Late Blossom

by Laura Lam

  Up and down, by the torch’s dimmed light

  Crawling and scooping in the dark underground

  The hoes are turning over, the earth is cracking and falling

  One row of men, one row of women

  Who works faster tonight?

  Oh! Brothers and Sisters, we must be speedy

  Tonight the cold wind is piercing through our skin

  The bright moon has already faded behind the hilltop

  But we are still here, crawling and kneeling at the tunnel

  Following the French military tradition, a French mobile field brothel, which was part of the bordel militaire de campagne (BMC), arrived at Dien Bien Phu in mid January. The Vietnamese prostitutes were flown into the camps and placed under the care of the medical officers of the Foreign Legion. Many excited French troops volunteered to build suitable quarters for the women. Their presence in the valley helped cheer up the men. However, very few from the combat units would have an opportunity for leisure and companionship.

  The great battle was to begin on the morning of 13 March 1954. In the days before the battle, Colonel de Castries requested an increase of three battalions. But he was not to know, until the battle started, that the Viet Minh had already completed much tunneling, and their devastating heavy artillery now surrounded the valley and its airstrips, and that they would begin their serious attacks in the afternoons, late enough to make it impossible to call in French air support before dark. Major General Rene Cogny, Navarre’s talkative deputy in Ha Noi, leaked some military secrets to the press in Paris that included knowledge of the French on the movements of Viet Minh’s troops. When General Giap learned about this leak, he changed his signal coding and some strategies of his army. On the morning of 12 March, Cogny made his last visit to Dien Bien Phu and saw that the French had been surrounded by a huge amount of trenching below their positions. Standing on one of the hills, Cogny watched the French’s assaults on the Viet Minh’s trenches and the capturing of some weapons. But this battle was not going to be about trenches. It was going to be about tunnels, and heavy artillery, and landing strips, and the isolating of an army.

  * * *

  The Saturday morning of 13 March was misty under cloudy sky, the air was cool and damp, and all the greenery was covered in shades of dark bluish grey. In the trees covering the slopes of the surrounding circle of steep hills, flocks of mountain birds were chirping and singing. While perching on the branches, some were spreading out their wings and preening their feathers.

  Then hellfire entered the valley, frightening away all the flying creatures.

  With howitzers from the overlooking ridges, the Viet Minh began sporadically shelling Muong Thanh airfield. By midday three aircraft were on fire and a few had sustained minor damage. One French company and two tanks retaliated, while the Viet Minh continued with their attack on the airfield and the northern outpost Beatrice.

  At half- past one in the afternoon, under the now intensely blue sky and white clouds, the bombardment of Beatrice gradually increased in volume and went on for two hours without interruption. The French colonel in charge of Beatrice and his deputy were killed in a direct hit on their command bunker. The French liaison staff tried to call for artillery support to retaliate but the communication lines were down. That day French troops also had a crisis with their fuel systems and failed to respond to the unanticipated large scale of attacks.

  At five-thirty, against an orange-red horizon, the whole hillside of Beatrice was suddenly filled with several battalions of Viet Minh troops in light green uniforms and palm-leaf helmets. Each man and woman held a rifle with fixed bayonet. They had quietly emerged from the trenches around the foot of the hill. Stunned by the effect, the French tried to attack them with heavy mortar fire, but it was too late. They were outnumbered and Beatrice was taken – an event so shocking to the French that it would cause a massive loss of morale.

  At six-thirty, two northern strongpoints came under severe attack by an army of the palm-leaf helmets. On a slope near outpost Dominique, while members of a mortar platoon were getting ready to aid Beatrice, their hilltop was suddenly hit with a powerful explosion, followed by huge clouds of red dust and black smoke, and the hill’s surface quickly turned into a deep crater. Four out of their six mortars were severely damaged. Their line of communications was destroyed.

  At seven-thirty, the Viet Minh achieved a direct hit on the aviation fuel and napalm dumps. Above Beatrice, giant orange flames were rising rapidly and brightly lit the evening sky. The intense burning continued into the night.

  By half-past ten the temperature suddenly dropped. In the darkness of night, heavy shells fell all over the French hill outposts, ploughed up the earth, crumbled the dugouts, leveled the trenches, wrecked the weapons, and killed and wounded many of the French troops. The earsplitting sounds were accompanied by a mixture of red dust and acrid cordite fumes. Inside various command bunkers the earth around them shook violently. The bunkers were rocking and shifting back and forth, pieces of furniture were crashing into one another, objects were falling and flying from walls and ceilings, and people were falling on top of each other. In the centre of the camp, a lieutenant colonel was taking a shower outside when shells began to burst nearby. He ran naked toward his base to make a telephone call to his battalion commanders but the line had been cut off. The entire French soldiery had been forced – with great suddenness – to come to terms with the full impending horror implied by the awesome weight of the Viet Minh artillery and its positioning. And this was only the very first day of the battle.

  At midnight, the shelling stopped. Viet Minh Colonel Mac Ninh – now in command of Beatrice – sent a message to Colonel de Castries:

  Following orders from our superior, I inform you that at 8 o’clock tomorrow morning you and your people are allowed to bring in one un-armed platoon and ambulances to collect your wounded men. Someone must be holding a white flag before entering Him Lam (Beatrice)

  Colonel de Castries faced the crisis with little help from his commanders. Lieutenant Colonel Keller, Chief of Staff, suffered a nervous breakdown and would hide in the deepest dugout wearing a steel helmet. Colonel Piroth went into a deep depression, leaving all artillery decisions to a deputy. Lieutenant Colonel Langlais, Chief of Operations, became confused and enraged. Even Colonel de Castries’s secretary, Miss Bourgeade had been badly injured.

  The sun rose early on 14 March.

  The central camp was quiet and ghostly. French troops gazed silently at the massive destruction of the bombardment. The entire earth was pocked with deep craters. Broken vehicles, bursting sandbags, shell cases, chairs, tables, lamps, boxes, tin cans, etc. were scattered everywhere. The air was thick with a strong smell of burnt petrol and charring. A group of weary legionnaires were wrapping up dead bodies in ponchos before carrying them to the morgue behind the field hospital. The morgue was a simple dug-out filled with plank coffins. It was completely full and more than a hundred corpses were placed on the bare ground. Many more were still lying on stretchers, waiting. The chaplain of the Foreign Legion, Father Trinquant, accompanied a medical officer and three vehicles under the Red Cross flag to pick up the bodies of legionnaires unburied under the intense heat around the strongpoints. The Viet Minh had already removed their own casualties in the night. Major Dr Paul Grauwin requested a special aircraft to transport four seriously wounded men and Miss Bourgeade out of Dien Bien Phu for medical treatment. De Catries himself bundled his secretary into the aircraft against her will. She had refused to leave the battle.

  In the early morning of 15 March the Viet Minh took complete control of another northern outpost, Gabrielle. Several commanders showed more signs of confusion and depression. At midnight Colonel Charles Piroth committed suicide with a hand grenade.

  Unable to transport the dead to the designated cemetery, on 18 March, Colonel de Castries ordered that those killed in action were to be buried on the spot, in mass graves scooped by a bulldozer. The delays in buryin
g them had caused serious problems with stench and infestation of flies.

  During a radio conversation with Major General Cogny on 19 March, Colonel de Castries informed him that the southern outpost Isabelle would be taken by the Viet Minh any time. Cogny made some tactical recommendations but ignored the realities at Dien Bien Phu. He appeared to have distanced himself from the operation on the ground. Once the fighting had begun Cogny never visited the battlefield.

  On 24 March, Lieutenant Colonel Keller was flown out of Dien Bien Phu quietly in an ambulance aircraft.

  As the French crisis deepened, the US government moved urgently to support them. Under “Operation Vulture”, on 24 March, American forces arrived with sixty B-29 bombers from the US Far East Air Force base in the Philippines. They began bombing the Viet Minh’s supply routes leading to Dien Bien Phu, killing thousands of women, children and elderly on bicycles. From 25 to 27 March the combined French and American force mounted seven hundred and fifty heavy bombing raids on the Viet Minh zone, killing large numbers of Vietnamese soldiers and civilians.

  Despite heavy losses in the air raids, in the early hours of 30 March the Viet Minh began their second series of attacks with a major offensive against the centre of Dien Bien Phu – the battle for the five hills. Dominique outpost on the left bank of Nam Rom River fell quickly. Several strongpoints on the hills in the east of the valley were taken. Two of the French companies defending Dominique were reduced to such low strength that men tried to flee across the slope to seek refuge at a stronger position below. They were seen as deserters and driven out by that position’s commander, to be caught and killed in the Viet Minh small arms fire.

  At the field hospital, Dr Grauwin had received seven hundred and fifty seriously wounded men, and for three consecutive days and nights he and four other doctors were performing surgery around the clock. Genevieve de Galard, his only female nurse, also worked around the clock with them and thirteen trained nursing orderlies. With her patience and dedication, she was to become the ‘Angel’ of French troops at this relentless battle. The average casualties rose to one hundred and twenty a day and the medical staffs were not able to cope. Nurse Galard later described her mounting despair at the toll of dead and wounded. In the end she broke down and cried, “I want to go into a deep sleep and never wake up again.”

  Airlift priority had been given to a huge supply of blood and plasma, as well as replacements of X-ray machines. However, due to the problems of refrigeration and irregular parachute drops, these urgent needs would not be met.

  On 30 March, General Navarre landed in Ha Noi to study the situation. The monsoon season had started and the valley had turned into a sea of deep mud. Ambulances now had great difficulties in getting around and to Dr Grauwin’s hospital with emergency cases. Earlier that day Colonel de Castries had made a request to Major General Cogny for urgent reinforcements. However, Cogny was not at his headquarters to respond to de Castries’ request or to meet Navarre’s plane at the airport. Although he and de Castries had had an agreement to speak to each other at least twice a day, Cogny had left his desk for a social obligation and asked not to be disturbed by anybody. De Castries voiced his frustration, “The situation will be difficult to restore without reinforcements from outside. We are trying to do the impossible.” The next morning Navarre met Cogny and they had a heated argument that would end in permanent mutual distrust between them. Cogny justified his behaviour by saying that he had been over-stretched with requests for reinforcements from several other battlefields in the Northern delta areas – all were taking place at the same time.

  Moving into the first week of April, French troops were gradually having their field communication lines cut. Many were unable to receive orders and warnings or information from their superiors. They were wary and confused. The Viet Minh were taking control of more outposts and strongpoints. They continued relentless attacks on the airstrips, making them totally un-useable by 27 March. The French last attempt to transport wounded men out of Dien Bien Phu for medical treatment was in the morning of 28 March. That morning, after loading twenty-five seriously wounded cases, the mechanic staff found out that the aircraft was damaged. A commanding officer in Ha Noi sent a radio message that he would fly in to pick up the crew the following night. However, this was not possible. From 13 to 27 March they had succeeded in flying 324 wounded cases out of the battle. But there would be no more.

  The Vietnamese would come to destroy a total of sixty-two French and American aircraft at Dien Bien Phu. By mid-April the Viet Minh had effectively won the battle, and they now referred to the remainder of the confrontation as “slowly bleeding the dying elephant”. Between artillery barrages, the Viet Minh’s loudspeakers began to broadcast messages in French and German along the valley, persuading General de Castries’ troops to desert and surrender.

  Foreseeing the French defeat, on 14 April, John Foster Dulles presented to the Congressional leaders his proposal to use atomic weapons to destroy the Viet Minh at Dien Bien Phu. The proposal was seriously discussed, but Lyndon Johnson, the United States Senate Majority Leader, argued that such weapons would wipe out both armies. Since they couldn’t see how the French garrison would survive an atomic attack, the plan was abandoned.

  * * *

  Colonel Christian de Castries was promoted to Brigadier General on Good Friday, 16 April. Several others in the field, including Lieutenant Colonel Langlais, were also promoted to the next rank. Perhaps this was a political decision. For weeks now the Paris media had been praising their troops over the heroic defense of France’s Far Eastern colony, and the French public was watching with horror the developments at Dien Bien Phu.

  Having abandoned the airport at Muong Thanh, the French had to parachute in personnel by night and food and ammunition by day. However, they were unable to maintain supplies for their troops. Strong winds forced many of the parachutes to drift into the surrounding fields controlled by the Vietnamese. The Viet Minh also used anti-aircraft guns to bring them down.

  Green parachutes,

  White parachutes,

  Camouflage parachutes,

  Here is ammunition, Brothers!

  Be ready to shoot them down…

  A major problem was the supply of parachutes. The French had not foreseen that they would use one thousand parachutes each day – each to be used only once. They had run out of supply as early as 27 March. The US Military Assistance Advisory Group (MAAG) in Sai Gon headed by Lieutenant General O’ Daniel quickly organized an airlift of sixty thousand parachutes to Dien Bien Phu from bases in Japan and the Philippines to meet the demand.

  On May Day, the Viet Minh launched their third series of heavy attacks, with a massive artillery barrage aimed at the strongpoints in the South and East. They captured the eastern outpost, Eliane, which was under General de Castries’ direct command. Colonel Langlais spoke to Colonel Sauvagnac through radio links with an urgent request for a whole battalion of paratroops. He hoped to recapture the eastern hills and to defend the central camp. But Sauvagnac responded that it would be impossible. Colonel Langlais shouted in anger and desperation, “ We shall win this battle without you and in spite of you. This is my last message and I will never speak to you again.”

  The following day, de Castries received confirmation of four hundred and fifty paratroop replacements. They would arrive on 7 May, directly from two parachute schools in France.

  In the afternoon, under a heavy rainstorm, the Viet Minh bombarded Isabelle. French troops defending Isabelle could only get six out of eleven canons to function. Heavy rain continued and parachute supplies were hampered. There were only three days of cold food rations left for French troops.

  On 3 May, Cogny suggested to de Castries a way out with a plan called “Albatros”. Most French commanders had lost the will to continue with the battle. General de Castries refused to take the escape route and was determined to stay with his wounded men until the end. For him, military honour depended on saving the lives of his surv
iving troops and minimizing their suffering. While coping with the large number of deaths and injuries, de Castries was also faced with the intense frustration of shortages of ammunition, food and essential medical supplies. Parachute reinforcements were not reliable but he also had serious problems with the French administration. During the rainy evening of 4 May, while Huguette was under heavy bombardment by Viet Minh artillery, de Castries sent a desperate message to the French headquarters in Ha Noi:

  We don’t have enough ammunition to stop enemy attacks or the continued harassing fire. It appears that no effort is being made to remedy this situation. I am told of the risks to the aircrews, but every man here runs infinitely greater risks – there cannot be a double standard. Night supply drops must begin at 8pm instead of 11pm. The morning hours are lost because of the fog, and due to the planning of night drops with long intervals between aircraft, the results are ridiculous. I have absolute need of provisions in mass quantities. …I cannot count on recovering even half of what is dropped, although the quantities sent to me represent only a very small proportion of what I have requested. I have nothing to sustain the morale of my men, who are being asked for superhuman efforts; I no longer dare to go and see them with empty hands.

  Severe thunder storms added to this final week of misery. The cumulative effect of bombardment and flooding had turned the ground into a series of swamps filled with trash and corpses. Their new enemy, the mud, was now up to knee level. As described by one of the Viet Minh soldiers:

  Those are hills with a strong burning smell

  Dead bodies are piling up on the ground

  Half-buried in clumps of red mud