Giap: The General Who Defeated America in Vietnam (19 page)

The Politburo approved the plan on the same day Giap proposed it. Ho Chi Minh’s final remark that day to Vo Nguyen Giap reflected his enduring faith and confidence in his close lieutenant: “I give you complete authority to make all decisions. If victory is certain, then you are to attack. If victory is not certain, then you must resolutely refrain from attacking.”
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Years later, Giap explained the thinking behind his decision to do battle in the valley in
People’s War People’s Army:

However, the importance of Dien Bien Phu [as a strategic position of the first rank] could not be regarded as the decisive factor in our decision to attack it. In the relation of forces at that time, could we destroy the fortified entrenched camp . . . ? Could we be certain of victory in attacking
it? Our decision had to depend on this consideration alone. . . . Dien Bien Phu was a strongly fortified entrenched camp. On the other hand, it was set up in a mountainous region, on ground which was advantageous to us, and decidedly disadvantageous to the enemy. Dien Bien Phu was, moreover, a completely isolated position, far away from all the enemy’s bases. The only means of supplying Dien Bien Phu was by air. These circumstances could easily deprive the enemy of all initiative and force him on to the defensive if attacked. . . . On our side, we had picked units of the regular army which we could concentrate to achieve supremacy in power. We could overcome all difficulties in solving the necessary tactical problems; we had, in addition, an immense rear, and the problem of supplying the front with food and ammunition, though very difficult, was not insolvable. Thus we had conditions for retaining the initiative in the operations. . . . It was on the basis of this analysis of the enemy’s and our own strong and weak points that we solved the question as to whether we should attack Dien Bien Phu or not. We decided to
wipe out at all costs the whole enemy force
 . . . after having created favourable conditions for this battle by launching numerous offensives on various battlefields and by intensifying preparations on the Dien Bien Phu battlefield.
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THE CAMPAIGN BEGINS

The first major engagement of the campaign began not at Dien Bien Phu itself, but at Lai Chau, fifty-five miles north of the big base. With four divisions converging on Lai Chau, Cogny had to evacuate its garrison or face annihilation. On December 9, the French force there mounted out, moving south into the jungle en route to Dien Bien Phu. Leading elements of the 316th ran straight into the column from Lai Chau, and “like hungry wolves attacking the stragglers of a caribou herd,” shredded it in a series of well-executed ambushes.
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Only 185 of the 2,100 troops in the withdrawing column managed to stagger into Dien Bien Phu more than a week after their harrowing ordeal in the jungle began.

Meanwhile, three battalions from inside the perimeter of the fortress of Dien Bien Phu had been sent out to rescue the Lai Chau survivors. This elite force of paratroopers ran into a wall of PAVN steel, and had to withdraw with heavy casualties. The commander of that force, Lieutenant Colonel Pierre Langlais (who would later become the de facto commander of all the besieged troops inside Dien Bien Phu when their original commander, Colonel de Castries, fell into a dysfunctional depression), noted
“the incredible ability of the enemy to camouflage his gun positions and camps so as to render them invisible to aerial observation and ground reconnaissance.”
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The lead element of the rest of the 316th Division entered the base at Lai Chau on December 12, having marched at the extraordinary pace of twenty miles a day, and thirty during the night, when it no longer had to worry about air strikes. By early January 1954 the Vietminh had flooded the valley with infantry. In fact the FEF’s patrols were taking heavy casualties—by January 15, about 150 soldiers had been killed and 600 wounded. When several FEF patrols attempted reconnaissance in force missions just a few hundred meters beyond the perimeter of the base, they were forced to withdraw under withering fire. All hopes of breaking out from the slowly tightening siege ring around the base with mobile offensive forces were fading fast.

By this point French troops were working with engineers under intense pressure to finish building hundreds of bunkers, communication trenches, and blockhouses within the largest and most complex combat base in all of French Indochina (see map on page xviii). The main center of resistance (MCR) consisted of a cluster of four major strongpoints on both the east and west sides of the Nam Yum River: Dominique, Elaine, Claudine, and Huguette. Colonel Castries’s main headquarters and the key supply depots were positioned in and around the center of these five strongpoints. An airstrip stretched out from the center of the base in a northwesterly direction into the northern sector of Huguette.

Ringing the MCR were the satellite strongpoints (going clockwise) of Gabrielle, Beatrice, Isabelle, and Anne Marie, meant to shield the MCR from assaults by Giap’s infantry. For the most part, the many defensive positions within the strongpoints—firing positions and blockhouses—had interlocking and mutually supporting fields of fire. Two-thirds of the French artillery was inside the MCR; one-third was at the independent strongpoint Isabelle, four miles to the south of the MCR. Isabelle’s big guns could support the defense of the MCR, but not that of Beatrice or Gabrielle, leaving those two strongpoints somewhat vulnerable to mass infantry attacks.

Taken together, the main centers of resistance and the satellite strongpoints constituted a formidable target for any attacker, but it suffered several deficiencies. The fortifications in most places were vulnerable to destruction by 105mm howitzers. Not a single pound of concrete had been used in construction. The water table was such that several strongpoints
could be expected to flood by April 15. As Giap remarked at the time to his commanders, “if the battle goes into the rainy season, we are on the slopes and can dig drainage ditches while the enemy on the plain will be deep in mud.”
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The FEF artillery was inexplicably exposed to fire from the hills. Equally inexplicably, the perimeter of the base was far too extensive to be defended effectively by only 10,000 troops.

There were ominous signs around the base in mid-January that the attack was imminent. The Vietminh were seemingly ubiquitous in the hills and even on the valley plain. Every day, skirmishes broke out close to the perimeter. The Vietminh shelled the base from the hills, albeit sporadically. The French prepared their positions and reviewed their firing plans with a newfound sense of urgency.

So, too, did the Vietminh. Giap made the weeklong trek to his forward command post, a cave under fifteen feet of solid rock covered by jungle, nine miles north of Dien Bien Phu, arriving on January 12.
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His commanders were informed around January 15 that a massive assault was slated for January 25. Yet, as the date approached, the commander in chief was not at all sure that the decision to attack in late January was a good one, nor was he certain that the planned method of attack was correct. The critical question of
how
to conduct the attack had been the subject of debate for several weeks, and was still open to question as late as January 14 when Giap’s senior commanders joined the chief Chinese adviser, Wei Guoqing, to discuss the two options that had been under consideration. Wei argued for a Korean-style massive attack by several divisions from the north and northwest. Their immediate objective: overrun the satellite strongpoints immediately and punch through the formidable defenses of the MCR, inflict crippling losses in the opening attack, and seize most of the western half of the MCR and the northern end of the airstrip, thereby preventing reinforcements from landing and dooming what was left of the garrison to certain annihilation. The shorthand description of this method was “swift attack, swift victory.” It promised a short campaign, thereby relieving great pressure on the logistical system.

Giap feared that such an approach was too risky. What if the initial attack was repulsed and the PAVN suffered devastating losses among its assault units, trained to a razor’s edge? His replacements had not been trained to a standard anywhere near as high as his first-line troops. If the first attacks failed, he might not have the strength left to continue the attack at all, and the French would have a resounding victory.

As he pondered the situation on the ground and the level of preparedness of his own forces, his worries only grew deeper. The alternative approach was referred to by the Vietnamese as the “steady attack, steady advance” method, with more limited attacks by regiments against individual strongpoints over a period of weeks. After seizing the satellites with overwhelming force in the opening days of the campaign, the Vietminh would encircle the entire MCR and punch in the French perimeter gradually by attacking in great force against one sector, while pinning down FEF reinforcements with secondary attacks elsewhere. The Vietminh artillery commander during the campaign summed up the difference between the methods nicely: it was a choice between eating an orange by using a knife to cut it to pieces, or taking one’s time and peeling the fruit by hand.
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On January 14, Giap reluctantly gave in. The Vietminh would mount one massive attack by two or three entire divisions, commencing on January 25.

However, second thoughts lingered. On January 24, Giap weighed the considerable supply and morale difficulties he was sure to encounter with a prolonged delay against the possibility that the massive human wave attack would fail. As he agonized over the decision, a crucial development arose. A Vietminh soldier was captured and revealed that the opening assault was slated for 1700 hours on January 25. Vietminh radio monitors picked up French transmissions indicating that they had the critical information. Giap set a new date of 1700 hours on the 26th.

After another night of restless sleep and angst, Giap finally came to a firm decision. The French had built up the strength of their positions steadily. His own artillery was not yet fully in place, and he questioned the training of his gunners. The big question was, could he be reasonably confident of victory? In the end, his answer was “no.” And so he made the crucial decision to postpone the opening salvos for more than a full month and developed a battle plan that he felt sure would accomplish the objective. He described that plan clearly and concretely:

If we attack in stages, we will reinforce our positions with each stage. We will keep the initiative, attacking when we want, where we want. But we will attack only when we are ready, and we will only occupy the positions we have taken when necessary. We will exploit the enemy’s essential difficulty—its supply lines. The longer the battle lasts, the more wounded he
will have. Supplying the garrison will grow more difficult. . . . Our troops have never attacked more than two battalions. This time we will proceed sector by sector. We must prepare for a relatively long campaign. We should not fear the enemy air force or artillery as long as we maintain secrecy and camouflage. During the transfer of our artillery pieces, we were able to hide for twenty days tens of thousands of men on a stretch of road within enemy artillery range. . . . The enemy is surrounded on the ground, and if its air supply is hampered, it will encounter insurmountable difficulties . . . the morale of this army of mercenaries will collapse. We will also suffer losses. Battles are won with blood and sacrifice. But if we attempt a rapid attack to avoid further losses we will end up with greater losses.
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To reduce the fort as a whole, Giap planned to attack the satellite outposts in the opening phase and then, in phase two, mount a series of assaults by entire regiments directed against one quadrant of the fortress’s MCR under cover of artillery. (Typically against one or two contiguous strongpoints.) These would be quickly followed by a similar series of attacks against a different quadrant, thereby causing the French to shift their limited reserve forces (virtually all stationed within the MCR) from one quadrant to another.
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Attacks on
individual positions
within strongpoints—for instance Elaine 1 or 2, or Dominique 6 or 7—would come in waves against a narrow and changing front against a position in the east, then in the north, and so forth, always under the cover of artillery and mortars.

After serious damage had been inflicted on the MCR and French supplies depleted, the assault troops would be pulled back for rest and refitting, and to extend the trench network, tightening the noose of steel around the MCR. Giap would then unleash a sustained series of attacks by full divisions from several different directions until all resistance was crushed.

SECONDARY OPERATIONS

On January 20, General Navarre launched Operation Atlante, the centerpiece of his 1953–1954 campaign, at least as he had planned it the previous summer. Atlante was a massive and unwieldy drive into Vietminh Interzone V, the rice-rich coastal area between Nha Trang and Danang that contained 2.5 million people and perhaps 30,000 PAVN and regional troops.
In launching this attack, Navarre hoped to force Giap to send at least one division from the northwest to the coast of central Vietnam, relieving pressure on the French fortress in the valley of Dien Bien Phu.

Atlante called for an amphibious landing about fifty miles north of Nha Trang and, eventually, ground assaults toward the heart of Interzone V from the north, the south, and the Kontum area in the western Central Highlands. Navarre hoped to clear the zone, destroy the Communist forces or force their removal, and re-establish control of the population. He had hoped “to subordinate to [Atlante] the conduct of the whole Indochina campaign during the first semester of 1954,” but the impending battle at Dien Bien Phu invalidated that notion.
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In the initial drive to the north in late January, Giap’s forces effectively harassed and blocked elements of the FEF’s fifteen battalions, many of them part of the largely untried Vietnamese National Army, forcing them to sputter and fall apart. Under the pressure of PAVN the Vietnamese units began to disintegrate, in some cases deserting en masse.