan would not
work and his nation would have to disengage.13 The money had to
come from the United States and, based on O'Daniel's analysis,
come it did. On August 28, 1953, however, the Joint Chiefs of
Staff expressed displeasure to the Secretary of Defense that
Navarre was not keeping up his end of the bargain. Had the French
general misled O'Daniel? Had O'Daniel purposely misled the Joint
Chiefs? In all liklihood, we shall never know; regardless, what
emerges very clearly is the fact that even at its inception, the
vaunted Navarre Plan was vague in the extreme.
The man whose army the Navarre Plan was designed to destroy
provides yet another interpretation. As far as Vo Nguyen Giap
was concerned, the plan was little more than a "new Franco-Ameri-
can scheme to prolong and extend the aggressive war in our coun-
try."14 Although Giap's understanding of the plan is probably
somewhat distorted (for one thing, he states that it called for
massive reinforcements form France, West Germany, North Africa and
Korea, a policy Paris was unwilling to initiate), he does correct-
ly see America's expanding role in the war. He is also correct
in his description of the French strategy as one of initial con-
solidation followed by a series of offensives centered around
strong mobile groups, aimed at "annihilating the main part of our
forces later on."15 Like a woman's beauty, it would appear that
the strategy behind the Navarre Plan varied in accordance with
the eyes of each beholder, and what each hoped to gain from it:
money, victory, or propaganda.
By the spring of 1953 the People's Army cast its shadow over
Laos and its capital of Luang Prabang, causing General Navarre to
formally articulate his strategy. Laos could not be allowed to
drift away from its status as one of the Associated States of the
French Union. This eventuality could be prevented in one of two
ways: one entailed probable contact with the enemy, while the
other would force him to halt his advance in order to protect his
own extended supply lines. The fact that General Navarre chose
the former course casts even more doubt about the real intent of
his plan; however, it must be remembered that the general was a
soldier first and opportunity to fight a set-piece battle
might well have provided more of a temptation than he could resist.
Besides, General Salan's legacy to his successor had been the
ongoing battle of Na San, a campaign whose misinterpretation by
Navarre would ultimately contribute largely to his failure in In-
dochina. The French "victory" at this small hamlet now must be
discussed, because Na San engendered a fatal mindset in the French
command and in many ways served as a trial run for what happened
at Dien Bien Phu.
As the ill-fated Operation LORRAINE was grinding to a halt,
it became clear that isolated French units, regardless of how well-
equipped, were at the mercy of the Viet Minh if their logistical
pipeline consisted primarily of roads and rivers. Na San was one
of the strongpoints located on the critical Black River, and it
contained nene full strength battalions, supported by five batter-
ies of 105mm howitzers and on call air support. Cut off from
overland supply by the rapidity of the French withdrawl in the
waning days of Operation LORRAINE, the garrison's only connection
with the outside world was its small airfield, located on the
floor of a valley. The French troops fortified the highground
(the one lesson of the campaign which seemed to go unobserved),
dug in and were provided with a constant flow of supplies from
Hanoi. On November 23 and 30, 1952, the Viet Minh conducted sev-
eral brutal but wholly unimaginative frontal assaults, with pre-
dictable results. By December 1st, Giap's casualties numbered in
the thousands.16 To the French this was an impressive victory,
but after several months of supply maintenance, the garrison be-
came an ever-increasing burden for the French Air Transport Com-
mand. The arrival of twenty-eight U.S. Air Force mechanics in
January 1953 signaled the inability of French ground crews to keep
their overworked C-47's "up" at the level needed if Na San's be-
leaguered defenders were to be kept supplied. The French govern-
ment had asked for one hundred and fifty.17
Less than a week after assuming command in Indochina, General
Navarre decided to examine firsthand what was rapidly becoming a
struggle of epic proportions at Na San. Before departing France,
he had sworn that he would evacuate the post, apparently on the
grounds that such a display of static warfare offended his cav-
alry-oriented sensibilities. After a personal tour of the place,
the commander in chief was still of the opinion that the garrison
should be withdrawn; however, he had obviously been impressed with
what had taken place there, particularly the fact that French
troops had inflicted some seven thousand casualties on the usu-
ally elusive Viet Minh.18
Base Aero-Terrestre
The reasons behind General Navarre's decision to occupy Dien
Bien Phu are only slightly less obscure than is the rationale the
ill-fated garrison commander there must have used to explain the
tactics he used to defend it. There is no question that the Uni-
ted States made incessant demands to see some returns on the mas-
sive amounts of aid it was pumping into the French war effort;
this might have prompted hastiness on the part of the French. Na-
varre himself acknowledges that there was a problem of America
acquiring too strong an influence in French affairs, although he
carefully avoids any indication that such a situation caused pre-
cipitous action on his part.19 His strategic reason for launching
Operation CASTOR was simple enough: it was part of the "obliga-
tions permanentes du Commandant en chef en Indochine" to defend
Laos.20 It was a matter of honor to France. General Navarre
chose to do so at Dien Bien Phu because "la valeur strategique de
la position de Dien Bien Phu est comme de longue date."21 This is
probably true, as it had long been rumored that General Salan
longed to establish a veritable fortress in the strategic north-
western corner of Tonkin during his own tenure as commander in
chief.
Accepting the premise that Dien Bien Phu was designed to deny
Giap the main avenues of approach to Luang Prabang, it is necessary
to next determine the method with which the isolated base aero-
terrestre was to accomplish this task. It is at this point that
the strategy begins to get a little confused, as most firsthand
accounts reflect transparent attempts by the authors to avail
themselves of hindsight in order to exonerate themselves of blame.
Navarre consistently maintained that the base contained mobile
groups capable of lashing out at the enemy as he moved towards
Laos. This is undoubtedly what the general did, in fact, ini-
tially have in mind. He always stated that the last thing he
ever intended was for the garrison to degenerate into another Na
San.22 It was exactly this consideration which prompted him to
eventually appoint a fellow cavalry officer (Colonel Christian
Marie Ferdinand de la Croix de Castries) to the position as com-
mander of the post. The garrison's first commander, however, was
none other than Brigadier General Jean Gilles, who had commanded
at Na San and agreed to go to Dien Bien Phu only on the provision
that his appointment there was temporary. Rather than face the
prospect of fighting like a "rat," he told his commander in Tonkin,
Lieutenant General Cogny, to "make use of me somewhere where I am
going to get some fresh air."23 Gilles understood the true lessons
of Na San. He knew that the French were fortunate to have extri-
cated themselves from that potential trap and not care to person-
ally tempt rate a second time.
General Cogny himself was a critical player in the unfolding
drama. Although after the war he adamantly maintained that he
had always opposed Operation CASTOR, his is probably not the case.
Without question, Navarre ordered the operation, but there is lit.
tle to indicate that the Tonkin commander ever argued too force-
fully against it. Cogny muttered to himself that Navarre was at-
tempting to bite considerably more off than he was ever going to
be able to chew. His observation was based on the fact that while
CASTOR was to take place in Tonkin, Operation ATLANTE (a coastal
sweep in Annam) was scheduled at the same time. Since Cogny knew
that it was his troops who were going to have garrison Dien Bien
Phu to the detriment of all else he wanted to accomplish in Tonkin,
he didn't like the idea that all the theater reserves were going
to be tied up in a useless evolution far to the southeast.24 The
only real value the Tonkin commander saw in occupying Dien Bien
Phu was its potential as a "mooring point" (mote d'amarrage) from
which to conduct guerrilla operations against the Viet Minh moving
into Laos. With the evacuation of the guerrilla base at Lai Chau,
however, conducted at about the same time as CASTOR commenced (and
thus code named POLLUX), the French had abandoned a counterguerril-
la war in Indochina in favor of pursuit of the set-piece battle.
Surely, Cogny was aware of this.
General Navarre picked Dien Bien Phu for its strategic loca-
tion and, incredibly enough, for its topography as well. Before
explaining why, however, a short description of the physical char-
Click here to view image
acteristics of the place is in order. The hamlet of Dien Bien Phu
was located in the broad, flat valley of the Nam Yum River. Ac-
cording to Giap's statistics, the valley floor was approximately
eighteen kilometers long and eight wide. Surrounding the basin
was an almost complete ring of heavily vegetated and quite steep
hill masses. Low mountains might, in fact, best describe them.
At some places. these hills extended to within three kilometers
of the Nam Yum River, which would eventually become the center of
the French lines.
Navarre's seemingly incredible comfort with the lay of the
land was drawn from his belief in several questionable "givens:"
1. Vo Nguyen Giap could neither move nor maintain a large
body of troops in the area due to the harshness of the terrain and
the presence of the French Air Force.
2. The Viet Minh could never get guns of any consequence on
the high ground overlooking the garrison, and even if they did,
once they aired and gave their positions away, French counter bat-
tery fire would answer them with devastating results.
3. Once the cavalryman de Castries relieved General Gilles,
the wide, flat valley floor would provide plenty of room for him
to utilize his tanks (which were to be flown in disassembled) in
a battle of maneuver which would overwhelm the enemy.25
The key to success, obviously, was the ability of the bench
Air Force to keep the garrison supplied. As the crow flies, Dien
Bien Phu was nearly two hundred miles from Hanoi. It was air re-
supply or no resupply at all. The two airfields (of which one was
barely useable) were, as a result, absolutely critical not only to
the successful completion of the garrison's mission (as vague as
it might have been), but also to the very survival of the soldiers
who would fight there.
There were plenty of men who did not share General Navarre's
optimism concerning Dien Bien Phu. General Corniglion-Molinier,
French Minister of State and a pilot in his own right who had actu-
ally flown into Dien Bien Phu seven years earlier, described the
topography to the Committee of National Defense in terms any French-
man could understand:
Dien Bien Phu? Imagine an airdrome on the
Champs-de-Mars, with the enemy occupying
Chaillot Hill. What's more, at such distance
from Hanoi to Haiphong, planes will only be
able to fly there and back.
Navarre, back in France at the time (July) briefing the gov-
ernment on the plan which eventually bore his name, replied that
Corniglion-Molinier's opinion was only that of an airman!26 Sig-
nificantly, however, although the French government had been
schooled as to what its senior military man in Indochina had in
mind, not one statesman suggested that he lay Operation CASTOR
aside. As one author states it:
"M. Laniel was neither somebody nor something, but
utter nothingness. His ministry was manufactured,
like his speeches, with scissors and paste. At
Matignon, the Prime Ministerial residence, he was
called neither 'the Prime Minister 'nor 'the Chief,'
but merely 'poor Joseph.'27
In any case, even if not given an imprimatur, Operation CASTOR
was at least blessed with tacit approval. The Laniel government
did make one thing clear: Indochina would receive no increase in
the number of troops with which to carry the plan out.
As summer turned to fall, events in Tonkin forced the French
high command, at least, to make a decision. By late October, Gen-
eral Giap had begun shifting his 316th Division from the Delta to
the northwest, where it could threaten Luang Probang all the more.
Significantly, just a week before, Laniel had signed an agreement
with Laos, pledging French military protection. Could it be that
as much as Henri Navarre longed for a battle with Nguyen Giap,
Nguyen Giap wanted a fight with Henri Navarre? Jules Roy, after
an interview with the Vietnamese general, states that Giap was
bitterly disappointed by the aerial escape of the French garrison
of Na San. In his planning for operations in Tonkin, the former
history teacher mentions that as part of his broad strategy he
"would seek ways and means to attract the enemy deep into our rear
and then use part of our regular forces to put him out of action."28
Out of action, indeed. Both generals were looking for a fight; in
all liklihood, neither realized exactly how much their respective
wishes would be fulfilled.
In early November, Navarre told General Cogny to begin plan-
ning for the occupation of Dien Bien Phu. At this point, cordial
relations between the two generals still existed, so the northern
commander willingly set his staff to work. From all indications,
Cogny was not especially enthusiastic about Operation CASTOR, how-
ever, he must have seen some merit in it. His staff was much less
circumspect; almost to a man they disapproved and formally so in-
formed their superior on November 4th. Why then did General Cogny
tell Navarre on November 6th that he agreed with the concept? If
convinced that Dien Bien Phu would become "a drain on manpower,
without any useful influence, as soon as it is pinned down by a
single regiment," he never expressed such feelings to his chief.29
If there was to be a victory he wanted to be part of it; if there
was a defeat, the blame would fall on Navarre in any case. Opera-
tion CASTOR would go as planned.
Colonel Jean Nicot, commander of the French Air Force's air
transport arm, was informed on November 11th that Operation CASTOR
was on and that he was going to have to support it. Nicot was
against the plan. He told the high command, verbally and in writ-
ing, that he could not maintain a steady flow of supplies to Dien
Bien Phu.90 Navarre, in turn, told the colonel that he not only
could, but that he most certainly would. Perhaps less intimidated
by General Navarre's will than he was by Colonel Nicot's well-
stated objections, Cogny now (approximately November 12th) sent
a letter to his commander in chief telling him that he was now
against the plan. He did not say, however, that he could not im-
plement it.
On November 17, General Navarre held a meeting in his Saigon
office. All of his major subordinate commanders were present and
one by one they put forward their objections to Operation CASTOR.
"General Navarre listened politely.... His last question was: 'Is
it possible?'" This time the reply was in the affirmative; the
commander in chief then told them that if the weather was good,
Dien Bien Phu would be occupied in three days. His will had cowed
the soldiers, but Navarre was not as sanguine about Paris. The
government would not be informed until the operation was six hours
old.31 To his credit, General Navarre assumed full responsibility
for the last great act in l'agonie de l'Indochine. It is also the
title of his book.
Into the Valley of Death
Between 1035 and 1045, the first Dakotas appeared
from behind the crests and released three thousand
parachutes over the two chosen zones, one to the
northwest of the villages of Dien Bien Phu and
christened Natacha, where a company of engineers
dropped with the 6th Paratroop Battalion under the
command of the indomitable Biegeard, and the other,
Simone, to the south, for the 2nd Battalion, 1st
Paratroops, of Brechignac.32
As French intelligence had predicted, only one battalion (the
910th) of the 148th Independent Regiment was physically located in
Dien Bien Phu on November 20, 1953. What intelligence either over-
looked or failed to discern was that a sister battalion (the 920th)
had left its mortars and recoilless rifles behind, and, that a
heavy weapons company of the 351st "Heavy" Division's 675th Artil-
lery Regiment was on the scene as well. Heavy fire by the Viet
Minh greatly exacerbated the usual chaos inherent in any large-
scale parachute operation. As luck would have it, the Vietnamese
were also fully deployed for a training exercise when the French
paratroopers began drifting earthward. Bigeard's men on Drop Zone
Natacha bore the brunt of the fire, but at 1215 the major succeed-
ed in establishing communications with a flight of B-26 Marauders
which delivered a strike of "surgical" precision to relieve the
pressure on the paratroopers. A second air strike at 1530, aug-
mented by the effective fire of the French mortars (which had just
at this point located their ammunition) broke the back of the Viet
Minh onslaught. By 1600 the zones were secure and Airborne Battle
Click here to view image
Group No. 1 had 1,827 combat troops on the ground at a cost of
eleven dead and flfty-two wounded. Ninety dead Viet Minh were
found, but as usual, many others had been dragged off. The
first act of what was to become a very long drama was over.
The following day, November 21st, forty-nine year old Brig.
adier General Gilles and his headquarters, along with Airborne
Battle Group No. 2 jumped into the valley. Gilles landed cleanly,
folded his parachute according to regulations, pulled his glass
eye out of his pocket and assumed command of Groupment Operation-
nel du Nord-Ouest (GONO). As part of the agreement he had reached
with General Cogny, his tenure was only temporary. In fact, when
the northern area commander appeared on November 22 for a visit,
the outspoken Gilles told him that he was already anxious to leave.
Dien Bien Phu looked too much like Na San for his liking. Regard-
less, by November 25, the engineers (using their air dropped bull-
dozers) had repaired the main airstrip so that it could handle
transport aircraft. The wounded could now be evacuated and equip-
ment brought in with more efficiency and presumbably less break-
age. Soldiers took leisurely baths in the Nam Yum and the artil-
lery registered its guns. Peace had returned to Dien Bien Phu
and the storm clouds which were drifting over the ominous peaks
were largely ignored.
Two hundred miles away, in Hanoi, General Cogny was receiving
a startling briefing from his intelligence officer, a Major Levain.
Levain had uncovered information which indicated that Vo Nguyen
Giap had no intention of ignoring the garrison at Dien Bien Phu.
The Vietnamese commander in chief had seemingly lost his interest
in Laos and was directing it instead on the soldiers now at Dien
Bien Phu.
It was a grave situation that Major Levain depicted. Accord-
ing to his estimates, the Viet Minh 316th Division would reach the
Dien Bien Phu area about December 6th, the 308th about the twenty-
fourth, the 351st "Heavy" Division two days later, and the 312th
on the twenty-eighth.34 Cogny quickly informed General Navarre,
in Saigon, as to what was transpiring but his superior simply
could not bring himself to believe that the Viet Minh were capable
of doing such a thing; he instead chose to believe that only lead
elements of these units were actually on the move. After all,
everybody knew that the Vietnamese could not logistically support
four divisions in the isolated area around Dien Bien Phu. The
French general was foolishly underestimating the capabilities of