During the last months of the First Indochina War in 1954, French General Henri Navarre
believed that he could get rid of the Viet Minh Communist guerrilla if he concentrated
his forces at the valley of Dien Bien Phu, an isolated location deep into enemy territory.
Navarre believed that strict French training and artillery superiority
would be more than enough to destroy the enemy, but he was quickly proven wrong.
When the Viet Minh finally attacked, Navarre was surprised by the 50,000-strong army
and countless artillery pieces that his counterpart, General Võ Nguyên Giap, was able
to put together and transport through the jungle. Navarre had cornered himself into a zone where
retreat was impossible, so it would either be France’s defining victory, or the beginning of
the end of French Indochina… French Colonialism
After World War 2 ended, France was not willing to recognize the independence of Vietnam
and its colonial territories across the globe. Once a former French colony, Vietnam fell
under the cruel grip of the Japanese Imperial Army during the early days of the war. Then,
when the Japanese withdrew in 1945, the Viet Minh's guerrilla forces sought independence,
but France was reluctant to let go of Indochina and its colonial possessions.
The French efforts to retake the colony resulted in the First Indochina War
or the Anti-French War, as it is known in Vietnam.
In 1946, the conflict escalated between the Viet Minh guerrilla led by Ho Chi Minh
and the French forces, with the Vietnamese countryside consumed by violence, hatred,
and power struggles for the following years. By 1953, the French and their allies had
suffered over 75,000 casualties, with some 40,000 prisoners of war and 60,000 wounded.
Meanwhile, Viet Minh losses exceeded 200,000 men, but their morale was high as they kept fighting
to the bitter end, committed to achieving true independence from the Western power.
By that point, the Communist followers of Ho Chi Minh had overrun Laos and advanced
as far as Luang Prabang and the Plain of Jars. Supported by the USSR and China,
they had enough firepower to fight off the French armored vehicles and tanks,
and their tenacious guerrilla tactics made them unstoppable.
The situation was dire for the French, and even if their army had begun strengthening
its defenses at the Hanoi delta region to repel a series of imminent offensives by the Communists,
the French commanders knew it was not enough.
The Germans of the Legion To fill out the ranks of
their costly losses throughout the years, the French resorted to the former German soldiers
of the Wehrmacht and the elite Waffen-SS. Thousands of Teutons found their towns and
cities destroyed upon returning from captivity when World War II ended, and many lost their way.
The relentless Allied bombing raids had taken most of their loved ones,
and many of them were banned from joining the military and government agencies. Meanwhile, other
veterans from the Western and Eastern Fronts were sent to denazification camps to reeducate them.
Under these painful conditions, the French Foreign Legion offered them a way out of their misery,
including instant pardon if they joined the Legion.
They were also promised good pay, food, and, most importantly,
a clean record after their service. For plenty of Germans, this meant the possibility of a new life.
Under the motto “Legio Patria Nostra,” over 35,000 Germans
would join the Legion during the war that ravaged Vietnam,
making up half of the units and bearing most of the fighting against the Viet Minh guerrilla.
When the decision was made to drop paratroopers over the Dien Bien Phu valley in late 1953,
the veteran Fallschirmjägers were the first to jump deep into hostile territory
to secure a fortified base. Surrounded and Outnumbered
Dien Bien Phu was a sizable heart-shaped valley located in the northwestern portion of Vietnam,
close to the border with Laos. The region was deep inside enemy territory.
The decision to seize the valley to draw enemy forces and get rid of them once and for all
came from the experiences at the Battle of Na San. This French outpost was mainly supplied by air,
and the Viet Minh guerrilla was repeatedly pushed back while the Frenchmen were resupplied
by aircraft. However, there were some key differences. At Na San, the French had
control of the high ground, while at Dien Bien Phu, the Communists would have it. And if the
French failed to keep air superiority or secure the airdrops under heavy enemy anti-aircraft fire,
there was no other way they could receive supplies or reinforcements.
Despite the protests of many French officers, who believed that the concept of an airbase would not
work out at Dien Bien Phu, General Henri Navarre decided to carry on with the operation and began
parachuting his men into the area to fortify it. Navarre believed that by throwing the bulk of his
forces into Viet Minh territory, he would draw them out and finish them for good.
The General based his assumptions on the superiority of French training and military
technology, as they had tanks, artillery, and plenty of air support that could easily
decimate the Viet Minh. However, he would soon learn that he had underestimated his enemy.
The first 9,000 French paratroopers jumped over the valley between November 20 and 22 of 1953,
becoming the largest airborne operation since Market Garden during World War 2.
As the soldiers and Foreign Legion members began securing the valley
and repairing an old Japanese airstrip, the Viet Minh slowly concentrated in the nearby hills.
General Vo Nguyen Giap slowly but steadily ordered his troops to deploy all the artillery
and anti-aircraft guns they could muster, as he knew that if he managed to prevent French
helicopters and other aircraft from resupplying the base, victory would be his sooner or later.
Then, between November 23 and December 15,
the French conducted Operation Pollux to clear the sector and link up with scattered French units.
During these ambushes and search-and-rescue patrols, over 28 legionnaires lost their
lives against the guerrilla. For the following weeks,
the French dropped additional units, including Tai auxiliaries, and made use of American M24
Chaffee tanks and trucks armed with machine guns to continue pushing back the Communists.
By early January of 1954, over 15,000 French soldiers were stretched thin in a large perimeter.
But despite conducting several reconnaissance missions,
the French were unaware that General Giap had completely encircled them with over
50,000 freedom fighters. His forces comprised three infantry and one artillery divisions,
with thousands of logistic personnel used to supply the men.
Giap would then allow the French to conduct some incursions to fool them into thinking
that he had taken the bait and would fight the French in an open, massed attack.
For weeks, scattered firefights broke out between the two armies, testing each other every step of
the way while the French transformed Dien Bien Phu into a fortress divided into three sectors:
the Northern, Central, and Southern portions. Additionally, other independent defensive
positions were set up to provide fortified strongpoints. And in February, the Viet Minh
began to shell the French positions at regular intervals to test the defenses.
Then, on March 13, under cover of a dark, clear sky,
Giap ordered his artillery batteries to unleash a real hell on the French positions.
The Battle As the Viet Minh forces
charged against their enemy, Navarre realized that he had committed a mistake when he ignored
the nearby hills that surrounded the valley. The Communist artillery then decimated the
French perimeter and the first lines of defense
as the Viet Minh launched attacks across the entire valley with ruthless determination.
On March 14, the airstrip that the French had built at Dien Bien Phu was disabled,
and the Vietnamese infantry assaults tore through their positions. The French were
unable to suppress the Communist artillery positions, as there were too many of them.
The Viet Minh put their numerical superiority to good use for the following weeks
as they slowly but steadily overran French positions using World War 1 tactics.
First, they began digging closer to French positions,
pummeling the area with artillery strikes and then isolating the garrisons one after another.
Hand-to-hand combat followed, and it proved brutal.
Beatrice, the easternmost French position held by the Legionnaires,
was isolated and shelled without interruption prior to being attacked by the Viet Minh.
Also, a mortar struck the headquarters where Lieutenant Colonel Jules Gaucher was
organizing his men by radio. He was fatally wounded and passed away later in the day,
with the position completely overrun by the following morning.
The Viet Minh then launched another overwhelming attack against the Gabrielle position
in the northernmost sector. This location was held by Algerian troops who fought fiercely
but were eventually overtaken by the Vietnamese. The French then tried to counterattack with the
support of several M24 tanks but failed to neutralize the advancing guerrilla forces.
Amidst the chaos, several French artillery positions were unable to
locate the enemy artillery and failed to push them back, leading to the fall
of more fortified fronts as the days passed. By March 30, the airstrip had been entirely
destroyed, and the French Air Force could only drop supplies by parachute. Even worse,
the wounded could no longer be evacuated, and the casualties continued to mount up.
Meanwhile, the Viet Minh anti-aircraft guns damaged or shot down any aircraft
attempting to approach the base to drop paratroopers and supplies. Still, a few
German Foreign Legion paratroopers did manage to land on the base and bring much-needed support.
Despite the deteriorating conditions, the French forces kept fighting,
including the Foreign Legion. Both sides were losing many men, but especially the
Viet Minh. Still, General Giap managed to get reinforcements from Laos and kept going.
The General eventually launched a second offensive aimed at crippling the French
from the Northwest and the East, leading to the Battle of Five Hills where the Communists
disputed the conquest of five French strongpoints. By the first week of May, only one French outpost
was still standing, and as hand-to-hand combat got more personal, the French finally capitulated.
Aftermath
French army nurse Geneviève de Galard treated the mounting numbers of French casualties with
admirable diligence from the beginning of the siege and was celebrated as the angel
of Dien Bien Phu. Still, she was not the only woman to save the lives of hundreds of men.
Journalist Bernard Fall, who was part of the battle’s onslaught, noticed that Vietnamese
and Algerian women from two French army’s mobile field brothels also took care of
the injured men coming out of the battlefield, turning into auxiliary nurses and attending to
the mortally wounded soldiers. Some of them would lose their lives by artillery strikes
while being the first to bring aid to the men. Despite the heroic resistance of the French
soldiers and the members of the French Foreign Legion, the men ultimately surrendered on May 8.
During the last hours of combat, some 6,000 troops, including the ex-German soldiers, African,
and Vietnamese auxiliaries, surrendered against an overwhelming force of 50,000 Viet Minh soldiers.
After 56 days of intense combat, the Battle of Dien Bien Phu was finally over,
and about 12,000 French forces were captured. Half of them were wounded,
and most would not survive captivity, for only 3,300 returned home when the war ended.
Also, over 150 French and allied aircraft would be damaged and 60 destroyed.
The Geneva Conference peace talks between France and Ho Chi Minh soon followed,
and the result of the ongoing negotiations was the partition of Vietnam into two zones.
The North would be controlled by the communist Democratic Republic of Vietnam,
while the Southern government would be supported by France and the United States.
This agreement did not stop the bloodshed, as the Communists
eventually decided to invade the South with the support of the USSR and China.
Then, in the 1990s, German veterans from the Foreign Legion
returned to Vietnam to build a memorial for their fallen comrades at Dien Bien Phu.
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