Chapter 3. Dien Bien Phu - Part II… "the unthinkable"

***(Please Note: Dear Valued Reader: to view Chapter 2 + 1 First... which I would suggest; please scroll down to the two postings below this one).

La Legion Dien Ben Phu.

The Damned Die hard, Dien Bien Phu by Ken Laager

By March 31st the fighting is furious and often hand to hand. Handfuls of Viets are cut down caught on the barbed wire but each time more reinforcements arrive. Meanwhile Viet artillery ceaselessly pounds the French positions.

The Viets came in close and suddenly the French 4th colonial artillery regiment enters the fight… its 105 mm howitzers set to zero elevation… firing directly into the Viet Minh attackers at point blank range… blasting huge holes in their ranks… a blood bath… no soldier however brave could stand up to the fury of white hot steel splinters flashing through the air… men just disappeared… blown to smithereens…

‘That night Diên Biên Phú was about to be over run… all of its strong points over run by thousands of screaming Viets who thinking victory was at hand threw two fresh regiments at the bridge crossing the Nam Yum. The heart of the French defense was there, only a few hundred meters away. And no one stood in their way except a 105 mm battery of the 4th Colonial Artillery Regiment.

But this battery is commanded by Brunbrouck and this is his fight.

In an instant the four tubes are depressed to minimum elevation and fire volley after volley at point blank range into the oncoming Viet columns. All personnel, drivers, telephone operators etc, not strictly needed to serve the artillery pieces fight as infantry. The Africans and Europeans confront their fate.

Brunbrouck is everywhere, reassuring some, reinforcing others, gathering together panic stricken runaways, recovering a machine-gun here, a 60 mm. mortar there, and everyone fires furiously into the attackers who are at first stunned and then realize they have run into a death trap. Adding to the wall of fire laid down by Brunbrouck was his Saint-Cyr classmate, Filaudeau and his riflemen of the 12th company of the Algerian Rifle Regiment clinging to the last tiny remaining position on strong point Dominique. A few hundred meters away, Luciani and his Legionnaires of the 1st Foreign Legion Parachute Battalion are grimly hanging on to the last positions on strong point Eliane.

The Viet companies waver, fall back and come on again. Will the Bô Dôi be victorious? No! The artillerymen, in the face of death, do not bend. Brunbrouck has them fighting like demons.

Twice he is ordered to blow up his artillery pieces. Brunbrouck flatly refuses. "You bastards, send me some more infantry ammunition and tomorrow I'll bring back the guns."

But the Viets want their bridge and they reform their platoons and return to the attack in their screaming masses. Adding to the devastating fire of Brunbrouck's 105's driving them to the ground, are the quad 50's blazing away like an erupting volcano, shredding the Viets.

The waves of Bô Dôi, confused, break and turn back. It's all over. Their will is broken. Brunbrouck and his men have won. The bridge was not reached and tomorrow Brunbrouck will bring back his guns and his gunners.

That is the story of "Battery Brunbrouck"

Brunbrouck's destiny burned bright but for a short time, like the super novas that explode, light up the sky, and then die.

A single explosion, to be sure, but how bright it was. And what a death. On April 13, Holy Tuesday, a direct hit from a 105mm shell collapsed his bunker and mortally wounded him. Realizing he was dying, he received absolution and then gathering his remaining strength he exhorted his men to fight on with all their strength, with all their courage with a vehemence and grimness that struck everyone of his men. Then and only then did he allow himself to be brought to the field hospital just in time for him to know that the hands of a friend, my hands, would close his eyes after a final good-bye in front of the medics riven with emotion.

That is how my friend Paul Brunbrouck fought and died.

Doctor Gindrey
Surgeon at Diên Biên Phú

To die in Indo-china, that was the destiny of dozens and maybe hundreds of young officers. And my job as surgeon allowed me to observe them closely, the living, the wounded and the dead. I saw many brave men and a few heroes. Brunbrouck was already brave but on March 30, 1954 he became a hero.

Brunbrouck stopped an army.

Doctor Gindrey
Surgeon at Diên Biên Phú

This is an edited section from the Dien Bien Phu official website’s records.


Pierre Schoendoerffer was a photojournalist at Dien Bien Phu, he has made an amazing drama doc about the battle which captures the mood of the time and gives a good sense of atmosphere.

Extrait de "Dien Bien Phu" de Pierre Schoendoerffer (La 317e Section) 1992

"Concerto de l'adieu" par Georges Delerue (Platoon)

Near the airstrip the French turned their anti aircraft machine guns onto another massed communist attack… at close range the heavy cannon shells literally tore men to pieces… the same tracer cannon shells passing through man after man…

The Viet Minh began to pull back all along the line… a section of the French line almost collapsed but one brave young sergeant took command jumping up and running at the massed Vietminh…

leading his men in a ferocious counterattack… everyone following him forward… It was turning into a bloody battle of attrition… the French launched two fierce counter attacks using virtually ‘ everybody left in the garrison who could be trusted to fight’

The tough counter attack retook some ground but almost immediately the Viets launched another attack… like two punch drunk boxers… almost out on their feet… slugging it out they’d say… ‘Dien Bien Phu… hell is in a small place..!’

The French were totally exhausted… without reserves… holding an ever reducing perimeter…and all the men knew they probably wouldn’t get out alive...

There is not much of a photographic archive on the trench system at Dien Bien Phu but I’ve put together some reference

images from other trench wars that I hope helps illustrate the reality of the trench fighting that this battle now developed into…

Cheshire Regiment Trench near La Boisselle during the Battle of the Somme,July 1916. wikipedia.

Trench fighting is a fearsome form of combat… Hand to hand… at close quarters...

Constant supplies of bullets and hand grenades were crucial to this kind of fighting so men were constantly struggling back and forth across the smashed ground with supplies of bombs and ammunition whilst under heavy shell and machine gunfire.

The weight of fire overhead from both field guns and machine guns kept attackers and defenders alike in the trenches… the trenches never the less gave them access to each other being part of a communications or grid system of fire trenches running left to right across a given front line with communications trenches running back out of them.

In the attack the two sides would rarely see one and other clearly because fire and communications trenches were built ‘traversed...’ i.e. built in angular kinks so as to deny any intruding attacker the chance of firing down the whole length of the fire trench… this system also served to localize the destructive blast of any shell that happened to fall into any given section of the fire trench...

"Bombing and shell fire were most feared because of the multiple effects explosions produce in the human body… at it’s worst it disintegrates a human body so nothing is recognizable… less spectacular but just as deadly… blasts could create ‘over pressure’ or vacuums in the bodies organs rupturing the lungs and causing hemorrhaging in the brain and spinal cord…

The most common effects of the constant shellfire was it produced an often invisible maelstrom above ground criss crossed by shell splinters or shrapnel balls… which travel comparatively slowly and loose velocity rapidly but often travel in clusters thus inflicting several large or many smaller wounds on the same person. Splinters tend to be irregular in shape and produce very rough wounds with a great deal of tissue damage... large shell fragments amputate limbs, decapitate, bisect or other wise grossly mutilate the human body."

John Keegan. The Face Of Battle.

Prints from the First World War illustrate the potential effects of trench fighting on soldiers and how it causes them to fight… often at night. (Prints: DirectArt / Cranston Fine Art).

Particularly under cover of darkness both friend and foe could approach each other very closely without being able to see each other, though aware of each others presence… an impasse would result… only to be resolved by an individual or group on one side or the other deciding ‘to go over the top...’ e.g. jumping up the side of the trench… charging across open ground and dropping into attack the enemy massing in the next section of fire trench.

The normal method of resolving this kind of impasse however was by bombing, the throwing of hand grenades over the top of the traverse, and running around to arrive just as it exploded.

If played seriously this was an extremely dangerous game, for one could run into the explosion of ones own hand grenade, or into the fire of an unwounded enemy soldier, or into the grenade of someone also bombing from the next traverse up.

1918 Loos Private Chillingworth D.C.M. Coldstream Gaurds bombing enemy from a trench. directart.

Bomb, rifle and bayonet at close quarters… you either got skewered or blown to bits… lucky if you just got shot… "as executioner over short or long distances the bullet was champion man killer… a high velocity conical bullet spinning quickly about it’s long axis could produce a variety of unpleasant results… at best forcing open a neat channel with the ‘exit’ wound the same size as the ‘entry’ wound… however should the bullet tumble inside the body… usually caused by hitting bone… then it’s path from the point it starts to tumble became much enlarged thus creating a large ‘explosive’ looking hole of an exit wound…

The effect of a tumbling bullet produced by its striking bone was usually much enhanced by the bone’s splintering under the impact, its own fragments then becoming secondary projectiles which produced massive damage to the tissue round about. Some bullets also set up hydraulic effects, their passage driving body fluids away from the wound track at pressures which surrounding tissue cannot withstand."

John Keegan. The Face Of Battle.

The "tastefully" missing detail here is the large number of shattered body parts thrown around the trench by the constant bombing… and also at Dien Bien Phu individual European soldiers used a large number of automatic weapons against Viet riflemen with fixed bayonets in close quarters fighting.

Private Ryder. Middlesex Regiment V.C.
Dashes enemy trench clearing it with a Lewis gun. directart.

Days of vicious hand to hand fighting takes great courage on the part of the combatants… Notice how close these soldiers are to each other… this is a very personal form of fighting…

Private Hutchinson V.C. Lancashire Fusileirs shooting German sentries leading an attack on enemy trenches. directart.

Men look into each others eyes as they kill each other.

Trench raiding was an often brutal feature of trench warfare that came into being in World War I. It was the practice of making small scale surprise attacks on enemy positions.

Typically, trench raids were carried out at night by small teams of men who would navigate across no-man's land and infiltrate enemy trench systems.

Despite the fact that World War I was the first conflict to be fought by mechanized means, trench raiding was very similar to medieval warfare insofar as it was fought face-to-face and with crude weapons. Trench raiders were lightly equipped for quiet, speedy, unimpeded movement and armed themselves not only with modern weapons such as pistols, submachine guns and grenades, but also notably with bayonets, knives (including purpose-made trench knives), brass knuckles, and deadly homemade maces and clubs for swift and silent killing. wikipedia.

U.S. M1917 "Knuckle Duster" trench knife and leather sheath of World War I. wikipedia

Trench knives are either purpose-made weapons, or are made from cut-down (shortened) bayonets or swords, and intended for close-quarter fighting, the design originating in the trench warfare of the First World War. They were particularly useful for trench raiding operations, along with other mêlée weapons. wikipedia.

Always attacks take place over smashed rough open ground… so soldiers feel their own vulnerability particularly to shell fire… look at these men below... you can see all of them move in an instinctive crouch…

Sedan, France, May 1917. wikipedia.

This makes it a tougher job for the officers and N.CO.S leading the men… keeping everyone moving forward at all times… particularly when charging across open ground… culminating inevitably in a short sharp and often very bloody and confused trench fight…

British Indian Army Soldiers.

This picture above captures the feel of a final close quarters assault… showing a group of British Indian Army soldiers ‘ going over the top’ to capture a German trench with guns and grenades. Circa 1945. wikipedia.

This kind of fighting is what most of the Europeans at Dien Bien Phu (with the exeption of their Commander Colonel Castries… who had been trained in the military tradition of the cavalryman) had been trained for… it was part of French military culture and history… part of the European tradition of arms… Napoleons French Grenadiers for example had been bomb throwing foot soldiers, riflemen who were experts at close quarters bomb and bayonet fighting.

French observer in trench, Hirtzbach Woods, France, 1917. wikipedia.

Meanwhile the communists had never experienced warfare like this before… they had only just recently evolved from jungle guerrilla fighters into a modern mechanized army… but what they lacked in skill and experience they made up for in sheer courage, guts and tenacity.
After Dien Bien Phu they grew a reputation for being some of the best infantry in the world… they were very brave men…

Shortly after dark on the 31st, Langlais told Major Marcel Bigeard, who was holding a defensive position by the river to fall back Bigeard refused, saying "As long as I have one man alive I won't let go of my position Otherwise, Dien Bien Phu is done for."

The night of the 31st, the 316th division attacked but just as it appeared and the French were about to be overrun, a few French tanks arrived, and helped push the Viet Minh back.

Smaller attacks were also pushed back. The Viet Minh briefly captured some ground only to be pushed back by a French counterattack at dawn on the 1st.

Fighting continued in this manner over the next several nights. The Viet Minh repeatedly attacked only to be beaten back again and again… It was developing into the worst kind of trench warfare…

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 out on open ground.

A Bearcat of the Aéronavale drops napalm on Viet Minh Division 320th's artillery during Operation Mouette. (11.1953) wikipedia.

At that point, Giap decided to change tactics. Although Giap still had the same objective he decided to employ more entrenchment and sapping to try to achieve it.


April 10 saw a dawn attack as the French attempted to retake major strong points that had now become a threat.

The dawn attack, was preceded by a short, massive artillery barrage, followed by small unit infiltration attacks, followed by mopping-up operations. Without realizing it, Bigeard the commander had re-invented the Infiltration tactics used with great success by Oskar von Hutier in World War I.

Control of this position changed hands several times that day, but by the next morning the French had control of the strongpoint again. The Viet Minh attempted to retake it on the evening of April 12, but were pushed back.

"At this point, the morale of the Viet Minh soldiers broke. The French intercepted radio messages which told of units refusing orders, and Communist prisoners said that they were told to advance or be shot by the officers and noncommissioned officers behind them."

The extreme casualties they had suffered (6,000 killed, 8,000 to 10,000 wounded, and 2,500 captured) had taken a toll; worse, the Viet Minh had a total lack of medical facilities. "Nothing strikes at combat morale like the knowledge that if wounded, the soldier will go uncared for." To avert the crisis, Giap called in fresh reinforcements from Laos. wikipedia.

Meanwhile repeated attempts to reinforce the French garrison by parachute drops were mad by lone planes at irregular intervals so as to avoid excessive casualties from Viet Minh anti-aircraft fire.

Some brave reinforcements did fight their way through… but not nearly enough to replace French casualties.

Juin 1955. Encore en Indochine. le 2nd B.E.P.

French attempts to relieve their doomed garrison now slowed to just a trickle feed as the only way to get through the wall of anti aircraft fire was single aircraft… one at a time… dodging the flak…

Gradually the Viet Minh were closing in… they now controlled 90% of the airfield… accurate parachute drops became impossible… supplies were no longer getting through…

Final defeat

The Viet Minh launched a massed assault against the exhausted defenders on the night of May 1, overrunning positions…On that day in May 1954 it had become apparent that Dien Bien Phu's position was hopeless. French artillery and mortars had been progressively silenced by murderously accurate Communist Viet Minh artillery fire, and the monsoon rains had slowed down supply drops to a trickle and transformed the French trenches and dugouts into bottomless quagmires. The surviving officers and men, many of whom had lived for 54 days on a steady diet of instant coffee and cigarettes, were in a catatonic state of exhaustion. wikipedia.

Communist forces, in human-wave attacks, were swarming over the last remaining defenses. The old cavalryman de Castries knew it was the beginning of the end. He ordered his last reserves into three more desperate counter attacks but Giap held his ground and counter attacked himself. De Castries only had two artillery pieces still firing and was virtually out of ammunition.

One outpost commander phoned De Castries: "We can keep on fighting for only ten more minutes. Should we surrender?" De Castries snapped back: "Keep on fighting for ten more minutes."

‘On May 6, Giap orders the final assault. On all the positions the fighting is furious and often hand to hand. Handfuls of Viets are cut down on the barbed wire but each time more arrive. The Viet artillery ceaselessly pounds the French.

Chinese operated soviet-built Katyushas were used against the French at Dien Bien Phu on May 6, 1954. wikipedia.

Finally on May 7, all the strong points are taken by the ‘bo dois’ except the French strong point Isabelle which continues to resist.

Colonel Lalande, commander of the 3rd eme, continues the fight. Both sides fighting with relentless fury. The legionnaires, having run out of ammunition, fight with knives and bayonets.’ Official Dien Bien Phu website.

This is where words are truly inadequate… men with knives against men with guns… hand to hand… usually in the dark… this form of warfare is probably the most personally brutalizing for any soldier… below is an example of the kind of weapons used.

The French version of the Mark I is stamped on the blade ricasso with a recumbent lion, and "Au Lion" below that. The grip of the French version is typically stamped with "U.S. 1918.

or Au Lion (usually marked on the blade - French manufacture) wikipedia.

It becomes obvious that the fortress cannot last until nightfall. Communist forces, in human-wave attacks, were swarming over the last remaining defenses.

At 5:00 PM, de Castries radios French headquarters in Hanoi in a high-pitched but curiously impersonal voice, the end obviously had come for the fortress. De Castries ticked off a long list of 800-man battalions, which had been reduced to companies of 80 men:

"The Viets are everywhere. The situation is very grave. The combat is confused and goes on all about. I feel the end is approaching, but we will fight to the finish."

Cogny: "Well understood. You will fight to the end. It is out of the question to run up the white flag after your heroic resistance." wikipedia.

‘At midnight, while all resistance has ended at Diên Biên Phú, at the French strong point Isabelle the Legion still holds its position.

The superhuman resistance at Isabelle finally ends in the early morning. Only a few dazed and completely worn out spectral figures are overrun.

A stunned silence reigns over the battle field’ Official Dien Bien Phu website.

The relevance of the story?... and why some regard it as one of the most important of modern battles..?

It was… "the first time that a non-European colonial independence movement had evolved through all the stages from guerrilla bands to a conventionally organized and equipped army able to defeat a modern Western occupier in pitched battle."

Dien Bien Phu fell on May 7, 1954, and the defeated French left Indochina shortly thereafter. Here, captured French soldiers trudge through the fields after the surrender at Dien Bien Phu. (AP photo/Vietnam News Agency)

The Asians, after centuries of subjugation, had beaten the white man at his own game.

French surrender and “Bo Doi” troops swarm over French defenses in a crushing Vietnamese victory.

And today peasant armies of guerrillas globally challenge the West's ability to withstand a potent combination of political and military pressure in totally alien environments.

And when will Western Super Powers learn from the history books… isn’t knowledge supposed to empower?

So how could America watch all of this and then go and make the same mistake..?

It’s interesting to note that as usual, one defining factor in the list of strategic errors this story and the story of Vietnam itself illustrates is a Western sense of racial superiority… which is constantly proven to be unjustified by history… I’m sure Afghanistan and Iraq will end the same way… love, understanding and giving are more effective and useful to mankind than war… it tells us this in the books… but many young men like myself grew up believing war was glorious… as you grow older you learn that’s actually nonsense…

Aftermath… Prisoners

On May 8, the Viet Minh counted 11,721 prisoners, of whom 4,436 were wounded.

This was the greatest number the Viet Minh had ever captured: one-third of the total captured during the entire war.

The prisoners were divided into groups. Able bodied soldiers were force-marched over 250 miles to prison camps to the north and east.

Hundreds died of disease on the way...

DIEN BIEN PHU VIDEO

The surviving French prisoners of the battle at Dien Bien Phu, were starved, beaten, and heaped with abuse, and many died.

Of 10,863 survivors held as prisoners, only 3,290 were repatriated four months later.

The fate of 3,013 prisoners of Indochinese origin is still unknown.

Meanwhile the French withdrew from its Indo Chinese colonies… Accords partitioned the country in two; fighting later resumed, among rival Vietnamese forces... and in 1959 the Vietnam War (Second Indochina War) began…

In 1963, as Washington was deepening its commitment in Vietnam, Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev made a telling remark to a U.S. official.

"If you want to, go ahead and fight in the jungles of Vietnam," Khrushchev said. "The French fought there for seven years and still had to quit in the end. Perhaps the Americans will be able to stick it out for a little longer, but eventually they will have to quit, too." By Bruce Kennedy. CNN Interactive

If Krushchev could see it so clearly then why not the huge American intelligence and military machine of the supposedly most powerful nation on earth… and they are doing it again right now …

‘There is nothing that is a more certain sign of insanity than to do the same thing over and over and expect the results to be different’ -Einstein.

It does make one wonder about the sanity of Bush's governance of America and its people and Tony Blair's governance of Britain… supposedley educated and sophisticated men should know better...

...don't you think so?

Next posting in War History Repeats Itself - The dangers of having a highly developed sense of racial superiority in war!

*Please note! Research and quotes for this blog gratefully taken from Wikipedia. You tube. The Official Battle of Dien Bien Phu website. The French Foreign Legion Indo chine Website. An Article entitled: Dien Bien Phu 1954 battle changed Vietnam's history. By Bruce Kennedy CNN Interactive. Militaire Histoire.org.site. And excerpts from ‘The Face of Battle’ by John Keegan.Prints from DirectArt/ Cranston Fine Art gallery. kenlaager.com & history.enotes.com