by Laura Lam
They carried a small quantity of rice, as well as dried meat and a piece of aluminium cookware. A vegetarian, Cuong wore a sling around his neck containing a packet of rice, a small sack of sea salt, and sometimes a bunch of bananas. His backpack contained emergency medicines as well as personal belongings. The guide was familiar with many short-cuts and he could lead the group through vast areas of thick woods in the darkness of night. Often one person had to cling onto another for support and direction, taking each step blindly. Occasionally they saw tiny stars in the black sky and would sing a song to cheer themselves. At some of the Viet Minh stations, the guards had either been killed by colonial troops or had fled. As soon as they reached the Central Highlands, they learned that the local Montagnards had been armed by the French army and promised three Indochina piasters for each Viet Minh head.
Standing next to a broken thatched hut at the foot of a hill, the guide bade them goodbye. A new guide was introduced and he invited them to go inside the hut. He was in his forties, with a bony face. His clothes were dotted with patches, and he looked weary. He did not say anything and did not offer anything. Madame Thap looked annoyed. Sensing everyone’s discomfort, the guide calmly said, “Comrades, please follow this star to the North and ask for directions as you travel.” Madame Thap became even more annoyed, but she asked politely if he would send someone to accompany them. He answered, “I am the only surviving person at this station. There were seven of us together but six have lost their lives.” His words touched their hearts. Their eyes filled with tears.
In pitch darkness they kept on walking, following the star the guide had pointed out to them. Madame Thap gathered her resolve and said to the group, “All paths are inside our heads, Comrades. And our people will always assist us.”
The tropical forests of the Central Highlands were daunting to pass through, and vast bamboo groves were common. Moving along the rocky paths they heard voices of jungle birds fighting over fallen fruits. Often they encountered traces of tigers and would start a fire and keep it burning for hours, while watching out for the tigers. Each time this happened the fear would haunt them for several nights.
At a tribal village one early morning they were restocking their food supply. Cuong found a bunch of bananas but they were too young and would never ripen. He still ate the bananas with rice and sea salt. Others ate rice with dried deer meat and chilies. They had been traveling for nearly three months and the risk of capture still remained very high. To get ready for the steep mountain routes, they had to abandon some personal belongings. Madame Thap kept one piece of paper inside her bamboo walking stick. It was a letter introducing them whenever they reached a Viet Minh station. If the enemy caught them with that letter, they were sure to be executed.
As soon as they reached Phan Rang, on the coast, they learned that French troops were raiding the villages. The Viet Minh network immediately arranged for them to escape by sampan to a small island. After a short rest they tried to reach Tuy Hoa with the sampan, but on the second night they encountered a heavy rainstorm. The mast broke and the sail collapsed. Everyone lay flat on the bottom of the sampan as it drifted through the night. It was a moonlit night, without rain, and the sea churned by the wind into a foaming froth. They remembered this as the “milk storm.”
They eventually reached Tuy Hoa and were able to take a train. When the train stopped in Hue they were greeted with banners from the local people, “We support the people of the South and their struggles.” On the same train journey, once they reached Nghe An, they entered territory controlled by the Chinese army of Chiang Kai-shek. By the time they arrived in Thanh Hoa the towns were filled with Chinese soldiers. There were signs of destruction everywhere. Chinese troops had killed many villagers and those who survived had escaped the area. Under intense heat all the greenery had dried out, exposing bare rocks and hills. The train encountered heavy rain and was derailed in Nam Dinh. The group eventually found an old car for the remaining journey. As soon as they reached Ha Noi, they could hear the chanting and singing of the Viet Minh army.
They had traveled nearly two thousand kilometres, circling and doubling back over the country, and it had taken four months. They arrived too late for the Congress – of the fifty representatives from the South, not a single one had arrived in time – but they were received with fanfare by their hosts. Cuong was asked by Ho Chi Minh to remain in Ha Noi.
Although the French didn’t officially declare war against Viet Nam until December, 1946, in reality the French War had begun over a year before, when French troops forced their way back into Sai Gon. They had military assistance from the British. It was scarcely a month after Japan’s unconditional surrender and the Europeans were hell-bent on reclaiming all their pre-war colonies in Southeast Asia, by force of arms where necessary. Leading his troops, General Jacques Leclerc announced on entry to Sai Gon on 24 September 1945, “We have come to reclaim our inheritance.” Upon hearing Leclerc’s statement, Vo Nguyen Giap wept.
Cuong was appointed Chief of Medical Services for the Ministry of Defense in Ha Noi. More bloodshed was anticipated between the two armies. Three years later, in the autumn of 1949, Cuong was sent on a secret mission to the South along with Le Duc Tho and General Duong Quoc Chinh to study the Southern war zones and prepare for the protracted struggle ahead. (Tho later represented North Viet Nam in negotiations with Henry Kissinger over the eventual cease-fire in 1973.) When the mission was over Cuong wanted to stay and Ho Chi Minh asked him to oversee the Viet Minh’s military medical services in the Southern war zones. He was based in Hong Dan, twenty kilometres southwest of Truong An – my home village, and forty kilometres northeast of the Jungle of Hell (Rung U Minh). The Viet Minh was using this jungle as their main southern base. The Jungle of Hell is a huge and poisonous mangrove swamp – the largest one in the world outside the Amazon basin – well known for its leeches and malaria-carrying mosquitoes. The Viet Minh built simple huts there above the water, supported on wooden poles, and slept and worked inside mosquito nets, knowing that no foreigner would dare enter such a pestilential area. From this time until mid-1954, Cuong and my father would meet regularly, at our house where Cuong would come to recover from physical exhaustion, or in the jungle.
For Cuong, managing medical services in the active war zones, with limited resources, and in constant danger, was a severe challenge. Staff meetings were held on wooden platforms just above the water, with junior staff sitting or standing in adjacent sampans. The platforms doubled as emergency rooms. The Viet Minh owned no cars, no jeeps, and no ambulances. The most common method of transporting wounded soldiers from battlefields to emergency care stations was by canvas stretcher and sampan. At each station the medical team could handle from forty to fifty wounded soldiers. Patients were placed on “beds” of green leaves, cloth, or plastic sheets. None of the stations had a roof – to prevent being identified by colonial aircraft. During the monsoon seasons patients and nurses endured horrendous conditions.
A typical “operating table” was the deck of a sampan or a canvas stretcher, supported on the shoulders of two women standing in water. Only a small number of the wounded could be carried out of the battle zone for longer term care. For many, the swampy jungles, rivers, and channels became their final resting place. Far to the north, along the Truong Son Mountain Range and on the series of paths known to the West as the Ho Chi Minh trail, thousands of Vietnamese soldiers – men and women – would be buried in mass graves at the foothills of the mountains.
The French War had already begun. As he witnessed more human losses and suffering, Ho Chi Minh tried to reconcile with the French. In January 1947 he wrote to Jean Sainteny, who was Charles de Gaulle’s special emissary to Viet Nam:
There are already enough deaths and enough ruins! What are we to do now, you and I? France has only to recognize the independence and unity of Viet Nam, and at once hostilities will cease. I am ready to work for peace, a just and honourable peace for our two countries. I hope that you,
on your side, will be working to the same end.
The letter was not answered.
Ho Chi Minh then sent a cease-fire proposal to the French High Commissioner for Indochina, Emile Bollaert. It was rejected. Charles De Gaulle had already instructed Bollaert not to give up any of Viet Nam’s territory to the Viet Minh.
Ho tried to seek help from the US government but his effort failed too. From the days of his earlier exile in Europe until 1947, Ho had repeatedly made pleas to the Americans and he told them, “I am not a Communist in the American sense.” His country needed an ally and he still had much admiration for the American people and their spirit of independence. But the US government would actively take sides with the French throughout the French War (1946-1954). Having recognized France’s claim to Indochina, the Americans continued to support them both financially and militarily.
By 1952 the French counted ninety thousand men as ‘dead, wounded, missing or captured’ in the six-year war with the Viet Minh. A senior US Defense Department official, John Ohley, made a public statement, “Officers are being lost at a rate faster than they are being graduated from officer schools in France.”
The French had been driven back on the defensive and were concerned about how to regain the upper hand against their guerrilla tormentors. It became clear to them that a decisive settling was needed. International opinion was now moving toward the kind of negotiated settlement they did not want. This added urgency to their military agenda.
THE GRASSHOPPER AND THE ELEPHANT
“In all territorial species, without exception, possession of a territory lends enhanced energy to the proprietor… the challenger is almost invariably defeated, the intruder expelled”
Robert Ardrey, The Territorial Imperative
“You can kill ten of my men for every one I kill of yours. But even at these odds, you will lose and I will win”
Ho Chi Minh to the French
To demonstrate their mastery of the country, the French fatefully chose a confrontation at Dien Bien Phu, which had long been one of their strongholds controlling access to Laos. Located in a remote area, four hundred and fifty kilometres from the coast and two hundred kilometres from Ha Noi, Dien Bien Phu, in practical terms, was only serviceable by air. This tranquil valley, twenty kilometres long and five kilometres wide, was surrounded by a ring of mountains a thousand metres high. The Dien Bien Phu valley had a total population of over ten thousand, scattered in tiny villages over the flat farmland, and along the surrounding slopes. The valley had the highest rainfall in the High Region and lay green amid the surrounding brown hills stretching to the horizon. For long it had been the main supply centre for the French government’s Indochina opium monopoly, and was sufficiently important to have an official permanently stationed there. His bungalow and its surrounding brick buildings would soon enter history as the notorious French outpost named ‘Eliane.’ To fight against the Viet Minh army, the French were clearly intending a pitched battle on an open plain, and would be ready with the most powerful tanks. The Vietnamese would have to bring troops and supplies from the same distances, but by land. Vo Nguyen Giap planned to deploy fifty thousand men and women for combat and twenty thousand volunteers of all ages for the supply lines. To reach Dien Bien Phu, the Viet Minh would have to build simple roads and pontoon bridges, and the typical journey would take at least two weeks on foot, by bicycle, or by small river craft. For Giap himself, he would be traveling on horseback. But his men might capture an enemy jeep on the way!
In November 1953 “Operation Castor” dropped nine thousand troops into the area in three days, and the French started setting up fortress-like outposts and strongpoints. They committed more than ten thousand troops and with later reinforcements the total would reach sixteen thousand. French troops came from French air-borne, Foreign Legion, African Rifles, Vietnamese colonial regiments, and Thai- Laotian-Muong auxiliaries. My uncle Nam, who had gained a reputation as one of the best gunnery officers in the colonial army, would be fighting at this battle under the French artillery commander Charles Piroth. Both Nam and his superior would soon be shocked and amazed at the weight of Giap’s artillery force and its destructive accuracy.
The Commander of French forces in Indochina, Henri Navarre, decided to celebrate Christmas with members of his troops at Dien Bien Phu to boost their morale. Colonel de Castries hosted the feast in a huge tent erected outside the main headquarters, assisted by his personal secretary Paule Bourgeade. Addressing the troops of multicoloured camouflage uniforms, Navarre assured them of victory. Navarre didn’t give much credit to Vo Nguyen Giap’s military experience, noting that Giap was a history teacher, with a law degree from the university in Ha Noi. Giap had never been trained at any military academy.
It was Ho Chi Minh who had ordered Giap to take military training in the jungle after the Red Queen’s revolt in 1940 – while both men were in hiding near the Sino-Vietnamese boarder. Giap had responded to Ho at the time, “But my hand is for holding a pen, not a sword!” In response to Giap’s reservation, Ho said that he would not change his mind. He had already chosen Giap to lead the future Viet Minh army.
In the winter of 1953-54, Richard Nixon, then Vice-President of the United States, made a secret trip to Ha Noi. He toured the Red River (Hong Ha), observed a battle southwest of Ninh Binh and listened to a detailed plan presented by Navarre. The Navarre plan had been carefully designed in consultation with Joseph Laniel (appointed premier of France in June 1953) and the American Secretary of State, John Foster Dulles, and was supported by eighteen French and American generals and colonels. Christian de Castries, a gallant cavalry officer with an impressive military record in World War II was appointed Commander at Dien Bien Phu. After five days in Viet Nam for observation, discussion, and eating Vietnamese food (which he greatly enjoyed), Nixon was highly optimistic for the sophisticated French military. Nixon also knew that Viet Nam had just gone through a terrible famine. Two million Vietnamese had perished in one winter as the colonial administration had refused to release food supplies from storage facilities in the South. Those who survived were still grieving over the calamity. Their vulnerability added to his optimism. By this time, the United States had already spent nearly three billion American dollars to finance eighty percent of France’s military expenditures in Viet Nam.
As soon as Ho Chi Minh heard the French choice of Dien Bien Phu for this decisive battle, he took off his hat and threw it upside down on the table. Knowing that the site was a large hollow and pointing at the hat, he said to Vo Nguyen Giap, “The French will be buried in there.” He reviewed Giap’s plan and gave him full responsibility as field commander.
When French troops started pouring into Dien Bien Phu, Giap saw that with enough artillery available to him, the French could be completely cut off there. Depending so heavily on air support would put them at a crucial disadvantage. By contrast, the surrounding mountains and jungles were ideal for the Viet Minh to conceal their weapons, if they could get heavy artillery uphill manually across the vast jungle territory, over several mountain ranges, and into camouflaged positions in the hills surrounding the French. They worked in secret and mostly at night. Every time the French suspected troop movements, they sent aircraft to bomb the area to destroy the transport line. The pulling of cannons uphill was described by the future General Tran Do:
Each night, at the hour when the freezing fog came down the hills into the valley, groups of men arrived on the road… The track was so narrow that if a slight deviation of the wheels had taken place the gun would have fallen into a deep ravine. The newly opened track was soon an ankle deep bog. With our sweat and muscles we replaced the trucks to haul the artillery into positions. We ate only rice – sometimes uncooked or overdone… the kitchen had to be smokeless by day and sparkless by night. To climb a slope, hundreds of men crept in front of the gun, tugging on long ropes, pulling it up little by little. On the crest the winch was creaking, helping to prevent it slipping… The gun was all the heavier,
the tracks full of twists and turns… Whole nights were spent toiling by torchlight to move a gun 500 or 1,000 metres.
To the astonishment of their enemy and at tremendous sacrifice to themselves, the Vietnamese succeeded in getting all their cannons into the right hilltop positions – to encircle the French and the landing strips on which French troops depended so totally.
Giap communicated with his battalion commanders from a tiny hut at the top of Muong Phang mountain, overlooking Dien Bien Phu valley. The hut was furnished with a wooden table, two rattan chairs, and a small bed with a dried hay mattress. He spent most of the time in the hut and would go down to a tunnel every time there was an air raid.
The French positions in the valley included a central stronghold, eight outposts named after Colonel Christian de Castries’ mistresses (Gabrielle, Beatrice, Anne-Marie, Huguette, Claudine, Eliane, Dominique, and Isabelle), and forty-nine strongpoints. The centre of Dien Bien Phu contained five jungle-covered hills and below it was the heart-shaped Muong Thanh green field. The challenge for the Vietnamese was how to attack the centre and the south across an open plain raked by heavy artillery fire and protected by tanks. They would only succeed by way of tunnels and trenches. The digging had already begun during the winter months, mostly in the night. A woman volunteer for the tunnel work expressed her group’s dedication:
