For many people, Dien BienPhu is always in the mind of the Vietnamese as well as many other worldwide,a great marking point of Vietnam in 1954, broke theFrench efforts in sieging Vietnam and Indochina.

An attempt to halt Viet Minh (VietnamIndependence Association) incursions into Laos, the French commander, Navarre,decided to establish a "super garrison" at the top end of a valley called DienBien. This was to police the strategic cross-roads between Laos to the West, SonLa to the South and Lai Chau to the North. He believed that with this basefirmly established in the Far Northwest, he would be able to launch sortiesagainst the Viet Minh, and greatly reduce their strength in the area. He was tobe proved terribly wrong.

The Viet Minh commander, Vo Nguyen Giap, finally saw anopportunity for an open confrontation with the French and started workingtowards it. By mid 1953, the base was completed and regarded in French circlesas virtually impregnable. With twelve battalions of French, Morrocan andAlgerian soldiers, two airstrips, a heavily mined perimeter and surrounded by anumber of smaller defensive positions, named Dominique, Elaine, Claudine andHuguette. These were named, supposably, after the four mistresses of the basecommander Colonel Marie Ferdinand de la Croix de Castries. The troops within thecompound slept fairly soundly at night! The French even went to the extent offlying in an entire brothel of French women to keep the soldiers happy!

For Giap and his comrades, however, the struggle had hardly begun. Theyembarked on an incredible logistical feat of dragging up, in pieces, variousheavy field guns that were then hidden in caves and dense forest cover in thehills surrounding the Dien BienPhu base. By early 1954, Giap had over 40,000 men in the hills, completelysurrounding the base. It was estimated that just to keep Giap’s men fed, over250,000 porters were used to ferry food.

For the French it was their ignorance amongstother things that led to their downfall. Though they knew the Viet Minh had sometroops in the surrounding hills, nothing was done about it, until it was toolate. On 10 March 1954, to the horror of the French, Viet Minh shells startedlanding on the airstrip. Giap possessed a comprehensive plan, first if which wasthe neutralisation of the airstrips, thus completing the siege. The French weretaken completely by supprise, and after the first day of shelling, an assaultwas made on Gabrielle. By midnight 13 March, Beatrice had fallen. The fightingwas fierce, with the Viet Minh often following up hours of shelling with humanwave tactics, incurring shocking casualties. At times the fighting was hand tohand and always chaotic, with the French utterly frustrated by their inabilityto hit Giap’s well-concealed guns.

Within five days, both the airfields had been completely destroyed and thegarrison could only be re-supplied by airdrops, an increasingly perilouspastime, proven by the wrecked planes on the ground. As the Viet Minh edgedcloser and closer in trenches, the airdrops increasingly fell into Vietnamesehands. The position was becoming truly desperate.

At the start of April there was a lull in thefighting during which Navarre parachuted in some of his crack troops adding tohis garrison now totalling about 16,000. Giap also brought in his reserves,edging his forces up towards the 50,000 mark. The French were desperate and theyappealed to the US for assistance, preferring bomber strikes from their bases inthe Philippines. By this stage the US was funding 78% of the French war effort,so they hardly had unstained hands. They came back with a proposal for limitedtactical nuclear strikes on the Vietnamese positions along with a series ofstrikes on China, fearing ‘another Korea’, all of which would be performed onFrench behalf. Thankfully this insanity was avoided by the British giving theidea a big no and congress getting cold feet. In the end there was nothingforthcoming from the US.

For the French, the end was near. On 4 May following a series of attacks, theViet Minh attacked with a force previously unwitnessed and by 8 May the garrisonfinally surrended. By this stage the conditions within were unimaginable, withmaggots in the wounds of the injured and an incredibly demoralised fightingforce. It was estimated that during the battle 7,000 French and close to 20,000Vietnamese had lost their lives. This loss finally caused the French to withdrawfrom Vietnam.

Dien Bien Phu now bears few scars except for the occasionalscattered tank to bear witness to its horrendous past, though it is still one ofthe remotest areas you could visit. The hilltribes living around the area ofDien Bien Phu make up 70% of the regions population, and the ethnic minoritygroups include the Black Thai, Nung, Meo, Loa and others.