French Foreign Legion

by Douglas Porch

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  ON OCTOBER 6, some of Charton's advanced elements pushed forward to make contact with Le Page and ran into serious Viet Minh resistance. With his etiolated column, however, Charton's ability to maneuver was severely limited. In fact, both commanders had filed into an enormous ambush— fifteen Viet Minh battalions had closed in on the beleaguered French. Before dawn on the morning of October 7, the BEP was charged with leading the breakout of Le Page's group from the valley of Coc Xa toward the approaching Charton. “We attacked several times,” wrote Kemencei, who wondered why the command could not have waited until daylight and coordinated the attack with air support.

  Result: the cadavers of the men of the BEP paved the passage which, despite the terrible losses, had been opened by the legionnaire parachutists, . . . I still had four full clips for my U.S. carbine. I gave two to another NCO who had none left at all. Then, with a brisk order, quick and precise, repeated several times in a ringing voice: “Forward, charge!,” this group which was almost out of munitions but with bayonet or knife in the fist, threw themselves on the enemy as a single man. I followed as best I could, emptying my clips on our left flank where the murderous bursts were coming from. In this way I passed through the middle of many dying, legionnaires or Viets, some wounded by bayonets.24

  Thanks to this attack by the BEP, regarded as one of the finest actions of the Legion, the two columns joined hands, so to speak. But the Moroccans from Le Page's column were by this time at the end of their tether. They fled over the rocks and down the cliff faces crying “Allah-Akbar! Allah-Akbar!” Their panic quickly spread to the North Africans with Charton, who until then had maintained their composure. Among Le Page's force, only the Legion paras, or what was left of them, kept their heads. “These men were silent and resolved.... Several proposed to ‘faire Camerone.’ But with what fortifications and what munitions? On this terrain, the Viets would shoot us like rabbits.”

  At four o'clock in the afternoon, the 3rd tabor with Charton's force broke in the face of a feeble Viet Minh attack. The French force was dissolving into a mob. The only coherent unit was the battalion of the 3e étranger. Charton moved south with it and about three hundred Moroccans, avoiding Viet Minh positions, until he was wounded and captured. Le Page gathered the remaining battalion commanders around him, and they took the decision to break into small groups and flee toward That Khe, twenty miles away. Most followed the Song Ky Cong River, but the bush was swarming with Viet Minh shouting, “Rendez-vous, soldats français! Rendez-vous, vous êtes perdus!” (“Give yourselves up, you are lost!”) Twelve officers and 475 men actually made it to That Khe, including 3 officers and 21 men of the BEP. Janos Kemencei was not among them. He was hiding in a bush when a small Viet Minh soldier placed a gun barrel to his head, and said, “lai-dai”—“Come here.”25

  The loss of the combined Le Page and Charton columns cost the French between five thousand and six thousand men in what Bernard Fall called the greatest French colonial defeat since the fall of Quebec in 1759. Worse, news of the defeat produced utter panic in Hanoi. Both That Khe and Lang Son were abandoned in conditions of great disorder, even though neither garrison was threatened by the Viet Minh, leaving behind tons of munitions, rifles, machine guns, uniforms, gasoline and even, according to some accounts, thirteen howitzers and an airplane. The 1er BEP had performed with sterling courage during the retreat from Cao Bang, a courage that led to its annihilation. Reconstituted, it continued to demonstrate, together with the 2e BEP, which arrived in Indochina in January 1949, a developed esprit and high morale right through the most desperate circumstances at Dien Bien Phu. In part, this was because they received the cream of Legion officers and recruits. “Within a week volunteers for the paratroops were told to come forward,” Liddell Hart wrote of his basic training. “Though they were rumored to be virtual suicide-squads the pay was considerably higher than in other arms. A large number of volunteers were forthcoming.”26

  But while the 1er and 2e BEPs, along with the colonial parachute battalions, formed the shock troops of the French army, their full potential was not always realized, nor could it be realized, by the high command in the combat conditions of Indochina. In some ways, it was curious that the French threw themselves with such enthusiasm into the formation of parachute battalions—from only a few hundred paratroops in 1946, the numbers expanded to 5,684 by 1950 and nearly doubled in the following year, with even engineer, artillery and signals units organizing airborne formations. By the end of the war the Expeditionary Force numbered six European battalions, including the two BEPs, six Vietnamese battalions, one each from Laos and Cambodia, plus the odds and ends from support units, all of which required the creation of a separate Airborne Forces Command Indochina (Troupes Aéro portées d'Indochine or TAPI) to organize the various bases and supply and training centers, as well as to coordinate operations.

  Such a wholesale expansion was in many respects curious, as the classic role of paratroopers in World War II was to be dropped behind the lines, fix the enemy, disorganize enemy rear areas and provide centers of resistance to which advancing infantry could rally. In short, the role of the paratroopers was to get the infantry moving, essentially by providing an objective to rescue. And even then, it is possible to argue that the paratroops were a terribly overrated force in World War II, for the only successful paratroop operations were the German ones against the Belgian forts in 1940 and in Crete, although even there against largely unorganized British resistance the German losses had been so great that they were never used again. It is difficult to detect any substantial contribution made by Allied paratroops to the Normandy invasion, except to provide an incentive for the infantry to get off the invasion beaches, and to conjure up suspenseful episodes for feature films, a class into which the “Bridge Too Far” at Arnhem also falls. Perhaps the French mania for forming paratroop battalions after 1946 can be explained in large part by the fact that they had missed out on this experience in World War II. Two small paratroop units existed in the French army in 1940. By 1944–45, the French forces counted three regiments of chasseurs parachutistes, which usually fought as infantry. Therefore, the French were unaware of the shortcomings of airborne troops, and were eager to prove themselves as modern and as capable as other armies in this military specialty. Paratroops also appeared to offer a solution to the lack of ground mobility in Indochina, as well as appeal to the elitist instincts of a section of the French army.

  Their role in Indochina were even more obscure, for there were no front lines, and therefore no “rear” in any sense familiar to a European soldier, although many French commanders never seemed to grasp this fact. Dropping paratroops into enemy territory during Operation Lea in 1947, for the occupation of Hoa Binh in November 1951, and on Phu Doan a year later served no real purpose because the Viet Minh simply faded away rather than immediately coagulate around this para infection in their “rear.” In these instances, Giap preferred to allow the French to settle into their captured possessions, string themselves out on the approach roads, and then force them to fight their way clear, as at Hoa Binh in 1951–52.

  Perhaps the airborne operation with the most strategic potential was the drop on Dong Khe in 1950, which caught the Viet Minh by surprise. But the French high command squandered the opportunity when they did not evacuate the garrison at Cao Bang while the coast, in this case R.C. 4, was clear. By 1953, the French no longer possessed the capability of fighting through to isolated forces in the highlands overland, and preferred to supply them by air. This worked at Na San in 1952. They also achieved tactical surprise with an air drop on Lang Son in 1953, but this operation amounted to little more than a large raid. This classic para tactic of a deep drop in the rear, repeated at Dien Bien Phu, led to disaster. The only real role open to them was to be dropped directly onto posts threatened by Viet Minh attack, as at Dong Khe in 1950 and Nghia Lo in 1951. Generally speaking, however, the paratroopers never discovered a role for themselves, and were most often used a
s shock infantry.

  For this reason, while the two BEPs fought very well, one may wonder if their creation was the best possible use of Legion manpower. Of course, the debate over whether one should separate out the most highly motivated men for special units or spread them throughout an army is an old one. For the Legion, as with other forces, the paras provided an extra insurance policy, a supplemental commitment on the part of those who, already volunteers for the Legion, took the extra step of volunteering for the paras. What this meant was that even if the unit did not perform well, at least its soldiers would try. But from the viewpoint of the Legion as a whole, the creation of the BEPs creamed off many of the most motivated legionnaires from its infantry units. Given their five-year enlistment and their generally higher cultural level—generally higher, that is, than that of the North Africans, Senegalese or Vietnamese serving in the French army—the army should have trained more legionnaires for armor or other technical specialties, rather than simply pushing them out of airplane doors. The chief of the armored branch actually suggested this, but to no effect. As a result, the armored/infantry ratio in the Legion remained among the lowest in the Expeditionary Corps. And in all units, the Legion continued to be desperately short of mechanics and other specialists.

  This is not to say, however, that there were no tactical possibilities for the paratroopers. Yet they were definitely limited by the weather for almost three-quarters of the year, and by the fact that centers of Viet Minh main-force resistance were concentrated in remote, jungle-covered highlands that offered few drop zones. A third limitation was that of materiel, both in aircraft and in equipment for airborne battalions. Transport aircraft were at a premium in Indochina—for instance, Operation Lea, the plan executed in October 1947 to capture the Viet Minh high command by dropping paratroops on their headquarters near Bac Can, was based on an excellent strategic assessment that by capturing the Viet Minh high command, the insurrection would be decapitated. Unfortunately, the plan was cursed by what a war college would call a strategic/tactical mismatch—that is, it failed largely because the French lacked the tactical capability to carry it out. It took three return trips and most of a day to put a mere 950 paratroopers on the objective, forfeiting the advantages of surprise, which permitted Ho Chi Minh to depart, not in undue haste as first reported, but at leisure.27 And although after 1950 the French, with American aid, gradually built up their fleet of C47s and C-119 “Flying Boxcars” to supplement the old Junker 52s inherited in 1945, this was not accompanied by a sufficient increase in crews, mechanics and spare parts, which limited the number of aircraft available for operations.

  The policy from 1952 of defending remote outposts like Nghia Lo and establishing bases aéroterrestres such as Na San and eventually Dien Bien Phu, which barred the route to Laos, gobbled up most of that air support for defensive, rather than offensive, operations. Indeed, during the battle of Dien Bien Phu, the massive supply organization of the Viet Minh, which depended upon Provincial Road No. 41, offered a suitable target for para disruption. But a lack of available transport aircraft caused the plan to be abandoned. Also, the uncontested air superiority enjoyed by the French at the war's beginning gradually diminished as the Viet Minh acquired effective antiaircraft protection.

  The shortage, and diversity, of materiel was obvious in the airborne battalions. Not surprisingly, perhaps, for the French army in 1946 was living on half-rations. Janos Kemencei discovered material conditions at Sidi-bel-Abbès to be hardly better than in the camp for displaced persons that he had fled—uniforms were a mix-and-match of American and British castoffs, men were given neither underwear nor socks, his rifle was an 1893-model Lebel, and meals consisted essentially of boiled leeks with the occasional treat of stewed camel meat in a thin sauce. Others characterized the Legion as offering “too much music ... not enough bread” in this period.28

  More important, however, was the shortage of equipment, including parachutes, which meant that all had to be recovered after a drop. The Viet Minh, instantly recognizing the attention the paras gave to recuperating their parachutes, even sent women and children to destroy them during a drop. Kemencei constantly lamented the lack of equipment—especially mortars and machine guns—but even of simple items like supplemental magazines, so that ammunition for automatic rifles was carried loose in sacks and often had to be slotted into magazines during fire fights. Only in 1952 were French weapons relatively standardized with the importation of American equipment. Until then, units were armed with whatever ironmongery had been left moldering in French arsenals or with surplus equipment that could be borrowed or even stolen. The result was a diversity of armament that taxed the ingenuity of even experienced sergeants to master. The length of the World War I-vintage Lebels and MAS 36s with which many were armed until 1950 meant that the rifles had to be parachuted in a separate bundle, and the paras jumped armed only with their knives. “As shock troops and elite troops, we were well catered for!” Kemencei remarked sardonically. Even when the 1er BEP was rearmed in 1950, he considered these “recuperated weapons ... unworthy of us.”

  While these equipment shortages did not undermine morale unduly, they did compromise confidence and efficiency. Legionnaires perished because of lack of ammunition, ammunition that was badly adapted, had deteriorated from poor storage, or was sabotaged by Communist trade unionists in French factories. Kemencei noted that on the R.C. 4 in October 1950, the Rebvel 31s of the 1er BEP, designed for service on the Maginot Line, desperately heavy, and requiring the operator to kneel to fire, were far less effective in jungle combat than the latest belt-fed, 32-pound American machine guns that the Viet Minh were firing. “I think that, armed with this materiel, we would have doubled or tripled our efficiency,” he concluded. “... I am convinced that if we had been adequately armed (. . . that is, with American and other machine guns) we would have suffered far fewer casualties, and kept many legionnaires in a state to fight. The BEP would certainly not have been wiped out.”29 “The soldiers have come to make disturbing comparisons between the accumulation and modernization of Viet Minh armament and our own,” the 2e étranger reported in 1950. “The explanation that one can give that we are carrying out pacification while the Viet is making ‘war’ does not satisfy them.”30

  The BEPs remained excellent units throughout the war. However, their efficiency gradually declined. Losses were high both from combat and disease. The 1er BEP wrote in 1951 that its high sickness rate came from operating in rice paddies, bathing in water polluted by corpses, and the fact that legionnaires refused to take medicines to ward off malaria.31 Para-troop operations in remote areas took a fearful toll, especially when prolonged beyond three weeks, which probably exceeded the psychological endurance of many men: “It's a catastrophe,” the commander of the 2e BEP wrote of one operation in 1950.

  I cite the example of the last three days of operations: The strength of companies which stood at 90 to 100 fell brutally to 60.... The legionnaires had lost a great part of their offensive power. They marched, but... heir fatigue prevented them from exploiting a success. A group of rebels escaped them simply because the legionnaires were unable to charge over a hundred yards (some fell down exhausted, others vomited bile).32

  Cadres grew older and less dynamic, while replacements were often hastily trained. “I've said it. I've written it. I do not have ‘fresh’ cadres, ‘fresh’ legionnaires,” the 2e BEP again complained in March 1952. “. . . The battles are becoming constantly and rapidly harder. . . . We cannot continue for long at this pace, neither on a tactical level nor on a health level.”33 While the Viet Minh infantry continued to progress to the point where, on its home ground, it could be considered first rate, the French infantry, on the contrary, became less effective as the war continued. Even the superiority complex that characterized the paratroopers in the early days was gradually replaced in the years 1952–53 by a more subtle appreciation of their own merits and those of the enemy. “No one underestimates the worth of the enemy, who has
proven himself,” the commander of the 2e BEP wrote in December 1952. “But no one has developed an inferiority complex because of him either.”34 This was perhaps a tribute to strong para morale, for the third battalion of the 2e étranger reported after the hard fighting around Hoa Binh in 1951–52 that “there has been created in the battalion a sort of inferiority complex” vis-à-vis the Viet Minh.35 Therefore, line units, too, appeared to be suffering a decline of efficiency and morale.

  Chapter 25

  “SQUEEZED LIKE A LEMON”— THE WAR OF ATTRITION, 1951–1954

  THE PROBLEMS OF the BEPs were, if anything, magnified in the rest of the Legion, especially after the collapse on the R.C. 4. Nineteen fifty was definitely a major turning point in the war, one that in Maoist terms marked the move from purely guerrilla conflict to the “positional” phase, when strength on both sides was roughly equal and the insurgents undertook more daring, large-scale operations. It also caused the French to begin to reevaluate for the first time an enemy that so far most had not taken very seriously. In the Legion, and more particularly in the 3e étranger, which had seen one of its battalions sacrificed with Charton, those who had so far fought only poorly armed guerrillas in the populated lowlands learned of the defeat with stunned disbelief. “The result has been a sort of distrust of our own arms, incapable of insuring victory for us in this battle,” read a December 1950 report. The loss of two elite Legion battalions apparently also gave rise to disparaging comments about the Legion from those who believed them more PR than punch, which led to “fights with soldiers from neighboring units, who in their spirit have not yet been engaged in the war and who made remarks to [the legionnaires] contrary to their honor as soldiers.” Nevertheless, the requests by legionnaires for prolongations of tours of duty in Indochina had dropped by 50 percent as the result of the conviction that the “real war” in the delta was about to begin, although this appears to have been only temporary.1 In fact, Indochina remained a fairly popular posting throughout the war with many legionnaires who, despite its hardships, preferred its more relaxed atmosphere to that of North Africa.