Battle of Dien Bien Phu

Battle of Dien Bien Phu
Part of the First Indochina War

Viet Minh troops planting their flag over the captured French headquarters at Dien Bien Phu
Date13 March – 7 May 1954
(1 month, 3 weeks and 3 days)
Location
Vicinity of Điện Biên Phủ, French Indochina (present day Vietnam)
21°23′13″N 103°0′56″E / 21.38694°N 103.01556°E / 21.38694; 103.01556
Result Việt Minh-led Democratic Republic of Vietnam victory[4][5]
Belligerents

French Union

  •  France
  • State of Vietnam
United States

Democratic Republic of Vietnam

  • Viet Minh
China[1][2][3]
Commanders and leaders
Henri Eugène Navarre
Christian de Castries 
André Trancart 
Jules Gaucher †
Pierre Langlais 
André Lalande 
Charles Piroth †		 Ho Chi Minh
Võ Nguyên Giáp
Hoàng Văn Thái
Lê Liêm
Đặng Kim Giang
Lê Trọng Tấn
Vương Thừa Vũ
Hoàng Minh Thảo
Lê Quảng Ba
Strength
13 March:
~10,800;[6]
~9,000 combat personnel
~1,800 logistics and support personnel
10 tanks
7 May:
~14,000;
~12,000 combat personnel
~2,000 logistics and support personnel
37 transport aircraft[7]
~600 aircraft		 13 March:
~49,500 combat personnel
~15,000 logistics and support personnel[8]
7 May:
~80,000 men including logistics and support personnel
Casualties and losses

1,571[9]–2,293[10] dead
1,729 missing[11]
6,650 wounded[9]
11,721 captured[12](including 4,436 wounded)[13]
62 aircraft[14] and 10 tanks lost
167 aircraft damaged[15]
2 dead[7]		 Western historians estimate:
8,000 dead
15,000 wounded[16]
Asian historians estimate:
23,000[17]–25,000 casualties[18]
Vietnamese figures:
13,930 casualties[19]
Location within Vietnam

The Battle of Điện Biên Phủ was a climactic confrontation of the First Indochina War that took place between 13 March and 7 May 1954. It was fought between the forces of the French Union and Viet Minh.

The French began an operation to insert, and support, their soldiers at Điện Biên Phủ, deep in the autonomous Tai Federation in northwest Tonkin. The operation's purpose was to cut off enemy supply lines into the neighboring Kingdom of Laos (a French ally) and draw the Viet Minh into a major confrontation in order to cripple them. The French based their forces in an isolated but well-fortified camp that would be resupplied by air, a strategy adopted based on the belief that the Viet Minh had no anti-aircraft capability.

The communist Viet Minh, however, under General Võ Nguyên Giáp, surrounded and besieged the French. They brought in vast amounts of heavy artillery (including anti-aircraft guns) and managed to move these bulky weapons through difficult terrain up the rear slopes of the mountains. They dug tunnels and arranged the guns to target the French positions. The tunnels featured a front terrace, onto which the Viet Minh would pull their cannons from out of the tunnels, fire a few shots, to then pull them back into protective cover.

In March, the Viet Minh began a massive artillery bombardment of the French defenses. The strategic positioning of their artillery made it nearly impervious to French counter-battery fire. Tenacious fighting on the ground ensued, reminiscent of the trench warfare of World War I. At times, the French repulsed Viet Minh assaults on their positions while supplies and reinforcements were delivered by air. As key positions were overrun, the perimeter contracted, and the air resupply on which the French had placed their hopes became impossible as aircraft were shot down and runways were destroyed.

The garrison was overrun in May after a two-month siege, and most of the French forces surrendered. A few men escaped to Laos. Among the 11,721 French troops captured, 858 of the most seriously wounded were evacuated via the Red Cross mediation in May 1954. Only 3,290 were returned four months later, although it is believed that a small fraction of the outstanding missing troops were Vietnamese who had not yet been returned by the French, and did not necessarily die in captivity; adjusting for this, the death rate of French troops in captivity of the Viet Minh is estimated to be approximately 60%.[13] The French government in Paris resigned. The new prime minister, the left-of-centre Pierre Mendès France, supported French withdrawal from Indochina.

The Battle of Điện Biên Phủ was decisive. The war ended shortly afterward and the 1954 Geneva Accords were signed. France agreed to withdraw its forces from all its colonies in French Indochina, while stipulating that Vietnam would be temporarily divided at the 17th parallel, with control of the north given to the Viet Minh as the Democratic Republic of Vietnam under Ho Chi Minh. With huge support by the US, the south became the State of Vietnam, nominally under Emperor Bảo Đại, preventing Ho Chi Minh from gaining control of the entire country.[20]

  1. ^ https://scholarspace.manoa.hawaii.edu/server/api/core/bitstreams/4b5758ad-63b5-47ed-8ca9-e0e6ed43b94a/content
  2. ^ Chinese General Hoang Minh Thao and Colonel Hoang Minh Phuong, quoted by Pierre Journoud (researcher at the Defense History Studies (CHED), Paris University Pantheon-Sorbonne), in Paris Hanoi Beijing published in Communisme magazine and the Pierre Renouvin Institute of Paris, July 20, 2004.
  3. ^ "Viện trợ của Trung Quốc đối với cuộc kháng chiến chống Pháp của Việt Nam".
  4. ^ Boylan & Olivier 2018, p. 286.
  5. ^ Riley 2014, pp. 194–95.
  6. ^ Cite error: The named reference d224 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  7. ^ a b Cite error: The named reference Franco_Embassy_2005 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  8. ^ Cite error: The named reference d223 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  9. ^ a b Lam Quang Thi (2009). Hell in An Loc: The 1972 Easter Invasion. Denton TX: University of North Texas Press. p. 14. ISBN 978-1-57441-276-5.
  10. ^ Geoffrey Norman (January 2010). "What The French Lost At Dien Bien Phu". HistoryNet.
  11. ^ Hamilton-Merritt, Jane (1999). Tragic Mountains: The Hmong, the Americans, and the Secret Wars for Laos. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press. p. 62. ISBN 0-253-20756-8.
  12. ^ Of which ~3,000 will survive.
  13. ^ a b Cite error: The named reference losses was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  14. ^ "French Air Force in Vietnam text".
  15. ^ "Battle of Dien Bien Phu". HistoryNet. 12 June 2006.
  16. ^ Stone, p. 109
  17. ^ "ディエンビエンフーの戦い". 文教大学. 23 July 2009. Archived from the original on 7 September 2023. Retrieved 11 August 2023.
  18. ^ 國立政治大學歷史硏究所歷史學系 (1996). "國立政治大學歷史學報". 國立政治大學歷史學報 (13–14): 226.
  19. ^ Ban tổng kết-biên soạn lịch sử, BTTM (1991). Lịch sử Bộ Tổng tham mưu trong kháng chiến chống Pháp 1945-1954. Ha Noi: Nhà xuất bản Quân Đội Nhân Dân. p. 799. (History Study Board of The General Staff (1991). History of the General Staff in the Resistance War against the French 1945–1954 (in Vietnamese). Ha Noi: People's Army Publishing House. p. 799.).
  20. ^ Nash, Gary B., Julie Roy Jeffrey, John R. Howe, Peter J. Frederick, Allen F. Davis, Allan M. Winkler, Charlene Mires, and Carla Gardina Pestana. The American People, Concise Edition Creating a Nation and a Society, Combined Volume (6th Edition). New York: Longman, 2007.
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