Dien Bien Phu study from the Gia Vuc Website


	On 20th of November 1953, an airborne assault (4525 men) was launched to recapture the old Japanese air strip of Dien Bien Phu, a strategic place in the Viet Minh controlled Tai mountains. This was to block the Nam Ou valley towards the Mekonk and prevent future Viet Minh invasion into Laos. The idea was to establish a fortified fighting camp with offensive capability supported by its own artillery and aviation. In effect a second "Na San type" victory was planned by the High French Command.

*
GCMA

"Groupement de Commandos Mixtes Aéroportés"
(Mixed Airborne Commando Group)
commonly referred as GCMA,
was the "Action Service"
of the SDECE (Cold war French counter
intelligence service).
*

By late November it was felt that Giap will accept the battle and Airborne troops
were replaced by conventional units in early December.
Only two Para battalion were left as part of the garrison for offensive patrolling. Due to the small number of French forces (4 500 men) and the topography of the valley, the French decided to occupy only the various hills in this large valley and to turn them into strong points controlling the lower grounds. Due to lack of building material, airlift capability, the believe that the VM would not be able to bring significant number of gun and their over confident in there own counter artillery, most fortifications were not build to withstand artillery or heavy mortar barrage.

Dien Bien Phu was only heavily fortified in the eyes of the French High Command in Hanoi!

December 1953 saw the strengthening of the DBP garrison by the arrival of artillery (24x105mm and 4x155mm) as well heavy mortars, ten M24 Shaffee light tanks from the 1st RCC and six Bearcat fighter bombers.
But by January 1954, DBP came under VM artillery fire and by the end of February the camp
was totally encircled by the VM (49 500 men) .

On the 12th of March the first strong point Gabrielle was wipe out after a massive artillery bombardment followed by a human wave infantry attack. The next day another two strong points felt despite the heroic resistance of it defenders. Reinforcement Parachute battalions started to arrive by the 13th March, they went to the offensive and managed to retake some of their lost positions and hold them despite high lost of life. By the 18th March more strong points had fallen and DBP air strip was under direct fire from communist artillery and landing on the airstrip was abandon. Air drops and parachute reinforcement were also made more and more difficult by the unexpected 37mm Chinese trained Viet Minh Anti-Aircraft regiment and the shrinking drop zone. The VM losses were escalating very rapidly and morale started to suffer, a new approached was needed for them , the formidable artillery barrage and the human wave infantry assault were not sufficient against the French Paras, the Legionnaire and other French troops. A WWI trench warfare type offensive started with massive artillery bombardment while a network of trenches would seal all the various strongpoint, then tunnels would be build under the positions with high explosive charges detonated under, then only the massive infantry assault will start by a night attack from trenches only a few hundred yards away. Despite many brave actions by all DBP defenders, the DBP perimeter was shrinking more every day and its best soldiers were being swallowed in heroic counter attacks.

By late March the torrential monsoon rain arrived making the airdrops and air support even more uncertain. The French position was getting critical, with a shortage of water food, medical supplies ammunitions and fresh elite troops. On the 14th of April, Operation Condor a relief column from Laos started to move supported by GCMA/GMI units, by the 23rd the column was pin down about 19mls away from DBP and unable to receive the promised Para reinforcement from Hanoi, the column had to start assuming a defensive position. By early Mai, reinforcement and supplies was arriving sparely in the ever shrinking DBP perimeter despite the afflux of volunteers right until the day before the final collapse, many non airborne soldiers making their first and last jump over DBP . On the 6th of May the final VM human wave assault started, with the remaining strongpoint falling one after the other, the main position falling on the 7th and Isabelle holding until the morning of the 8th of May with an unsuccessful breakout during the night. It must be noted that Dien Bien Phu never surrender but just stopped fighting (after 170 days), having run out of ammunition, space and strength.

78 men will only escaped out of Dien Bien Phu ( On the 13 March, the garrison was
10 813 men strong, with a reinforcement of 4 277 men dropped until the 6th of May ),
the extremely low number of escapee was due to the French High Command failure in communicating to the DBP garrison that the GCMA*/GMI had infiltrated the area and was waiting to exfiltrate any survivors/escapees.

Some facts and figures:

French

Contrary to some beliefs that the names of the strong points were named after Col De Castries mistresses, this was only done for practical reasons using female names in a alphabetical orderer: Anne-Marie, Béatrice, Claudine, Dominique, Éliane, Françoise, Gabrielle, Huguette, Isabelle, Junon.

The last successful medical evacuation took place on March 26th. A medevac plane landed in March 28th but was damaged and could not take off. A 29 year old Women’s Air Force nurse, Genevieve de Galard was on board and she remained at Dien Bien Phu for the duration of the battle. Her devotion to duty and courage were admired by all and gained her the title of " the Angel of Dien Bien Phu".

Between November 20, 1953 and May 7, 1954
the fortified camp absorbed the equivalent of 17 battalions, i.e. 15,709 men.

Between March 13 and March 27, 326 wounded had been evacuated.

The number of able-bodied men at the end of the battle has been estimated at 5,864.
On May 8 1954 the Viet Minh counted 11,721 prisoners, amongst whom were 4,436 wounded.

The Viet Minh agreed to allow the Red Cross to evacuate 858 of the most seriously wounded between May 14 and May 26, 1954 .

Of the remaining 10,863 prisoners, including 3,578 wounded,
the Viet Minh returned only 3,290 four months later.
The number of men who died in the camps, 7,573, represents a percentage of the order of 70%.

***
Viet Minh

The Vietminh had 33 battalions, 20 x 105 mm guns, 20 x 75 mm guns and a very large number of mortars and recoilless guns, 100 x 12,7 mm antiaircraft machine-guns , 81 x 37mm anti aircraft machine- guns.

In 57 days, the VietMinh fired in excess of 200.000 artillery rounds.

During the battle of DBP, Viet Minh lined up 33 battalions from the 304th, 308th, 312th, 316th and 351st divisions. If you take into account reinforcements and coolies (porters, bicycle transport personnel and trench digging personnel) you can easily rich a figure of over 100,000 men used by Gen. Giap in the battle.

The Viet Minh losses at Dien Bien Phu were never published but can be reasonably estimated to be in excess of 8,000 KIA and 15,000 WIA.

There is no doubt that once more the French High Command had under estimated the Viet Minh capability and resourcefulness, they chose a location practically out of reach of their aviation, they felt to erect a continuous perimeter to seal the base and did not commit enough troops for the size of the position.
In the beginning, their troops felt over confident, did not dig in properly and fortification material was
not committed sufficiently to the fighting base.

Despite the 1161 "Nam Rats" deserters, the DBP defenders fought courageously, virtually with no air support towards the end.
This may have been a defeat at the time but once you start analyzing the battle,
it can be considered as victory for endurance and combativity
not for France but for the Dien Bien Phu defenders.

At 17.00 on the 7th of May 1954, the remains of the Dien Bien Phu garrison
stopped fighting and destroyed all remaining equipments.
After 57 days of intense fighting, they had run out of ammunitions, men and ground, in fact the few remaining bunkers around the central command post were flooded with wounded soldiers.

They never surrender, but just stop shooting!

Worth noting is that Isabelle, one of the bigger strong hold south of DBP will carry on the fight until 01.00 hours on May the 8th.

To give you a couple of examples:

On the 13th of March 1954 after a two hours artillery preparation, two Viet Minh Regiments approx 6000 men attacked the remain of the 9th and the 11th Company of the 3rd battalion, 13th Demi Brigade Légion Etrangère
(approx 500 men, before the artillery bombardment) on two high ground position of Beatrice hill (strong point).
The Viet Minh had to pay very highly for the capture of those strongpoint:

Gabrielle did cost to the 308 and 312 VM division 2540 KIA and 7000 WIA, this position was only defended by one battalion , the 5th of the 7th RTA Régiment de Tirailleur Marocain (877 men at the start of the attack).

***********

Photos of Dien Bien Phu in 2009

These few photos have kindly been sent by Cpt Ed Garr (USMC)

Ed has been organizing Vietnam tours for over 20 years and where ever you want to go in Vietnam, he is the man who will take you there! Get in touch if you are interested into a Special Trip to Vietnam.

DBP, 1 hr flying time from Hanoi.
We land on the old air strip (refurbished). Little by little the town unfortunately is encroaching upon the old battle sites.

Isabelle 2009

De Castries bunker

2009 Beatrice.

Note the crater on the east side of Eliane. On the night before the battle was over the Viet Minh tried to blow up all of Eliane with explosives.

The rainbow was there for the Kodak moment

On top of A-1 Eliane

Mrs Ha my guide in DBP

Re-enactment photos are from the "Soldats D'Indochine" a French group which I met and befriended at the War and Peace Military Vehicle show at Beltring 2002 . They are extremely accurate and professional and it is a pleasure to count them as my friends. Their 2005 Beltring Living History display was on Dien Bien Phu and they did a photo shoot with Stuart Gould, one of the British Top Photographer, if you want to see more use the link above.

THE LAST VALLEY

Dien Bien Phu and the French Defeat in Vietnam

In December 1953 the French army occupying Vietnam, challenged the elusive Viet- Minh army to engage in a decisive battle. When French paratroopers landed in the jungle on the border between Vietnam and Laos, the Viet-Minh quickly isolated the French force and besieged it in a small place called Dien Bien Phu. The hunters -- the French army -- had become the hunted, desperately defending their outgunned base. As defeat loomed for the French, they appealed to the United States for help. The vice-president at the time, Richard Nixon, and Air Force general Curtis Le May soon devised a plan to drop atomic weapons on Vietnamese supply dumps -- an ill-considered strategy blocked by President Dwight Eisenhower. And so the siege in the jungle wore on, its scope and ferocity calling to mind the siege of Stalingrad during World War II. Eventually, the French were depleted, demoralized, and destroyed. As they withdrew, the country of Vietnam was ominously divided at U.S. insistence, creating the short-lived Republic of South Vietnam, for which 55,000 Americans would die in the next twenty years. Dien Bien Phu was a pivotal battle of the last century -- the first defeat of modern Western forces by an Asian guerrilla army. Its political consequences reverberate to this day. "The Last Valley" is destined to be the classic account of the battle for generations to come. It is, to quote Richard Holmes, the author of "The Western Front", "an epic book about an epic battle.. nothing less than a landmark in military history."~ Numerous references to the French Foreign Legion which had several units engaged and played a prominent role in the fighting.

Martin C. Windrow is a British historian, editor and author of several hundred books, articles on military history, his specialist subject his the French Foreign Legion and the French involvement in Indochina and Algeria. The Last Valley is a non-biased book presenting the facts as they are
and is a must read for any body interested in the Indochina/Vietnamese conflicts.

Page has been written by J-L Delauve (Gia Vuc webmaster) after reading the following books.

Reference Materials:
Uniforms of the Indo-China War and Vietnam War,Leroy Tomphson; Les 170 Jours de Dien Bien Phu, Erwan Bergot;
French Foreign Legion Paratroops and The French Indochina War 1946-54 Martin Windrow;
Une Guerre sans Fin, Indochine 1945-54, Pierre Ferrari et Jaques M.Vernet;
The Last Valley, Martin windrow; Commando et Forces Speciales en Indochine, Raymond Muelle;
Services Speciaux, GCMA-Iindochine, Raymond Muelle - Eric Deroo;
Jungle Mission, R Riesen; Le Silence du Ciel, R Riesen; Les Heros Oublies, Erwan Bergo.