Virginia Review of Asian Studies

THE SIGNIFICANCE OF DIEN BIEN PHU AND THE END OF THE

FIRST INDOCHINA WAR, 1953-1954

WILLIAM HEAD
WR-ALC OFFICE OF HISTORY
ROBBINS AFB

Introduction

Following the official surrender of Japan on September 2, 1945, the Allied powers began
occupying the war torn nations of Asia and the Pacific Rim. Among these countries were those
in Indochina. In Vietnam as Japanese occupiers stepped aside, southern portions of the state
were occupied first by the British and within a few months, by troops of the new French Fourth
Republic (1946-1959). It seemed natural since Free French forces had supported the British and
Americans in World War II (WWII) and Indochina had been a French colony since the 1880s.

However, no one had asked the indigenous forces of charismatic leader Ho Chi Minh.
Thousands of Viet Minh troops, led by General Vo Nguyen Giap, had spent the previous four
years fighting a bloody insurgency war with the Japanese. What is more they had been winning
the conflict in spite of receiving precious little materiel support from the Allies, short of what
was conjured up by a handful of Organization of Strategic Services (OSS) agents. Initially, Ho
believed that since some Americans had helped him, that all the Allies might be supportive of an
independent Vietnam. Soon after the Japanese surrender, Ho and his followers, who controlled
northern Vietnam, held an Independence Day celebration. Not yet having a national flag, they
decided to raise a U.S. flag which one of the OSS agents had. This was the high point of
Vietnamese-Western cooperation.1

During WWII, this alliance had been fervent and sincere. In hindsight larger geopolitical
considerations would render it short-lived. But, for that one brief moment U.S. agents and the
Viet Minh shared a common righteousness and a common enemy. Ho’s mix of nationalism and
Marxism appeared the best way to defeat the Japanese and Vichy French fascists. Inside
Franklin D. Roosevelt’s White House advisers embraced the President’s enthusiasm for bringing
an end to colonialism. This was particularly true in Indochina where the French colonial
government, allied with Vichy, had turned Indochina over to the Japanese who plundered the
regions resources for their war machine, and slaughtered the native peoples by the thousands.
One OSS agent described French colonialism in Vietnam as “semi-slavery of the plantation
coolies.” In China, the U.S. General Albert Wedemeyer, liaison to Chiang Kai-shek, told Lord
Louis Mountbatten, then the head of the South East Asia Command, that “there would not be a
British Empire after the war.”2

To quote Benjamin Wallace-Wells’ review essay of Ted Morgan’s book on Dien Bien
Phu, entitled Valley of Death: “In Vietnam, Roosevelt issued a blanket prohibition on Americans
working with the French, and, in the fall of 1945, the members of Deer Team marched on Hanoi
with Ho, trudging through muddy deltas, picking green leeches off their skin, fighting alongside

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him in skirmishes. Ho arrived in Hanoi triumphant. However, by the end of the war, Roosevelt
was dead and things had changed.”3

Geopolitical realities were in play that led to the Cold War. Not only were European
powers like France and Great Britain not in the habit of treating with native rebels, the French
had been opposed to Ho long before the war began. His communist tendencies engendered
suspicion in the pre-War French government and now the new French regime. While FDR had
made it clear both in his words and deeds that he supported self-determination for all colonial
peoples as soon as possible, his death on April 12, 1945, left his successor Harry S. Truman in no
position to influence either France or Britain when it came to colonial policies. Besides, Truman
and most U.S. leaders and citizens were increasingly concerned at the prospects of communism
spreading across Asia. To the new president France was a buffer that would prevent the
communist Viet Minh from taking over. The end result was an eight year war between the Viet
Minh and the French that culminated in the French defeat at Dien Bien Phu.4

How Did We Get To This Point?

What became known as the first Indochina War began on December 19, 1946 and lasted
until August 1, 1954. Following the surrender of Japan, France re-established her control over
her colony of Indochina which included the states of Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam. Having
exercised hegemony over this region since the 1880s, the new French Union sent the French Far
East Expeditionary Corps to Vietnam beginning in late 1945 to support the recognized
government of Emperor Bao Dai and what eventually became the Vietnamese National Army.
Ostensibly a democratic and independent regime, they were opposed by Ho’s Viet Minh.5

Initially, the Viet Minh attempted to deal with France diplomatically but they soon
discovered they had no friends in the West. With a peaceful arrangement out of reach, Ho opted
for an armed resistance. It seemed that the French, supplied by the West, had every advantage
but it soon became clear that anti-French forces were not to be taken lightly. During WWII Ho’s
forces had received a limited supply of weapons and provisions from the U.S., through the OSS.
After the war the Viet Minh confiscated as many Japanese weapons and stores as possible and
began receiving aid from the Soviet Union and, later, the People’s Republic of China.

Following the classic communist insurgency model used so successfully, first by Leon
Trotsky, and then by Mao Tse-tung, the early years of the rebellion featured low-intensity rural
insurgency against French authority. To a large extent, the Viet Minh concentrated on capturing
the hearts and minds of the common Vietnamese farmers and workers and isolating the larger
cities held by the French. By late 1949, Mao and the Communist Chinese had taken control of
China. With their forces on the northern border of Vietnam, the Chinese and Soviets had a free
path to supply their communist brethren with enough weaponry to allow them to initiate the next
phase of people’s war; a conventional war. Over the next five years the first Indochina War
evolved into a series of set piece battles between two armies equipped with modern weapons
mostly supplied by the United States and the Soviet Union.

As has been the case in so many revolutionary conflicts, Ho knew all too well that the
key strategic aim had to be to wear down the will of the French, especially at home. By 1950,

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the war had become very unpopular in France and most of the students, left wing politicians and
intellectuals in France such as Jean Paul Sartre came to call it the “dirty little war.” What was
dirty was the government’s effort to keep the conflict out of the headlines by refusing to send
recruits from France itself. The French Union force of 175,000 was mainly comprised of
colonial troops from their disintegrating empire. This included recruits from Morocco, Algeria,
Tunisia, Laos, Cambodia, Vietnam, and Vietnamese ethnic minorities. At the core of this motley
group were French professional troops and units of the French Foreign Legion. The officer corps
was generally from the French standing army, most of whom had had experience in WWII.6

By the 1950s, a series of French expeditionary forces commanders in Indochina had been
hamstrung by a lack of clear strategic objectives. French political leaders at home, faced by
growing opposition to the war were no longer focused on winning the war but rather stabilizing
the region to bring about a face-saving negotiated settlement. The only clear directives leaders in
Indochina received was to guarantee the safety of their troops. Worse yet, the war had expanded
into neighboring Laos and the main French operational goals had morphed into an effort to
protect Laos from increasing attacks by the Viet Minh.

Eventually, the French military in Indochina developed tactics they hoped would force
the Vietnamese to attack fortified French positions and exhaust their forces and bring them to the
negotiating tables. The primary place the French tested this tactic was at Dien Bien Phu.
Leadership was convinced if they could draw the Viet Minh out into a set piece battle that the
French might deal them a decisive blow that would allow them to withdraw with their dignity
intact. It was a flawed policy the U.S. would attempt again a decade and a half later.7

The Path to Disaster

During these eight long years, the French were slowly bled dry by several small disasters,
a few larger ones and precious few successes. In the fall of 1950, French suffered 7,000
casualties and lost more than 3,000 tons of supplies and weapons in a conventional engagement
with the Viet Minh in the Battle of Cao-Bac Lang. The situation became so dire that the local
French commander, General Marcel Carpentier, opted to remove all French personnel from Hoa
Binh, the capital of the Laotian Hmong region.8

Soon, Carpentier was replaced by Jean Joseph Marie Gabriel de Lattre de Tassigny who
initiated an offensive to retake Hoa Binh. De Lattre was a French folk hero from WWII which
included signing the German surrender for France on May 8, 1945. He rose quickly in the post-
War French military and in late 1950 he became French High Commissioner in Indochina and
Commander-in-Chief, Far East. To him Hoa Binh was vital to French success since its capture
would cut the enemy's supply lines between Thanh Hoa and Viet Bac. He also believed that a
victory would guarantee support from the Hmong who had remained neutral to this point but
were leaning toward the French.
De Lattre’s reputation and pro-active style soon bolstered not only the morale of his
troops but those leaders in France still supporting the war. His presence alone made everyone on
the French side dare to believe they could still win. Still, his forces continued to be outnumbered
and increasingly dependent on resupply from outside sources such as the U.S. Employing the
enemy’s own tactics he worked continuously to win the hearts and minds of the Vietnamese

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population by establishing special support programs to convince the locals not to join the
communists. He also developed an operational concept that he described as an “Offensive
Defense;” the combination of mobile, counterinsurgency, trench, and several forms of
unconventional warfare that began to take the tempo of the war away from the Viet Minh.

However, things fell apart even as they seemed to be succeeding. On May 30, 1951, de
Lattre’s only son, Bernard, was killed and a few months later the grief stricken General began to
suffer from chronic fatigue that in the October was diagnosed as cancer. Struggling to continue
the fight, in November 1951, he mobilized ten infantry and eight airborne battalions for a
decisive attack on enemy forces in Hoa Binh. He was confronted by three regular divisions, two
independent regiments and local guerrilla units. At the height of this death struggle, even though
Giap had 40 battalions in the field, the French were winning. In December, de Lattre returned to
France for cancer treatment. He was supposed to be temporarily replaced by Gen. Raoul Salan
but he never returned. He died on January 11, 1952. He was buried with his marshal’s baton in
a tomb alongside his son’s at Vendee. Their epitaph read “Died for France.”9

With de Lattre gone, Salan, a timid old colonialist who would later be involved in the
Algerian disaster, ended the offensive. By February 22, he had withdrawn his forces and
regrouped in Xuan Mai. In looking back, this action was the beginning of the end. With a
stronghold established in Hoa Binh, Giap launched an attack against Nghia Lo in the T’ai region.
While the Viet Minh had failed to take the area a year earlier, this time, employing four
divisions, they not only seized Nghia Lo but also parts of Son La and Lai Chau in only ten days.
Again, Salan decided not to counter attack opting to initiate a diversionary strike designed to
give him time to build a strong defensive position in Na San.10

Na San and the “Hedgehog”

Salan built the firebase at Na San because it was located on provincial highway 41 in a
narrow valley surrounded by 24 hills, each of which was a perfect natural defense. Early in
October 1952, the French had an outpost and a small air field at a key spot on this road. A single
company of troops guarded the site. It was resupplied by U.S.-built C-47 “Sky Trains/Dakotas”
stationed at French Air Force (FAF) headquarters in Hanoi. As the construction of the strong
point continued, Salan began sending in material to complete the fortification and finally, troops
to man it. Located directly in the midst of several Viet Minh divisions, the object of its creation
was to lure the enemy into a set piece battle and dash their forces on the French fortifications.

The temptation proved too enticing and Giap committed most of his forces. This soon
became the center piece of a new tactic developed by French battlefield commander, Colonel
Jean Gilles. He called it le herisson or “the hedgehog” after a little spiny creature that hunkers
down in a ball with his vital parts covered when attacked allowing the thorny quills on his back
to impale themselves in his attacker’s face. Once the enemy has suffered enough they usually
leave the “hedgehog” alone.

This tactic was perfectly named since it was defensive in nature and consisted of an
outpost (the vitals) surrounded by several heavily armed positions called Point d'appui or P.A.
These inter-connected P.A.s acted like the quills on the back of a “hedgehog.” Gilles anticipated
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that the site would provoke an enemy frontal assault that would allow him to funnel them into
killing zones. Instead of going into the jungle to hunt the enemy who used hit-and-run ambushes
against the French, this tactic forced the Viet Minh to come to the French.

At Na-San “the hedgehog” consisted of 30 P.A.s with a complex trench system and
concrete pill boxes all surrounded by barbed wire. Its defense forces consisted of 15,000 men
and six artillery batteries. The French also had air cover from U.S.-made, World War II vintage
FAF Douglas B-26 medium attack bombers. Giap had three divisions and three independent
regiments on hand for a total of 38,000 to 45,000 men.11

After much preparation by both sides, the battle began on November 23, 1952, around
8:00 p.m. with two unsuccessful attacks by the Viet Minh against P.A. 8. During the following
six days, the Viet Minh repeated similar assaults each night probing for weak points in the
French defenses. At 8:00 p.m. on the night of November 30, Giap sent nine battalions against
P.A. 22 and 24, east and west respectively of the main headquarters. After nine hours of
repeated attacks the 2nd T’ai battalion collapsed. Only one squad of the 225 defenders escaped
back to the French lines. The 300 defenders at P.A. 24 held out for three hours before
surrendering. At dawn, the next morning, Gilles ordered a counter attack preceded by a
devastating artillery barrage. Sometime just after noon, both positions were recaptured.

That afternoon, Giap launched his main attack. Waves of soldiers attacked all the P.A.s.
Especially hard hit were P.A.s 21 and 26. Most of the time, the French were outnumbered by
three, four or five to one. Well after dark, the assault stopped with the ground around Na San
strewn with the dead and dying. The French soon realized they had won. They had halted the
irresistible force. Skirmishes continued over the next two days. Finally, in the evening mist and
drizzle of December 4, Giap began to withdraw. In a scene eerily similar to Robert E. Lee’s
retreat from Gettysburg, Giap pulled back leaving 6,000-8,000 dead and 2,000-3,000 wounded
too critical to move. French Union forces lost the equivalent of two battalions.12

It had been a spectacular French victory. Some called it a miracle. However, it was a
victory without substance since the French government was seeking a diplomatic end to the war
and all this did was provide hope that the Viet Minh might now join peace negotiations. They
did not, at least not yet. In August, Gilles abandoned the camp to the Viet Minh much as the
U.S. would do with Khe Sanh more than 15 years later. Fortunately for the French, Gilles again
out foxed Giap and escaped without a single casualty.

Na San became a mixed blessing. On the one hand they had won a victory, but it
convinced French leaders that “the hedgehog” tactic was something to be copied in every
situation. At Na San they had lured the Viet Minh into attacking a well defended firebase in a
remote part of the country. However, they had not realized that not every battle would be the
same and that there was an increasing lack of construction materials, especially concrete, a lack
of tanks, in large part due to the paucity of access roads and thick the jungle terrain, as well as a
growing need for air cover to support defensive positions.

By the fall of 1953, in spite of individual successes, the war was not going well for the
French Union. They had suffered through a series of leaders in Indochina who were either

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completely ill equipped for such a war or, in the case of de Lattre, died before they could fulfill
their plan. Philippe Leclerc de Hauteclocque, Jean-Etienne Valluy, Rogert Blaizot, Marcel
Carpentier, Jean de Latree de Tassigny, and Raoul Salan had failed to suppress the Viet Minh
and worse by 1953 the communist had gained control over large portions of Laos.13

With these circumstances facing French Premier Rene Mayer, on May 3, 1953, he
appointed his close friend and trusted colleague Henri Navarre to command French Union forces
in Indochina. His only directive to Navarre was to establish military conditions that would lead
to an “honorable political solution.” Navarre was a bright and energetic officer who took on the
job with great enthusiasm and determination. He seemed so confident that everyone assumed he
might very well rescue the situation. When he arrived he was shocked to find a completely
disorganized situation. Salan had abandoned the long-range plan created by de Lattre and nearly
every political and military action was conducted day-to-day on a reactive basis. There was no
plan to develop the organization and build up the equipment the expeditionary force needed.

Navarre, the cool calculating intellectual, the consummate professional soldier, was
appalled by the cavalier and lackadaisical attitude demonstrated by Salan and his senior staff
officers. They did not appear to care they were losing since they were alive and going home.
While they may not have won anything they had not lost and it would be up to their replacements
to either find a miracle or face the ignominy of defeat. They were departing with their
reputations tattered, but intact. Still, the victory at Na San seemed to provide the components for
the desired miracle. Ultimately it would prove to be an apparition.14

Dien Bien Phu: The Final Act in the Lost Cause

The next act in this tragedy came in Dien Bein Phu, a small town located in a remote,
forest-covered area in northwestern Vietnam. It sat in a bowl-shaped valley that had a flat base.
Here the French upgraded the airfield that had been an old WWII Japanese landing strip. In
addition to the airfield the site was surrounded by easily defendable hills of which Navarre
would fortify eight. Focusing his plan on the successes of Na San, Navarre created a tactical
plan calling for his main forces to parachute into the valley, fortify the air field, and build
defensive positions on eight of the surrounding hills. He initiated Operation “Castor” on
November 20, 1953, by dropping in 9,000 troops. By early 1954, French troops totaled 13,000,
supported by artillery and light tanks.15

Following the defeat at Na San, Giap and the Viet Minh had spent their time
reconstituting their forces and adapting their tactical responses, specifically to the “hedgehog”
tactics. While the French had no real strategic objectives, the Viet Minh had clear and
unswerving strategic goals which aimed at winning a decisive military victory that would erode
French popular support and force a negotiated peace on Ho’s terms. Time was on their side and
Giap knew it. While he continued to seek a set piece battle, he decided to wait until
circumstances were right for his forces to inflict a major defeat on the French. As 1953 came to
an end, Giap’s main objectives were to mass his forces, obtain superior artillery support and
solidify both his communications and supply lines. When Navarre sent his troops into Dien Bien
Phu, it seemed to Giap that it was time to act.16

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Navarre and his main tactical planner, Col. Louis Berteil, fleshed out their le herisson
tactics and supplemented them with what they called a fortified airhead (air field) position. The
ultimate goal was to cut off Viet Minh soldiers fighting in Laos and force them to withdraw.
According Bernard Fall: “It was an attempt to interdict the enemy’s rear area, to stop the flow of
supplies and reinforcements, to establish a redoubt in the enemy’s rear, and disrupt his lines.”17

The French were convinced that by once again creating a “hedgehog” strong point and
keeping it resupplied using the central airstrip they would replicate the “hedgehog” tactics on a
larger scale, lure Giap into committing the greater part of his forces in a massed assault that
would be cut to pieces by “superior” French artillery, armor, and air support. In this regard the
French became the captive of their own success. At the time, it seemed like a slam dunk! 18

Navarre and his staff failed to examine the reasons for the victory at Na San. There were
several crucial differences between the two sites. At Na San, French troops commanded most of
the high ground with overpowering artillery support. At Dien Bien Phu French planners
allowed the enemy to control a sizeable portion of the high ground around the valley. French
intelligence failed to determine that the Viet Minh artillery was much better than they believed
and outnumbered the French four to one. Giap had learned from his previous mistakes of rashly
making frontal assaults before being fully prepared. Before the protracted struggle for Dien Bien
Phu, he spent weeks methodically accumulating ordnance and placing his heavy artillery and
anti-aircraft guns before making his main attacks.19

Before and during the actual combat, groups of Viet Minh operatives infiltrated the
French camp gathering vital information on the disposition of the French forces, especially its
artillery. Giap ordered the construction of wooden decoy artillery pieces, rotating these with his
real guns to confuse the French response fire. Not surprisingly when the primary battle began,
the Viet Minh knew exactly where the French artillery was located, while the French had no idea
how many guns Giap had. Lastly, at Na San aerial supply was constant and sufficient to keep the
defenders supplied with everything from food and medicine to ammunition and troop
replacements. At Dien Bien Phu, the Viet Minh anti-aircraft batteries almost immediately made
it extremely costly for the French to bring in supplies and reinforcements.20

When Navarre unveiled the operational plan, none of his subordinates supported it.
Those most vehemently opposed were Colonel Jean-Louis Nicot, commander of the French Air
transport fleet, Division commander General Rene Cogny, General Jean Gilles ground
commander of what became known as Operation “Castor,” and General Jean Dechaux air
commander for the operation and the initial airborne assault on Dien Bien Phu. Cogny
accurately declared “we are running the risk of a new Na San under worse conditions.” Navarre
rejected the criticism and began operations on November 20, 1953.21

Navarre acted not so much against the wishes of his subordinates, but rather because of
his confidence in his intelligence personnel who assured him that the operation had little risk of
confronting a strong enemy force. He had considered using a more mobile approach to defend
Laos which he and his staff believed was impractical due to the daunting terrain. They had
examined building a defensive line across Vietnam into to Laos. They rejected this because they
did not have enough men. Lastly, they considered putting large numbers of troops in the Laotian

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provincial capitals and supplying them by air. They ruled this out due to the distance from Hanoi
and Vientiane. With the enemy present and his orders to engage them clear, Navarre was left
with no real option but to initiate “hedgehog” at Dien Bien Phu. In retrospect, had the location
been better, maybe it would have worked or maybe it was as Navarre himself suggested just “a
mediocre solution.” In a cruel irony, on December 4, Navarre received the French National
Defense Committee’s November 13th decision to absolve him of the responsibility to defend
Laos. By then, Operation “Castor” had been underway for two weeks.22

Building Airhead

The operations at Dien Bien Phu officially began at 10:35 a.m. on November 20th, when
9,000 French paratroopers began landings at three drop zones. Over the next three days, they
landed at Natasha, northwest of Dien Bien Phu, Octavie, southwest of Dien Bien Phu and
Simone, southeast of Dien Bien Phu. The Viet Minh’s elite 148th Independent Infantry
Regiment was stationed at Dien Bien Phu and while they acted quickly, they were significantly
undermanned and were soon forced to withdraw. By November 30, six French paratroop
battalions were consolidating their positions.23

While Giap did not know exactly when or where the French might attack, he was not
caught by surprise and, thus, on November 24th, ordered the 148th Infantry Regiment and the
316th division to attack Lai Chau, while the 308th, 312th, and 351st divisions assaulted Dien
Bien Phu. The plan worked and beginning in early December, the French commander, Colonel
Christian de Castries, pulled his forces in to an anchor point and began building a fortress with
the eight key firebase positions and a headquarters. According to some French veterans each
was named after one of the Colonel’s mistresses. While this was never confirmed, each name
did begin with eight letters at the beginning of the alphabet.

The fortified headquarters was centrally located. “Anne-Marie” was located to the
northwest, “Beatrice” to the northeast, “Claudine” to the south, “Dominique” to the northeast,
“Eliane” to the southwest, “Gabrielle” to the north, “Huguette” to the west, and “Isabelle” four
miles to the south, covering the reserve airstrip. Navarre handpicked de Castries, who was a
cavalryman with skills more suited for the 18th century rather than 1954. Navarre did so
because he saw Dien Bien Phu as mainly a mobile set piece battle. Instead, Giap’s initial moves
changed all that. The arrival of the 316th Viet Minh division caused Cogny to order the
evacuation of the Lai Chau garrison to Dien Bien Phu, exactly as Giap had anticipated. All
along the way, these 2,100 French troopers were assaulted by Viet Minh waiting in ambush.
From the time they left, on December 9th until the time the survivors arrived at Dien Bien Phu
on December 22nd, only 185 were left. The remainder had been killed, captured or deserted.
With this disaster complete, the French now began the process of digging in for the siege they
knew would come. The Viet Minh slowly, but surely converged on Dien Bien Phu. At this
point, what the French needed was someone proficient in WWI trench warfare. Instead, they had
de Castries who behaved more like the three musketeers than a clear headed commander.24

At the end of February 1954, the French had committed 16,000 men, to the defense of a
valley fortification highly susceptible to monsoons and encircled by dense jungles much of
which were in the hands of the enemy. They did have plenty of artillery pieces and ten U.S. M-

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24 “Chaffee” light tanks with adequate rounds to withstand Viet Minh attacks such as they
experienced at Na San. They also were supported by a large number of aircraft; some cargo
transport planes for resupply and some attack aircraft to strafe enemy ground forces. The French
garrison was comprised of regular troops, most notably elite paratroop units, Foreign
Legionnaires, Algerian and Moroccan tirailleurs, and loyal native Indochinese infantry.

Giap had concentrated 50,000 regular troops in the hills surrounding what became known
as the “the valley of death.” Among his five divisions was the 351st Heavy Division comprised
completely of heavy artillery. Giap’s 200 artillery and anti-aircraft guns outnumbered the French
artillery’s 50. Placed in camouflaged positions overlooking the valley, they were nearly
impossible for French artillery spotters or aircraft to find, much less destroy. The placing of that
many guns was something the French had not anticipated, especially considering the austere
nature of the region’s terrain. On January 31, 1954, the French positions came under sporadic
Viet Minh artillery fire and French patrols encountered the Viet Minh in all directions. Early in
February, the French were all but surrounded with the Viet Minh forces blocking the main roads
north and east of Dien Bien Phu. During this early stage of the battle, Giap launched
diversionary attacks to prevent the introduction of French reinforcements. De Castries soon
discovered that the Viet Minh were much more mobile than expected and they had a clear line of
sight on the French fortifications allowing them to accurately rain down destruction upon them.25

Now It Begins!

The protracted artillery actions of February were only a prelude. As the shells fell on the
French positions, Viet Minh engineers dug dozens of miles of trenches around the northern
French strong points of Beatrice, Gabrielle, and Anne-Marie. The French defenders knew what
was coming but they had little notion of how massive the attacks would be. At 6:15 p.m. on
March 13, 1954, the first assaults began against Firebase Beatrice. The initial phase commenced
with an enormous artillery barrage that engulfed the main command post. One shell hit the
building where Legionnaire commander Major Paul Pegot was working, killing him and his
entire staff. Literally, within minutes, another round killed Colonel Jules Gaucher, commander
of the entire northern sector. Nearly all radio communications ceased in an out of Beatrice. The
Viet Minh also shelled the airfield, essentially cutting off the entire area from reinforcements.26

As soon as the fire began to die down, Giap sent the Viet Minh 312th division on a
massive infantry assault, employing sappers to demolish French obstacles. French resistance at
Beatrice collapsed shortly after midnight leaving nearly 500 French Legionnaires and 600 Viet
Minh dead. The next morning, French troops regrouped and counter-attacked. They were
eventually repulsed with both sides suffering terrible losses. It had been a victory for the Viet
Minh, one that raised their confidence in their ability to win the larger battle yet to come.

The primary reason for the Viet Minh success at Beatrice was their ability to use direct
artillery fire. This was possible because of the previously mentioned direct line of sight on the
French defenses. Since they did not have to use indirect artillery spotting which required more
experienced gun crews and superior communications which the Viet Minh lacked, they had
much better success than either side expected.27 Navarre wrote that:

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Under the influence of Chinese advisers, the Viet Minh commanders had used
processes quite different from the classic methods. The artillery had been dug in
by single pieces... They were installed in shell-proof dugouts, and fire point-blank
from portholes... This way of using artillery and AA guns was possible only with
the expansive ant holes at the disposal of the Vietminh and was to make shambles
of all the estimates of our own artillerymen.28

While it was probably as much a case of Giap’s genius as the advice of any
Chinese present, the artillery fire was effective. It was so lethal that Col. Charles Piroth,
the overall French artillery commander, distressed by his inability to locate the
camouflaged Viet Minh artillery and bring his guns to bear retired to his dugout and blew
himself up with a hand grenade. To maintain morale, his body was buried in secret.29

Following the French attacks on the morning of March 14th, the two sides agreed to a
four-hour cease fire to collect their dead and wounded. No sooner had the fourth hour concluded
than the Viet Minh artillery closed the air strip once and for all. This forced future supplies to be
air dropped. That evening around 5:00 p.m. the Viet Minh refocused their artillery on strong
point Gabrielle. After three hours they launched another massed assault with two regiments of
the crack 308th division. This bitter struggle lasted into the morning hours. At 4:00 a.m. a Viet
Minh round struck the French battalion headquarters, severely wounding the battalion
commander and most of his staff.

In an effort to save the deteriorating situation de Castries ordered a counterattack. For

some reason, known only to him, Col. Pierre Langlais assigned the 5th Vietnamese Parachute
battalion to lead the attack. They were still getting adjusted to conditions having jumped into
Dien Bien Phu that morning. While some did make it to the firebase, Viet Minh artillery stopped
most of the attackers in their tracks with heavy losses. By 8:00 a.m. all was lost and the Algerian
and Vietnamese French forces abandoned Gabrielle having lost more than 1,000 men. The
communists had lost 1,500, but again had won a strategic engagement that brought them closer
to overall victory.30

The Viet Minh triumphs at Beatrice and Gabrielle had had an additional affect on the
battle. Strong point Anne-Marie was defended by T’ai forces, a Vietnamese ethnic minority who
had up to this point remained loyal to the French. For many days the communists had been
distributing anti-French pamphlets among these troops urging them to desert since “this was not
their fight.” On the foggy morning of March 17, following the fall of the first two firebases most
of the demoralized T’ais defected. The French and the few remaining T'ais at Anne-Marie had
no choice but to abandon their position.

Both sides, having lost so many men, spent from March 17 through March 30 attempting
to reconstitute their forces. The Viet Minh took this opportunity to tighten the noose around the
French central area which was built around Huguette, Dominique, Claudine, and Eliane. This
also left the 1,809 defenders of Isabelle isolated from their comrades. Senior French leaders
soon became cognizant that de Castries was not the man to conduct the defense of Dien Bien
Phu. Since the fall of the northern outposts, he had locked himself in his bunker isolating
himself from his subordinates. On March 17, Cogny attempted to fly into Dien Bien Phu and

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take command, but his plane was driven off by anti-aircraft fire. He considered parachuting into
the encircled area, but his staff talked him out of it. All this soon created a leadership vacuum.31

What happened next is still debated. According to the famed historian Bernard Fall who
obtained his records from Col. Langlais, on March 24, Langlais and his paratroop commanders
confronted de Castries in his bunker at gun point. They told him that he would retain the
appearance of command, but that Langlais would be in charge. A disheartened de Castries
accepted the deal without protest. While he did carry out some minor functions tactical
command fell to Langlais.32 The equally famous general and historian Phillip Davidson agrees
that for all intents and purposes Langlais became the commander of Dien Bien Phu, leaving de
Castries the job of transmitting messages to Hanoi and offering infrequent advice.33 However,
historian Jules Roy does not even mention this event and historian Martin Windrow believes that
what has become known as the “paratrooper putsch” probably never happened. Their arguments
are based on the fact that after the war both Langlais and his number two Marcel Bigeard
remained on good terms with de Castries.34

Whatever the reality, the French situation continued to deteriorate. Their only means of
resupply was by aerial drops that were particularly hazardous and suffered heavy losses from
Viet Minh machine guns near the landing strip. On March 27, General Jean-Louis Nicot the air
transport commander in Hanoi ordered that all supplies be parachuted from 6,500 feet or higher
to reduce the aircraft losses. Instead, the losses remained heavy and fewer supplies landed inside
the French defenses. To ease the danger for the aircraft, de Castries ordered an attack against the
Viet Minh machine guns two miles west of Dien Bien Phu. It proved to be a complete success,
killing 350 Viet Minh destroying 17 anti-aircraft guns, while losing only 20 French killed.35

On March 30, at 7:00 p.m., the Viet Minh 312th division broke the comparative calm
with an attack that quickly overran Dominique 1 and 2. This left only Dominique 3 between the
Viet Minh and the French general headquarters. The Viet Minh victory also flanked all French
forces east of the Da or Black River which ran through the middle of the French position. It
seemed all was lost. However, the French 4th colonial artillery regiment pointed their 105 mm
howitzers at zero elevation and fired directly into the Viet Minh assault forces leaving gigantic
gaps in their ranks. French anti-aircraft units near the airfield, opened fire on the Viet Minh with
anti-aircraft machine guns, forcing them to retreat.

While the French survived this engagement they were not so lucky elsewhere. By
midnight the Viet Minh 316th division had taken Eliane 1 and half of Eliane 2 from its Moroccan
defenders. On the other side of Dien Bien Phu, the Viet Minh 308th division attacked Huguette
7 and nearly overran it. Only the actions of French NCOs closed the breach in the French lines.

On March 31, not long after midnight, French forces counterattacked against Eliane 2,
and recaptured half of it. Langlais ordered another counterattack the following afternoon against
Dominique 2 and Eliane 1, using virtually the entire garrison. While they did retake the two
positions, the Viet Minh launched their own counter stroke. The exhausted French, who by now
had no reserves left, were forced to fall back. In a final desperate effort to save the eastern
defenses, reinforcements were sent north from Isabelle, but were attacked en route and forced
back. Langlais directed Major Bigeard, commander at Eliane, to fall back across the river.

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Bigeard refused, because he was convinced that do so would mean the end of Dien Bien Phu.
Again that night renewed Viet Minh attacks appeared ready to overrun the French when their
tanks arrived, and helped push the communists back. By April 1, 1954, the French defenders
were hanging on by their finger nails.

Fighting continued in this manner over the next several nights. The Viet Minh repeatedly
attacked Eliane 2, only to be repulsed. Continued efforts to reinforce the French garrison by
parachute drops were made, but had to be carried out by lone planes at irregular times to avoid
excessive casualties from Viet Minh anti-aircraft fire. Some reinforcements did arrive, but not
nearly enough to replace French casualties.36 On April 5, after a long night of battle, French
fighter-bombers and artillery inflicted particularly devastating losses on one Viet Minh regiment
which was caught in the open. At that point, Giap decided to change tactics and began to have
his sappers dig trenches closer and closer to the French lines.

On April 10, the French attempted to retake Eliane 1 in order to eliminate its threat to
Eliane 4. The dawn attack, which Bigeard devised, was preceded by a short but intense artillery
barrage, followed by small unit infiltration attacks, followed by mopping-up operations. Eliane 1
changed hands several times that day, but by the next morning the French had control of the
strongpoint. The Viet Minh attempted one last time to retake it on the evening of April 12, but
failed. In retrospect this proved the low point for the Viet Minh. During the stalemate, the
French intercepted enemy radio messages which told of whole units refusing to attack, and
Communist prisoners said that they were told to advance or be shot by the officers and
noncommissioned officers behind them. Worse still, the Viet Minh lacked advanced medical
care and many wounded either lay on the battle field for long periods of time or died for lack of
care. To avert the impending crisis, Giap called in fresh reinforcements from Laos.

As the struggle for Eliane 1 dragged on, at the other side of camp, the Viet Minh
entrenchments had almost entirely surrounded Huguette 1 and 6. Between April 11 and April
22, intense fighting took place all around this area until on the morning of April 22nd, the
defenses fell, leaving the Viet Minh in control of 90 percent of the air field effectively cutting off
air drops. Less than a week later, the Viet Minh, having dug trenches up to the defenses at
Isabelle, began their final assault to take this position as well. The defenders were out of water,
ammunition and everything else.37

The End is Near

The final Viet Minh attacks began on May 1, 1954, supported by massed artillery fire and
Katyusha rockets. The French employed a time on target or TOT tactic which placed shells on
the same target from different direction at the same time. By May 6th, this first offensive had
been halted. On May 7, Giap ordered an all out attack against the remaining French units with
over 25,000 Viet Minh against fewer than 3,000 garrison troops. At 5:00 p.m., de Castries
radioed French headquarters in Hanoi telling Cogny that the situation was “very grave” and the
“end is approaching.” De Castries vowed to “fight to the finish.” By nightfall, all French central
positions had been overrun and the final radio transmission from the French headquarters
reported that enemy troops were directly outside the headquarters bunker.38 The radio operator’s
last words were: “The enemy has overrun us. We are blowing up everything. Vive la France!”39

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On the night of May 7, the defenders at Isabelle made a breakout attempt. The main
body of 1,700 men did not even make it out of the valley but about 70 men did escape to Laos.
The battle was over. Over the next several hours the French surrendered in small groups some
being shot down as they tried but most being taken into captivity with nothing left but the
tattered clothes they had on.40

On May 8, Viet Minh records counted 11,721 prisoners, of whom 4,436 were wounded.
This was the greatest number the Viet Minh had ever captured. It was one-third of the total
captured during the entire war. They divided the prisoners into two groups that included those
who were relatively healthy, who they force-marched over 250 miles to prison camps in the
north and east. To prevent French air attacks on this group, they mixed French prisoners with
Viet Minh soldiers. Several hundred perished of disease and abuse all along the way. The other
group was the wounded who received basic first aid until the International Red Cross workers
arrived. The 858 most seriously wounded received better care than the others and were
eventually evacuated. Those slightly wounded were sent to less harsh confinement.

During their time in captivity the French survivors were often starved and beaten.
According to some western sources of the more than 11,000 survivors held as prisoners, only
3,290 were officially repatriated four months later. However, these numbers are misleading
because they do not include the 4,500 wounded or the 3,000 prisoners of Vietnamese origin.
This still means between 3,000 and 3,500 French defenders of Dien Bien Phu may have died
while in captivity. As for the Vietnamese captives, their fate remains unknown, although recent
evidence suggests that many were either executed outright or died in prison.41

French figures put their losses at 7,184 casualties including 1,142 dead and 1,606
missing. These same sources put Viet Minh dead at 7,900, with more than 15,000 wounded.
Other sources used in U.S. Major Harry D. Bloomer’s report placed the French dead at 1,571-
2,293, the wounded between 5,195and 6,650, and the missing at 1,729. He agreed with the Viet
Minh count of 11,721 captured and 8,290 POWs. He placed the Viet Minh killed at 4,020, the
wounded at 9,118 and missing at 792.42

How Could This Have Happened?

No matter what the numbers were, the protracted struggle had been a bloodletting
brought on partly by France’s stubborn resistance to Indochinese independence. Sovereignty
was achieved partly by Western ignorance of their enemy’s determination and ability; and
certainly by the dogged resolve of the Viet Minh to end French rule. Lastly, the French notion
that disavowing all defensive logic at Dien Bien Phu in order to lure the enemy into a
conventional battle assumed that Giap, who had repeatedly proved his merit, was too stupid to
know what they had in mind or to adjust his own tactics to deal with the “hedgehog” tactics.
French scholars Philippe Devillers and Jean Lacouture declared in their 1969 book on
the war that it should not have surprised anyone that the French failed since after 1947, “they
limited themselves to a series of fragmentary and murderous operations” such as “‘Hit-and-run’,
‘mopping up’, ‘raking over’, commando raids” none of which had a strategic goal in mind.”
Both authors believe that “by sowing more and more ruin and hatred and by constantly

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increasing the burden of the war upon the people, such actions turned the peasant masses against
the French and greatly simplified the psychological and material tasks of the People’s Army.”43

French morale proved to be the first casualty of the conflict. As one French Foreign
Legionnaire recalled from the outset the artillery never stopped at night. “It was like the Battle of
the Somme in 1916. Every day we saw their trench lines coming closer and closer. We could not
shoot them because they were below ground level. All we saw was soil flying into the air. This
condition made strong men weak; the weak simply broke down. We knew they were coming
and would be on top of us in maybe two weeks or less.”44

As for the Viet Minh, the one person best equipped to evaluate the results was Giap
who correctly realized that as important as the victory was in forcing out the French their
struggle was far from over since other western nations were not pleased with the outcome. Giap
realized that the introduction of American aid increased the likelihood of eventual U.S.
intervention. As the Geneva talks went on in the mid-1950s, he almost prophetically came to the
conclusion that the U.S. had not learned the lessons of this initial conflict and that their ever
increasing support for South Vietnam under emperor Bao Dai had the same look and feel of the
French occupation. As Ho Chi Minh declared, “This is only the first step; we have yet to fight
the Americans.”45

U.S. Participation
This realization also begs the question why didn’t the Americans intervene while the
French could still possibly be saved? In a letter dated April 26, 1954, President Dwight D.
Eisenhower wrote Gen. Alfred M. Gruenther, Commander-in-Chief, U.S. European Command,
stating that: “As you know, you and I started more than three years ago trying to convince the
French that they could not win the Indo-China war and particularly could not get real American
support in that region unless they would unequivocally pledge independence to the Associated
States upon the achievement of military victory.” To be sure, Ike was realistic enough to
conclude that “no Western power can go to Asia militarily, except as one of a concert of powers,
which concert must include local Asiatic peoples.” He concluded that, “Even, therefore, if we
could by some sudden stroke assure the saving of the Dien Bien Phu garrison, I think that under
the conditions proposed by the French, the free world would lose more than it would gain.”46

That same day in a discussion with Press Secretary James G. Haggerty, he declared that
“if we were to put one combat soldier into Indochina, then our entire prestige would be at stake,
not only in that area but throughout the world.” Considering the potential disaster of this action,
he continued to try to get other western democracies to join him in negotiating a peace
satisfactory to all nations. He believed that the West could train their Asian allies to fight and as
such, “I don't see any reason for American ground troops to be committed in Indochina, don't
think we need it, but we can train their forces and it may be necessary for us eventually to use
some of our planes or aircraft carriers off the coast and some of our fighting craft we have in that
area for support.”47

This should come as no surprise since from the beginning of his administration Ike was
confronted by this French disaster in waiting. In France itself public support hovered between
15-20 percent and even pro-imperialists were ready give up. Americans who had been newly

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conditioned by the advent of the Cold War, had abandoned their long held believe in national
self-determination among nations of the developing world and now many clamored for the U.S.
to save Dien Bien Phu. Eisenhower’s own advisers on the National Security Council proposed
using tactical nuclear weapons against the Viet Minh. Fortunately, the President’s sanity
prevailed when he declared, “My God! You boys must be crazy!”48

One cannot conclude any analysis of Dien Bien Phu without recounting American
participation in the First Indochina War. This is especially true since within a decade the U.S.
took over the French role in Indochina. By February 1954, following French occupation of Dien
Bien Phu but prior to the battle, Senate Majority Leader Mike Mansfield (D-Montana) asked
Secretary of Defense Charles E. Wilson if America intended to help the French with materiel aid.
Wilson replied that “for the moment there is no justification for raising United States aid above
its present level.” Ike also declared that, “Nobody is more opposed to intervention than I am.”49

On March 31, as the French position began to collapse another group of legislators asked
the same question of Chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Admiral Arthur W. Radford. He told
them that it was far too late to save the French. As a result, a referendum to directly intervene
was unanimously voted down in committee.50

This does not mean there was no American participation. When Navarre requested help,
Radford sent two squadrons of B-26 “Invader” bomber aircraft and, later 37 transport pilots flew
682 sorties to bring supplies to the defenders. Even before Operation “Castor” began, Gen.
Chester McCarty provided the French with 12 C-119 “Boxcar” transport aircraft. Two American
pilots, Wallace Buford and James McGovern Jr., were killed during the siege. The role played
by American pilots remained obscure until U.S. historian Erik Kirsinger published the results of
his protracted research into their service. On February 25, 2005, Jean-David Levitte the French
ambassador to the U.S. awarded the seven living U.S. flyers the Legion of Honor.51

One shocking aspect of the U.S. role in this comes from French author Jules Roy who
intimates that Radford discussed with the French the possibility of using nuclear weapons.
While this remains up for debate, most researchers believe that Secretary of State John Foster
Dulles discussed providing the French with tactical atomic bombs for use at Dien Bien Phu.
What makes this a real possibility was that many years later British Foreign Secretary Sir
Anthony Eden made mention that he was aware of the possibility.52

In many ways this anxiety to get involved evolved from the death of FDR, the one person
who could have stood against supporting the remnants of imperialism. Truman was too busy
learning the job to pay much attention to Indochina until late in his second term. U.S. military
leaders complained that the refusal to support the French in Indochina was “a source of serious
embarrassment.” As Wallace-Wells points out, “Eisenhower’s foreign policy was largely
designed by Secretary of State John Foster Dulles who had such an evangelical notion of
America’s place in the world that he often failed to notice the world itself.” Still, most other
Americans clearly understood French incompetence in ruling Indochina and in the end, even
Cold War hard liner, Barry Goldwater declared that “[b]y supporting France, we are saying to
the great men who penned the document and whose ghosts must haunt these walls that we do not
believe entirely in the Declaration of Independence.”53

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During the Eisenhower years there were two views of how to deal with Indochina. East
Asian specialists in the State Department believed that the French were hated in Vietnam, and
that America should not intervene to save such a reprehensible regime. On the other hand, the
“Europeanists,” argued that supporting the unpopular French was a small price to pay for their
help in getting the anti-communist military alliance of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization
(NATO). Dulles declared that: “We must demonstrate to Congress that the things the French are
doing are important to the free world.”54

What evolved from the French compromise at Geneva was the less than resilient regime
of Vietnamese playboy Emperor Bao Dai. This led to the U.S. belief that South Vietnam was not
artificial but a real and defensible entity. This became the beginning of America’s disaster in
Vietnam. Soon it became clear that Bao Dai was a lazy and weak leader. Soon the U.S. pinned
its hopes on President Ngo Dinh Diem.55 Wallace-Wells concludes that:

Several large groups that had fought the French—Buddhists, Catholics, but also a
set of heterodox religious groups—switched sides to support Bao Dai and to fight
the communists. The new state had American money, and the earnest promise of
help in development and governance. And there was the lingering fear that Ho
Chi Minh’s communism was a stalking horse for Vietnam’s ancient abusers, the
Chinese. The Americans might have been naïve, and altogether hopeful, when
they gazed into this mess of conflicting interests and saw the possibility of a state.
But they were not what they would later become in Southeast Asia: they were not
obsessed, or absurd.56
Mulling over the Facts

After 209 days of almost constant fighting the Viet Minh had won. The victory proved to
be the straw that broke the French camel’s back. On July 20, 1954, the parties concluded a
formal cease-fire at Geneva, Switzerland that, in fact, ended an eight year war in which more
than 75,000 members of France's Expeditionary Force had died.57

In reality the cease-fire would never go beyond a military truce, and the lack of a political
settlement left the door open for the next Indochina war. To be sure, the French had not lost
completely after Dien Bien Phu, but as the U.S. Army Field Manual (FM) 100-5 states, “Success
in battle may not alone assure the achievement of national security goals, but defeat will
guarantee failure.” Dien Bien Phu all but guaranteed French defeat and departure.58 In fact, the
Viet Minh had won little since the U.S. convinced the other great communist powers to negotiate
a settlement in Geneva. By the time everyone departed Geneva in 1956 the Viet Minh were
convinced that they had been double-crossed. They believed the Chinese forced them to accept a
partition of Vietnam along the 17th parallel rather than a unified Vietnam under their control. To
the Viet Minh, the military victory was lost at Geneva but as was their nature during the
Indochinese wars, they refused to concede their goal of unifying Vietnam.59

Perhaps the cruelest irony of this entire conflict was that the nation born of Equality,
Liberty and Brotherhood fought so hard to keep these things from the Vietnamese. They did so
employing many troops from the far corners of their empire and the displaced of Europe.

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Fearing public outrage they refused to send French conscripts from France itself. Instead,
German mercenaries, Moroccans, Algerians, Vietnamese, T’ais, and Hmong all died in droves to
defend French colonialism. As it turned out, the Moroccans were arguably the best and most
dedicated troops at Dien Bien Phu, at one point charging communist lines shouting Insha’Allah!
Equally appalling was what one author described as the “Indochinese War’s political toxicity”
that led the government to spend nearly every penny of Marshall Plan money on the war which
delayed France’s economic recovery.60

In many respects, the catastrophe at Dien Bien Phu was representative of the weak
leadership of the nation from the end of WWII until the 1959 election of Charles DeGaulle. As,
their position in Indochina disintegrated French leaders, rather than find a means to rescue their
heroic defenders, they began debating among themselves “the increments of valor inherent in
various forms of surrender. Many hoped that with an impending international conference at
Geneva the garrison might hold out long enough to win more favorable terms.” They could not.
Neither did it “end with a white flag.” In one last futile gesture of bravado Gen. de Castries
simply had his force stop firing. In turn, the Viet Minh “swarmed into the heart of the base.
This left “the end of a battle as disorderly as a battle itself, but less noisy.”61

The French defeat at Dien Bien Phu in a set-piece battle begun on their terms, and their
subsequent withdrawal from Indochina left the western world in shock. In the mid-1960s,
American Colonel William F. Long when asked about the French failure replied, “Dien Bien Phu
or DBP has become an acronym or shorthand symbol for defeat of the West by the East, for the
triumph of primitive peoples over advanced nations.”62

The other loser had been the U.S. Even though Eisenhower had not sent U.S. ground
troops to Southeast Asia, he had committed considerable treasure to the French defeat and when
America manipulated China and the USSR into ending the war with a division of Vietnam into
two nations, they had earned the enmity of the new Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRVN).63

The French had no one else to blame for their defeat at Dien Bien Phu since they
abandoned most significant principles of warfare such as relinquishing the initiative, conceding
the high ground and failure to concentrate their forces. They completely underestimated the
ability of the Viet Minh who not only had a superior operational plan but demonstrated singular
determination by bringing heavy artillery pieces and ammunition up seemingly inaccessible
mountains surrounding Dien Bien Phu. Giap was also able to mobilize 33,000 support workers
to dig trenches and maintain supply lines while his 50,000-man assault force continuously
attacked the French from November 1953 to May 1954. Lastly, the Viet Minh had a strategic
purpose built around the goal of obtaining their national independence. The French never had a
clear strategic goal nor did their effort have popular support.64

Political ramifications

In the years since 1954, Dien Bien Phu has come to be seen as the defeat that ended not
only French involvement in Indochina but, along with the future defeat in Algeria, the beginning
of the end for the Fourth French republic and the French empire. Having committed nearly 10
percent of the French Union’s manpower in Indochina, French leaders had acted like a poker
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player who goes all in and when the cards do not fall for them they walk away. The defeat
weakened French prestige at the very moment negotiations over the future of Indochina began.
The talks at Geneva began on May 8, the day after the fall of Dien Bien Phu. The initial results
of the Geneva Conference of 1954 was the division of Vietnam at the 17th parallel with Ho in
charge of the northern portion known as the DRVN and the southern “State of Vietnam,”
supported by the West. While the French Union technically ran the South, this did not last long
since by the fall of 1956 the last French forces had departed South Vietnam. World leaders had
originally agreed that the partition was to be temporary, with the two zones being reunited during
national elections held in 1956. However, the French void was soon filled by United States
support for the southern government of Emperor Bao Dai and Prime Minister Ngo Dinh Diem.65

Southern leaders opposed the Geneva agreement, arguing (probably with some accuracy)
that Viet Minh forces were killing non-communist Vietnamese. They also pointed out the fact
the DRVN was supported by both the People’s Republic of China and the Soviet Union.
Ultimately, the south government, backed by the U.S. ignored the call for elections and created a
separate regime. This led to more years of Western involvement in Vietnam. In less than a
decade the U.S. would take over this struggle introducing more than 500,000 troops.

The French military left Indochina in tatters. It had been devastated in 1940 by the
Germans and suffered the ignominious defeat in Southeast Asia. With her prestige damaged in
the developing world new independence movements began in other colonies such those in North
Africa. In 1956, both the Moroccan and Tunisian states had received their independence. That
same year the Algerian War began and by 1962 it too would end with disastrous results.66

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1
Richard Harris Smith, OSS: The Secret History of America’s First Central Intelligence Agency, Second Paper Back Edition
(Guilford, Connecticut: Lyons Publishing Inc., 2005), p. 325, [hereafter OSS]; “Viet Minh Declaration of Independence for
Vietnam,” September 2, 1945, http://www. vwip.org/articles/ declar01.htm; Bernard Fall, Hell in a Very Small Place; the
siege of Dien Bien Phu. Philadelphia: Lippincott, 1966, also New York: Da Capo Press, 1967, pp. 1-11, [hereafter Hell in a
Very Small Place]. See also, Bernard B. Fall, “The Cease-Fire in Indochina – An Appraisal,” and “The Cease-Fire in
Indochina – An Appraisal II,” Far Eastern Survey 23:9 (September 1954), pp. 135-139, and 23:10 (October 1954), pp.152-
155. Bernard B. Fall, “The Geneva Agreement--How the French Got Out of Vietnam.” New York Times Sunday Magazine,
May 2, 1965, pp. 28, 113-19. Reprinted under the title "Settlement at Geneva--Then and Now" in Bernard Fall, Viet-Nam
Witness (New York: Praeger, 1966), pp. 69-83.

2
For the overall view of the role of the OSS, see Smith, OSS, pp. 295-330.

3
Benjamin Wallace-Wells, “Colonial Burden,” Review Essay of Ted Morgan, Valley of Death: The Tragedy at Dien Bien
Phu that Led America into the Vietnam War. New York: Random House, 2010. New Republic Online,
May 6,2010, http://www.tnr.com/book/review/colonial-burden, [hereafter “Colonial Burden”].
4
Smith, OSS, pp. 320-330; Fall, Hell in a Very Small Place, pp. 1-7.

5
Fall, Hell in a Very Small Place, pp. 1-21; John Keegan, Dien Bien Phu (New York: Ballantine, 1974), pp. 9-26; For
background on this topic, see Lt. Gen. Phillip B. Davidson, USA retired, Vietnam at War, (New York: Oxford University
Press, 1988, paperback 1991), pp. 3-94, [hereafter Vietnam at War]; Jules Roy, The Battle of Dien Bien Phu, (New York:
Harper and Row, 1965), pp. 1-34, [hereafter The Battle of Dien Bien Phu].

6
Davidson, Vietnam at War, pp. 46-74; Fall, Hell in a Very Small Place, pp. 1-21; History Study Board of The General
Staff, History of the General Staff in the Resistance War against the French 1945-1954, (Hanoi: People's Army Publishing
House, 1991), p. 799; David Stone, Dien Bien Phu, 1954, (London: Brassey's, 2004), p. 109, [hereafter DBP, 1954]; Martin
Windrow, The Last Valley: Dien Bien Phu and the French Defeat in Vietnam, (London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, Ltd.,
(Onion Publishing), 2004), pp 91-100, [hereafter The Last Valley].
7
Davidson, Vietnam at War, pp. 75-94; Fall, Hell in a Very Small Place, pp. 12-21.

8
Marc D. Bernstein, "Setting the Stage for Dien Bien Phu," Vietnam Magazine, October 2007, pp. 41-47. For a detailed
account of the Hmong, see Jane Hamilton Merit, Tragic Mountains. Bloomington, Indiana: University of Indiana Press,
1993). Davidson, Vietnam at War, pp. 35-94; Morgan, Valley of Death, pp. 3-88.
9
Davidson, Vietnam at War, pp. 95-104; Fall, Hell in a Very Small Place, pp. 17-21. An original U.S. military document on
Dien Bien Phu is Army Chief of Staff, J-5, MACV, “Strategic/Tactical Study,” March 1968. This is a comparison of Khe
Sanh and Dien Bien Phu and can be located in the on-line Virtual Vietnam Archive of the Vietnam Project, Texas Tech
University: Front Matter, Main Text, Annex A, “Study of Dien Bien Phu Battle,” Annex B, p. B-1-22 and Annexes C-H,
Part II, “Enemy Alternatives, 1968.”

10
Davidson, Vietnam at War, pp. 88-94, 105-116; Morgan, The Valley of Death, pp. 89-164.
11
Na San and the hedgehog concept are covered in detail in Davidson, Vietnam at War, pp. 105-136; Fall, Hell in a Very
Small Place, pp. 18-26.

12
Davidson, Vietnam at War, pp. 137-160; Fall, Hell in a Very Small Place, 31-36, 102-113; Roy, The Battle of Dien Bien
Phu, 11-28; Ted Morgan, Valley of Death: The Tragedy at Dien Bien Phu that Led America into the Vietnam War, (New
York: Random House, 2010), pp. 89-164, [hereafter Valley of Death].
13
Morgan, Valley of Death, pp. 160-162; Davidson, Vietnam at War, pp. 161-166.
14
Morgan, Valley of Death, pp. 165-192; Davidson, Vietnam at War, pp. 165-166.
15
Maj Harry D. Bloomer, “An Analysis of the French Defeat at Dein Bien Phu,” Global Security.org
http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/library/report/1991/BHD.htm, [hereafter “French Defeat”]; William Wilder, “Dien
Bien Phu: ‘A Fatal Gamble’” http://members.lycos.co.uk/Indochine/ops/dbpwilde.html; Davidson, Vietnam at War, pp.
185-192; Roy, The Battle of Dien Bien Phu, pp. 35-44; Fall, Hell in a Very Small Place, pp. 22-34.
16
Bloomer, French Defeat; Roy, The Battle of Dien Bien Phu, 44-67; Fall, Hell in a Very Small Place, pp. 33-55; Davidson,
Vietnam at War, pp. 192-195; Windrow, The Last Valley, pp. 130-163; Asselin, Pierre “New Perspectives on Dien Bien
Phu.” Center for Southeast Asian Studies. University of Hawaii at Manoa. http://www.hawaii.edu/cseas/pubs/explore/
v1/v1n2-art2.html.
17
Fall, Hell in a Very Small Place, pp. 24, 44; Davidson, Vietnam at War, pp. 193-200.

18
Davidson, Vietnam at War, p. 165; Fall, Hell in a Very Small Place, pp. 44-52.
19
Davidson, Vietnam at War, pp. 199-210; Fall, Hell in a Very Small Place, pp. 48-58; Windrow, The Last Valley, pp. 150-
160.
20
Davidson, Vietnam at War, pp. 165, 224-5; Fall, Hell in a Very Small Place, pp. 53-86; Roy, The Battle of Dien Bien Phu,
pp. 98-161.
21
Davidson, Vietnam at War, pp. 182-4; Roy, The Battle of Dien Bien Phu, pp. 21, 33.
22
Davidson, Vietnam at War, pp. 175, 177, 180-189; Fall, Hell in a Very Small Place, pp.44-52; Windrow, The Last Valley,
pp. 204-253.

Davidson, Vietnam at War, pp. 194-195; Fall, Hell in a Very Small Place, pp. 55-59; Windrow, The Last Valley, pp. 233-
23

253.
24
Davidson, Vietnam at War, pp. 171, 193-196; Windrow, The Last Valley, pp. 244-253; Morgan , Valley of Death, 233-250.
25
Bloomer, “French Defeat”; Davidson, Vietnam at War, pp. 222-225.

26
Davidson, Vietnam at War, pp, 223-224; Roy, The Battle of Dien Bien Phu, pp. 162-177. Other books on Dien Bien Phu
are: Howard R. Simpson, Dien Bien Phu: The Epic Battle America Forgot (McLean, Virginia: Brassey's, 1994), [hereafter
The Epic Battle]; Richard Worth, Dien Bien Phu, (Philadelphia: Chelsea House, 2002).

27
Davidson, Vietnam at War, pp. 227- 36; Windrow, The Last Valley, pp. 366-412; Fall, Hell in a Very Small Place, pp. 87-
98, 125-130; Morgan, Valley of Death, pp. 257-275.
28
Henri Navarre (in French), Agonie de l'Indochine, (Paris: Plon, 1958), p., 225, [hereafter Agonie de l'Indochine].
29
“Dien Bien Phu,” Spartacus Educational, http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/VNdienbein.htm.
30
Simpson, The Epic Battle, pp. 99-103; Davidson, Vietnam at War, pp. 237-238.
31
Fall, Hell in a Very Small Place, pp. 134-188, 191-224, 279; Davidson, Vietnam at War, pp. 239–241.

32
Fall, Hell in a Very Small Place, pp. 177.

33
Davidson, Vietnam at War, p. 278.

34
Windrow, The Last Valley, pp. 441-444; Roy, The Battle of Dien Bien Phu, pp. 210-212.

35
Davidson, Vietnam at War, pp. 244-6; Fall, Hell in a Very Small Place, pp. 225-278.

36
Bloomer, “French Defeat”; Roy, The Battle of Dien Bien Phu, pp. 210-242; Davidson, Vietnam at War, pp. 245-53; Fall,
Hell in a Very Small Place, pp. 252-292.

37
Roy, The Battle of Dien Bien Phu, pp. 210-242; Davidson, Vietnam at War, pp. 255-72; Fall, Hell in a Very Small Place,
pp. 293-326; Windrow, The Last Valley, pp. 413-452-.
38
Davidson, Vietnam at War, pp. 254-264; Fall, Hell in a Very Small Place, pp. 260-265; Roy The Battle of Dien Bien Phu,
pp. 250-287. Katyusha multiple rocket launchers or BM-8/13/21are rocket artillery first fielded by the Soviet Union in
WWII. Compared to other artillery, these multiple rocket launchers quickly delivered a large quantity of explosives to a
target. They had lower accuracy and required longer to reload. They are fragile compared to artillery guns, but inexpensive
and easy to produce. Katyushas were usually mounted on trucks. This mobility allowed them to deliver a large salvo, and
then move before being located.

39
“The Fall of Dienbienphu,” Time, (17 May 1954), http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/ 0,9171,860710,00.html,
[hereafter “Fall of Dienbienphu”].
40
Ibid.; Davidson, Vietnam at War, pp. 253-269; Fall, Hell in a Very Small Place, pp. 260-270.

41
Original numbers in Jean-Jacques Arzalier, Les Pertes Humaines, 1954–2004: La Bataille de Dien Bien Phu, entre
Histoire et Mémoire, (Paris: Société française d'histoire d'outre-mer, 2004), [hereafter Les Pertes Humaines].

42
Bloomer, “The French Defeat”.

43
See Philippe Devillers and Jean Lacouture, End of a War: Indochina, 1954, London: Pall Mall, 1969). French original La
fin d'une guerre: Indochine, 1954, (Paris: Le Seuil, 1960).
44
Historical Services of the French Army, Reports of the French Expeditionary Corps in the Far East: Dien Bien Phu:
Documents, Letters, Correspondence, “Report of Sergeant Jean Claude Casta, Camp Dominique,” 4 April 1954. Found at
Dien Bien Phu - Presentation Transcript: “Siege of Dien Bien Phu The Battle that ended the First Indochina War,” Source—
Slide Presentation: Stephen Kirchoff, Dien Bien Phu, 2003, http://www.campbell.edu/ faculty/Slattery/dien_bien_phu.htm.
45
Source: CNN Interview with Vo Nguyen Giap, 1996, http://www.cnn.com/SPECIALS/cold.war/episodes/11/
interviews/giap/. For a similar analysis of Dien Bien Phu by General Giap, see Vo Nguyen Giap, Dien Bien Phu, revised
and enlarged edition. (Hanoi: Foreign Languages Publishing House, 1964); Vo Nguyen Giap, Dien Bien Phu, 4th ed.,
(Hanoi: NXB Quan Doi Nhan Dan, 1969); Vo Nguyen Giap, Dien Bien Phu, 2d ed., (Hanoi: Su That, 1976); Vo Nguyen
Giap, Dien Bien Phu, 5th ed., (Hanoi: The Gioi, 1994); Vo Nguyen Giap, Dien Bien Phu, 7th ed., (Hanoi: The Gioi, 2004),
pp. viii, 261; Vo Nguyen Giap, Dien Bien Phu: The Most Difficult Decision and Other Writings, (Hanoi: The Gioi, 1992);
Vo Nguyen Giap, Dien Bien Phu, (Hanoi: Chinh Tri Quoc Gia, 1994); Vo Nguyen Giap, Dien Bien Phu, Revised edition
(Hanoi: Chinh Tri Quoc Gia, 1998); Vo Nguyen Giap, with Huu Mai, Dien Bien Phu: Rendezvous with History: A Memoir,
(Hanoi: The Gioi, 2004). Also see an annotated translation by Lady Borton of the preceding item. Vo Nguyen Giap,
Mémoires, 1946-1954, 3 vols. (Paris: Anako, 2003-2004), Vol. II, Le chemin menant à Diên Biên Phu, examines 1946 to
1953and Vol. III, Diên Biên Phu, Le rendez-vous de l'histoire, focuses the end of the First Indochina War.

46
Letter, Dwight D. Eisenhower to Alfred Gruenther, “Dwight D. Eisenhower, Decision Not to Intervene at Dien Bien Phu
(1954)” http://wps.prenhall.com/wps/media/objects/173/177562/27_eisen.htm.
47
Ibid., Diary, James C. Hagerty, Monday, April 26, 1954.

48
Wallace-Wells, “Colonial Burden.”

49
Roy, The Battle of Dien Bien Phu, p. 211.
50
Ibid. , p. 211.

51
For details on these awards, see French Embassy in the United States of America, February 25, 2005, “U.S. Pilots
Honored For Indochina Service,” Check-Six.com, “The Shootdown of ‘Earthquake McGoon.” Also, “France honors U.S.
pilots for Dien Bien Phu role”. Agence France Presse. February 25, 2005; Robert Burns, “Covert U.S. aviators will get
French award for heroism in epic Asian battle,” Associated Press Worldstream, February 16, 2005. Perhaps the most
revealing article on this topic is Jean-David Levitte, Ambassador of France to the United States, “Presentation of the
Insignia of Knights of the Legion of Honor to Seven CAT Pilots at Dien Bien Phu,” February 24, 2005. This piece includes
details on the role of CAT (a CIA proprietary) in the support of Dien Bien Phu. To see the text go on-line to the Virtual
Vietnam Archive of the Vietnam Project at Texas Tech University.
52
Roy, The Battle of Dien Bien Phu, p. 198; Fall, Hell in a Very Small Place, pp. 190, 306 , 307, 480; Gordon L. Rottman,
Khe Sanh (1967–1968) – Marines battle for Vietnam's vital hilltop base, (Oxford, U.K.: Osprey Publishing, 2005), pp. 8-9;
Windrow, The Last Valley, p. 673, End Note 53; James Pringle, “Au revoir Dien Bien Phu,” International Herald Tribune,
February 8, 2008, http://web.archive.org/web/20080208195657/
http://www.iht.com/articles/2004/04/01/edpringle_ed3_.php.
53
Wallace-Welles, “Colonial Burden.”
54
Ibid.
55
Ibid.
56
Ibid.

57
Bernard B. Fall, Street Without Joy, 3rd ed. (Harrisburg, Pennsylvania: The Telegraph Press, 1963), p. 367; Bloomer,
“The French Defeat.” See also, Melvin Gurtov, Negotiations and Vietnam: A Case Study of the 1954 Geneva Conference,
(Santa Monica, California: Rand Corp., July 1968); Robert F. Randle, Geneva 1954: The Settlement of the Indochinese
War, (Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1969). 

58
U.S. Army, Department of the Army, Field Manual (FM) 100-5, Operations, Washington, D.C., Fort Monroe, 1986.

59
Stanley Karnow, Vietnam: A History, (New York: Viking Press, 1983), p. 204, [hereafter Vietnam].
60
For more on economic issues, see Mark E. Cunningham and Lawrence Jude Zwier, The Aftermath of the French Defeat in
Vietnam, (Minneapolis, Minnesota: Twenty-First Century Books, 2010). A similar analysis may be found in Fall, Hell in a
Very Small Place, pp. 450-463; Davidson, Vietnam at War, 273-282; Roy, The Battle of Dien Bien Phu, pp. 288-310;
Windrow, The Last Valley, pp. 620-658.

61
Wallace-Wells, “Colonial Burden.”

62
Col. William F. Long, Jr., U.S. Army, retired, “The Specter of Dien Bien Phu,” Military Review, (l0 October 1966), p. 39.
63
Karnow, Vietnam, p. 170.
64
Bloomer, “The French Defeat;” Fall, Hell in a Very Small Place, p. 429; “Breakdown of losses suffered at Dien Bien
Phu,” Dienbienphu.org, http://www.dienbienphu.org/english/html/bataille/losses.htm, August 24, 2006; “The Long March,”
Dienbienphu.org, http://www.dienbienphu.org/english/html/captivite/long_walk.htm, August 24, 2006; Arzalier, Les Pertes
Humaines.
65
For an inside view of Geneva, see a book by a member of the British delegation, James Cable, The Geneva Conference of
1954 on Indochina, (London: Macmillan, 1986/New York: St. Martin's, 1986).

66
Davidson, Vietnam at War, p. 163, Roy, The Battle of Dien Bien Phu, pp. 140 210. Much like the Battle of Little Bighorn
has permeated the US popular conscious Dien Bien Phu has become a French obsession. Many books and films have been
produced dealing with the topic. In 1992, famed French director Pierre Schoendoerffer released a docudrama focused on
Dien Bien Phu. It contained numerous interviews with French and Vietnamese veterans.
French M-24 American-built light tank during Dien Bien Phu

Parachuting French forces and supplies into Dien Bien Phu

Early in the battle evacuating French wounded from Dien Bien Phu

Giap reviews the Viet Minh troops

Ho Chi Minh in American fatigues he received in WWII

Defeated French being marched out of Dien Bien Phu