Dien Bien Phu, northern Vietnam. A small town, at the centre of the valley
of the same name. A landscape of rolling hills, surrounded by
a natural amphitheatre of mountains. The area is covered in luscious vegetation
and rice patties, arranged in terraces. At dawn and dusk, the shallow water in the
paddies reflects sunlight in a variety of pastel tones. Another name for the valley is Muong Then. In the local language, this means Land of
Heaven. It’s a well-deserved title. This heavenly valley was the scene for one
of the bloodiest battles of the post-World War II era, a time marked by Cold War tensions
and the unstoppable wave of decolonisation. For 56 days in the Spring of 1954, General
Vo Nguyen Giap commanded 50,000 Vietnamese soldiers who fought for their independence
against 15,000 French troops. Hell rained upon the Land of Heaven in one
of history’s fiercest sieges, the battle of Dien Bien Phu. Land of Heaven The town of Dien Bien Phu, capital of Dien
Bien province, is located in North Vietnam, less than 10 kilometers east of the border
with Laos. The Vietnamese capital, Hanoi, is another
600 kilometers east. The best way to get to Dien Bien Phu today
is to take a flight with Vietnam Airlines from Hanoi. It will take less than an hour, and it will
cost about $100. According to local myths, the Muong Thanh
Valley was formed at the time when earth and heaven were created, hence its angelic nickname. The valley is punctuated by several gently
sloping hills and surrounded by high mountains, with the largest being Pu Hong Meo and Pu
Hong Thai. This natural amphitheatre extends for an area
greater than 1500 Square kilometres, placing it among the four largest and richest valleys
of Vietnam, in terms of natural resources and agricultural capacity. The hill slopes and mountain sides are covered
with rice plantations, arranged in terraces that look like massive staircases. The best time to visit the valley is September;
this is when the ripe rice colours the landscape in yellow and fills the air with a sweet perfume. Rice is of vital importance here. Thanks to the fertility brought by the Nam
Rom river, Muong Thanh Valley has held a reputation as the breadbasket -- or rather, the ‘rice
bowl’ -- of North Vietnam. In 1841, the province received its current
name, ‘Dien Bien, by the ruling Nguyen dynasty. This toponym means 'stable land in the border'
and reflects one of the other primary functions of the valley: to guard the border area with
the Kingdom of Laos. So, we just heard two reasons why this area
could hold a strategic value within an armed conflict -- it’s a centre for the production
of vital supplies, and it allows strategic access to a border area. It’s no wonder, then, that the Dien Bien
Phu valley became the epicentre of the battle that marked the end of an era. The Hedgehog The battle of Dien Bien Phu took place from
March 13 through May 7, in 1954. The French side was about 15,000 strong, and
it included elite troops such as paratroopers and Foreign Legionnaires. The bulk of the force -- up to 70 percent
of the personnel -- was made up of colonial troops, recruited from North and West Africa,
as well as South Vietnamese allies. So, whenever I say ‘French’, I mean the
French allies and colonial soldiers directed by French officers. The garrison was under the command of Colonel
De Castries and his subordinates: Lieutenant Colonel Langlais, who headed the paratroopers,
and Lieutenant Colonel Piroth, who managed the artillery. They would square off with a local Army led
by the charismatic General Giap, a former history teacher turned leader of the Viet
Minh – the League for the Independence of Vietnam. Giap also commanded the regular ol’ PAVN,
or People’s Army of Vietnam. Before we dive into that hellish siege, let
me give you some historical context. French intervention in Southeast Asia dated
back to 1858 and the rule of Napoleon III, a man whose fingers were always in search
of pies to sink into. In 1887, the territories of Cambodia, Laos,
Cochinchine, Annam and Tonkin were all consolidated as French Indochina. Later, in the early 1930s, the movement for
independence gained momentum under the leadership of Ho Chi Minh, founder of the Indochinese
Communist Party, and of the Viet Minh in September 1941. During World War 2, the Viet Minh guerillas
harassed the French, then later, the Japanese occupiers, culminating with the proclamation
of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam on September 2, 1945. One month later, French troops returned to
reclaim southern Vietnam, supported by British, Indian and even Japanese forces, who continued
to clash with Vietnamese separatists. In 1946, a conference was convened to decide
the future of Indochina, but the French and Vietnamese delegation couldn’t reach any
compromise. This was followed by the Haiphong incident
of November 21, when fighting broke out between French colonial troops and Viet Minh fighters. This marked the beginning of the First Indochina
War. After seven years of fighting, the French
controlled Saigon and the Red River Delta, but most of Northern Vietnam was held by the
Viet Minh, threatening the bordering Kingdom of Laos, a French protectorate. French leadership had realised that they could
not control the country indefinitely, so their plan was to recapture as much territory as
possible, in order to lead negotiations with Vietnamese nationalists from a position of
strength. In November of 1953, a French general named
Henri Navarre conceived the strategy of establishing an air-head, or airborne bridge head, in the
village of Dien Bien Phu. The village had been selected because it was
the centre of food production for independentist forces in the North, and holding it would
prevent the Viet Minh from invading Laos. As an added bonus, the presence of an old
Japanese airstrip would make the delivery of supplies much easier. From a fortified base, equipped with strong
artillery and air power, the French could cajole the Viet Minh into accepting an open
battle. This would put the Vietnamese at a disadvantage,
as their strength lay in smaller, hit-and-run guerrilla tactics. This French approach of superior firepower
was dubbed ‘the strategy of the hedgehog’. On November 20, 1953, ‘Operation Castor’
was a go: French command began landing paratroopers and heavy equipment in the Dien Bien Phu valley,
to initiate the set-up of their fortified base. The parás met with strong resistance from
a Viet Minh unit, whom they overcame after five hours of heavy fighting. Besides this one hiccup, work proceeded as
planned, and the airstrip was repaired. The French base consisted of a large perimeter,
intended to be fortified with trenches and palisades. The perimeter enclosed several strong points,
or defensive positions, built on and around pre-existing hills. These positions were christened with ladies’
names: Dominique, Eliane, Claudine, Anne-Marie and Huguette, among others. Of these, Huguette was to be the largest of
the strong points, structured as a bastion to protect the vital air strip, the umbilical
cord which ensured continuity of supplies and the landing of fresh reinforcements. Three outposts would be located well outside
the main perimeter. Gabrielle and Beatrice, to the north of the
main camp, were the main forward artillery positions. From here, the batteries of Lieutenant Colonel
Piroth looked able to easily spot and pummel incoming enemies. The third outpost, Isabelle, was the most
distant and isolated from the centre of the base. Located to the south, Isabelle would be garrisoned
by arguably the toughest troops: the Foreign Legion. A week after Operation Castor, commanding
Colonel De Castries landed in Dien Bien Phu to take charge of the proceedings. Well, in theory, at least. In practice, he still had to wait for orders
from his superiors -- the mastermind, General Navarre, and his deputy, General Cogny, commander
of the North Vietnamese theatre. These two head honchos were not exactly aligned. Navarre’s battle plan was to entrench his
troops in Dien Bien Phu, lure the Viet Minh to attack, and then pound them with artillery
and aerial bombing. In other words, he was all in on the hedgehog. Cogny, on the other hand, wanted to use the
base to launch anti-guerrilla operations in enemy territory. The consequences of this indecision were disastrous. On one hand, the perimeter was not fully fortified
as intended, as the garrison was busy with anti-guerrilla actions away from camp. On the other hand, the half-committed sorties
ordered by Cogny proved ineffective and resulted in heavy casualties. So, by the 26th of December, Colonel De Castries
had put an end to further forward actions, and the garrison had become a sitting duck
within a lightly fortified perimeter! Making matters worse, the artillery pieces
under the command of Lieutenant Colonel Piroth were sitting in the open, neither protected
nor concealed by bunkers or other fortifications. Another fatal error of the French generals
was that they had severely underestimated the Viet Minh and the PAVN. The natives were considered unable to field
any heavy armaments, due to the lack of roads and impenetrable vegetation surrounding the
valley. Unbeknownst to them, General Giap’s forces
had been silently surrounding their position. The French may have occupied some high ground
within the valley, but Giap engineered his own topographical advantage by occupying an
even higher ground: the mountains around Dien Bien Phu. The Viet Minh and the PAVN had utilized some
serious logistical might to encircle the French; nearly 80,000 soldiers and civilians, including
women and children, had patiently disassembled dozens of artillery pieces and transported
them across 500 miles of jungle, sometimes even by bicycle. Ironically, these were French-made Peugeot
bikes! Among Giap’s tenacious artillery men, one
of them had a very special assignment on top of, well, blowing stuff up. Phạm Thanh Tâm was a 22 year old graduate
of the Hanoi Academy of Fine Arts. Armed with pencils, ink and water colour,
he was tasked with documenting his impressions of the battle in a series of sketches for
posterity. He drew the vegetation scorched by the shelling,
his starving, terrified, unvanquished brothers in arms, and of course, the ever present spectacle
of death. When he wasn’t capturing the scenes around
him, Tam and his comrades were re-assembling the artillery pieces on the hills and skilfully
camouflaging them using the surrounding foliage. Some batteries were placed in underground
positions, with only the barrels sticking out of the ground. Back down in the Valley, by March 13, 1954,
at 1700 hours, the French defences were imperfect but completed. And it was exactly at that moment when Giap’s
carefully set-up artillery discharged a deluge of shells over Beatrice hill, scoring a direct
hit on the command bunker and killing several officers. The shelling was followed by an infantry assault,
which the French resisted fiercely. But all was in vain: by midnight, Beatrice
had been lost, and more than 500 French defenders lay dead. The following day, the Viet Minh and PAVN
attacked Gabrielle Hill for 15 hours non-stop. By the end of the assault, they had lost 4,000
men, but the French had to retreat to Anne-Marie and Huguette. During the arduous defence of Gabrielle, Lieutenant-Colonel
Piroth, commander of the artillery, retreated to his bunker. A one-armed, tough-as-nails, veteran, he had
reassured his superiors that his artillery would make mincemeat of the enemy. And yet, in barely two days of battle, his
batteries had already lost two strongholds. Overwhelmed with guilt and shame, Piroth clutched
a hand grenade to his chest. He had already removed the pin, and did not
bother counting up to ten. In the meantime, Vietnamese shells had been
pounding the old airfield, destroying aircraft and leaving the French defenders stranded
and without local air support. Some reinforcements arrived by parachute drops,
but these were offset by the desertion of some colonial troops and local allies. The French also had to contend with a growing
number of wounded, overcrowding the small field hospital. Among the medics, a young volunteer nurse
would make the headlines: she was Genevieve de Gallard, ‘The Angel of Dien Bien Phu’ Genevieve performed everything short of miracles
to treat and comfort her ‘dear wounded’. They would call her ‘our blue eyes’. She later recalled how a young German legionnaire,
Hans Haatz, told her, ‘When all this is over, Genevieve, I will take you dancing’. Unfortunately, Hans lost both his legs in
combat. Hans was among some 1300 Germans fighting
for the French Foreign Legion at Dien Bien Phu. Another notable German Legionnaire was Staff
Sergeant Rolf Rodel. While serving at the Isabelle outpost, he
was wounded four times, and every time he returned to his post. One of Rodel’s young subordinates was 21
year old Italian Antonio Cocco, who documented the action at Isabelle in his diary entries. Antonio described the incessant rain of artillery
shells pounding the Legionnaires and admitted that
“ … if God doesn’t have mercy on us, it’s going to be a real massacre.” His diary was published posthumously, as he
was shot while dragging a wounded friend to safety. The Noose Over the last days of March and into early
April, Giap launched more and more attack waves, which gradually wore down the defenders. Their numbers were reduced to below 2600 combat-ready
troops. The losses on the Viet Minh side were equally
exacting, as they were losing an average of 700 men every single day. Giap decided to abandon frontal attacks in
favour of trench warfare tactics. Before the siege, his secret weapon had been
the bicycle; now, it was going to be the shovel. Giap’s troops dug a network of trenches
and tunnels around the Dien Bien Phu perimeter: they would get as close as possible to the
French without incurring any of the heavy defensive fire that was responsible for so
much of the carnage. In this way, the Vietnamese could better manage
their staggering daily troop losses. While Giap was tightening the noose, his gunners
ensured that the French garrison had their supply lines completely cut off. By the 14th of April, the airstrip was completely
destroyed. The artillery strikes also blew up tons of
rations: cheese, coffee, chocolate, and the garrison’s entire stash of tobacco blew
into flames. The French Air Force still tried to airdrop
supplies, but the Viet Minh’s anti-aerial guns were dead accurate, scoring 55 hits in
April alone. A defector later revealed that the ‘AA’
batteries were supported by Chinese advisors. It became clear, after a while, that the frontline
sides in this conflict were fighting a proxy war on behalf of the main blocs in the Cold
War: Soviets and Chinese were supporting Giap and Ho Chi Minh, providing advisors, howitzers,
and even Katyusha rocket launchers. On the other side, the US military had been
supporting the French by providing financing, weapons, and ammunition, as well as committing
aircraft for supply drops. In President Eisenhower’s view, the loss
of Vietnam to communist control would have led to similar communist victories in neighbouring
countries in Southeast Asia, India, Japan, and even Australia and New Zealand. This became known as ‘Domino Theory’. In April, US Secretary of State John Foster
Dulles had been contemplating a more direct intervention: ‘Operation Vulture’. The plan involved a direct aerial attack on
Giap, with a potential added side element of tactical nukes! Facing opposition from the Joint Chiefs, and
from President Eisenhower himself, Dulles aborted the plan on April 29. Two days later, on May 1, it was Labour Day
for the Vietnamese -- a date of great significance for Communists worldwide. This is when Giap unleashed his final wave
of attacks under heavy rain. On May 6th, at 18:45 hours, a Viet Minh infantry
attack swamped Eliane Hill. The attack was marked by the detonation of
a huge charge by the Vietn Minh: roughly one metric ton of explosives blew up a French
command bunker and buried dozens of paratroopers. The hill eventually fell after 10 hours of
fierce fighting. PAVN lieutenant colonel Nguyen Dung Chi recalled
“The assault ended in hand-to-hand fighting ... We couldn't see anything any longer, we
didn't try to take aim, we just moved forward, jumping from trench to trench, stepping on
bodies” May 7 was the last day of the battle. After Eliane had been lost to the Viet Minh,
Colonel De Castries decided to negotiate a ceasefire, to begin at 1700. At 17:30 the Viet Minh entered the officers
bunker and captured him. At 17:50 hours, the officers in Hanoi received
the last radio message from Dien Bien Phu: “We’re blowing up everything. Adieu” Colonel Chi remembered the eerie atmosphere
of the end: "Silence had fallen on Dien Bien Phu. It stank. The smell of death … and rotting flesh." The French suffered 2,000 casualties, including
those who were killed and wounded in action. A further 11,000 were captured, 4,000 of which
died while being marched to North Vietnamese PoW camps. On the other side, Giap’s army had lost
a staggering number of soldiers, with 8,000 killed and 15,000 wounded. Both sides of the battle had etched the heavenly
landscapes of Dien Bien Phu with their deeds of heroism, sacrifice and tenacity. Ultimately, superiority in numbers and strategy
had given the edge to the Vietnamese. The French defeat marked the beginning of
the end for French colonialism in Indochina and elsewhere. As the dust settled, the Geneva Conference
kicked off to discuss the future of Indochina. Unsurprisingly, public pressure forced a newly
appointed French cabinet to pull out of the region. Vietnam was thus divided into two halves,
along the 17th parallel. A Communist Vietnam in the North under Ho
Chi Minh was opposed by a South Vietnam, supported by the US, which had become the most influential
Western power in the area. The old colonial masters had left the country,
but the road to complete independence was still several battles away for the Vietnamese
people. After the battle What is the fate of a battlefield, especially
one that changed World History? The name and memory of the battle of Dien
Bien Phu remained cast in iron within the collective memory of Vietnam, but the physical
sites of Dien Bien Phu were not as well maintained, preserved or celebrated -- neither by the
victors nor the defeated. After the French were defeated, the Democratic
Republic of Vietnam ordered some of their troops to remain in the area for reasons of
border security. They lived in tattered thatched huts, scattered
across the valley, mixing with the locals and surviving on rice and vegetables collected
in the forests. The area remained largely undeveloped until
1986, when an economic policy of renovation breathed new life into Vietnam's economy,
incentivising local private businesses. Proximity to the huge Chinese market also
contributed to the growth of the town, from a few thousands to 150,000 today. But even following this ‘boom’, very few
Vietnamese visited Dien Bien Phu. As for French tourists, or tourists of other
nationalities who had fought with the French, their presence was even scarcer. To be fair, a small French War Memorial had
been built in the valley in the 1980s. But by 1992, a visiting veteran found it in
ruins: he was Rolf Rodel, the German Staff Sergeant at Isabelle. Rolf rebuilt the memorial on his own, at his
own expense, over the course of eight days. Two years later, in 1994, he returned to build
a brand new War Memorial. It took five years for French authorities
to finally give official recognition to Rolf’s memorial. Unfortunately, Sergeant Rodel had already
died, in January of 1999. When the 50th anniversary of the Battle approached,
the tourism patterns suddenly changed in the Valley. The Vietnamese took notice and flocked to
the Land of Heaven in a major historical pilgrimage. In 2003, 100,000 tourists came to visit the
sites -- a huge number that still increased by an additional 25,000 the following year. This was a godsend for the town’s businesses:
after the growth of the 1980s, the economy had begun to stagnate. Tourism revenue in 2004 raked in about $2
Million US dollars in revenue for local businesses… but the town could have done much better! The problem was that much of the heritage
and cultural landscape related to the battle had since been destroyed. New roads had been built up on those same
hills that had once rendered the province so heavenly, and the battle so infernal. Most trenches, dug by Giap’s freedom fighters,
did not exist anymore. Many buildings from the French camp had crumbled
due to lack of maintenance, and then incorrectly reconstructed. Most of all, the rapid, sprawling expansion
of the city had changed the morphology of the battlefield. [Note: the link above is to the Foreign Legion
webpage, where they show nowadays’ location of the French strongholds. You can see they have all been surrounded
by housing development] But following the revival of the mid-2000s,
local government authorities became aware of the significance of the battle sites and
recognised that any plan for the development of Dien Bien Phu needed to take heritage protection
into account. For example, the planning commission decided
to halt the construction of a major road, which was originally designed to cut through
an iconic battle location -- the bunker of Colonel De Castries. This bunker was partially reconstructed, with
concrete replacing the original timber, and a large, translucent canopy protecting it
from the weather. It’s open to visitors, alongside the memorial
I mentioned earlier and other key locations of the battle. Tourists can walk around the trenches dug
by Giap’s soldiers, or even the large crater left by the massive blast at Eliane Hill,
indicated as ‘A1 Hill’ on tour guides. For visitors that don’t mind blatant propaganda,
the Victory Museum features a collection of relics and artefacts from the siege. There are also some interesting dioramas and
reconstructions of key events; for example, the moment in which the Viet Minh troops removed
the French tricolor from Colonel De Castries’ bunker, and replaced it with their own red
flag … a moment which never actually happened! For more of the real deal, tourists can take
a short drive outside of town and take a hike in the ‘General Forest’, a plot of woodland
where General Giap had set up his headquarters. Visitors here have a chance to traverse a
69 metre-long tunnel, where the General discussed strategy with his staff, or climb on the watchtower
from where the leader observed the French fortifications and directed his next attack. A further commemoration activity was instituted
by the local government in 2014: The Ban Flower festival. The event is named after the ‘Ban’, or
‘Bauhinia Variegata’, the most beautiful flower found in the valley. Originally, though, this festival was conceived
to celebrate the landmark Vietnamese victory, and the inauguration of its first edition
coincided with the first day of the battle, the 13th of March. In recent years, the attention of the festival
has shifted to the celebration of the cultural values of the Dien Bien province, and especially
to the cultures of the 19 different ethnic groups living in the area. It includes contests of traditional costumes,
folk games, traditional song, and dances. A Lapse in Memory Noted Vietnam scholar Stanley Karnow described
the battle of Dien Bien Phu as 'one of the great military engagements of
history' along with Agincourt, Waterloo, and Gettysburg. The consequences of the battle had a lasting
impact on the history of the 20th Century. This siege has been widely studied, narrated
and celebrated in literature, academia, and popular culture, so there is little chance
that it will be forgotten. A battle, however, is more than just a collection
of lines and arrows on a map, more than a list of the decisions taken by high ranking
officers. The history of these landmark events includes
the lives and sacrifice of those who took part in it, from both sides of the trenches. It includes actual, physical sites, as well
as the scars left on the Earth by the weapons of Man. All this … is what was at risk of being
forgotten and neglected at Dien Bien Phu. Thanks to the efforts of people like Sergeant
Rodel, as well as the recent decisions taken by Dien Bien local authorities, this risk
is averted for now. From our side, I hope we have done our part,
as small as it may be, to remember Genevieve, Colonel Chi, Antonio, Hans, Phan, Rolf and
all the others. If you or your relatives have some personal
stories about this battle, please share them with us in the comments.
