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No sooner had World War 2 ended then the Legion went back to the business of fighting colonial wars. In Indochina, close to 10,000 men, or a quarter of its total force, were killed. But no Legion battle in Indochina was to be as famous as the disastrous Battle of Dien Bien Phu. The valley of Dien Bien Phu, thirteen miles long, seven miles wide, and bisected by the Nam Yum River, was a crossroads which connected Laos with upper Tonkin, later North Vietnam, and still later, the Soviet Republic of Vietnam. The French General Henri Navarre for reasons of the worst kind, decided to create a fire base, supported by air and supplied by both air and ground at Dien Bien Phu. Believing the Viet Minh too weak to overwhelm the fire base, this overconfidence led to a series of serious blunders. For the firebase could not have been positioned in the worst possible location. The selection of the valley at the utmost extreme range of French air support, the perimeter posts - Eliane, Béatrice, Isabelle, (named by the legionnaire paratroopers after officers' girl friends) Gabrielle, Anne-Marie - set up on a number of low hills with the concentration of forces around the airstrip, uncamouflaged bunkers and command posts and the inability of French artillery to adequately support all defensive positions. The Viet Minh led by the brilliant General Vo Nguyen Giap, held the jungle surrounding the French garrison, but poor intelligence led the French Army to having no idea where their elusive enemy were or even the fact that they had manually brought up artillery through the mountain range. At the end of the third day, the Viet Minh held the hills surrounding the body of the French Army and could fire directly on the positions. The French Army's position was grim, but Giap had problems of his own. He was running low on ammunition, and the suicide charges cost some of his best formations. The battle had become a siege. French morale improved when, on the fourth day, the 1e BEP destroyed two companies of Viet Minh on the highway between the airport and the French position named Isabelle. Even though the French won the skirmish, they lost 151 dead and 72 wounded in that ferocious action alone. A number of Indochinese troops deserted as did some legionnaires and a hand full of regulars. They were referred to as the "Rats of Nam Yum" because they pilfered supplies dropped at night by parachute and denied them to the garrison. The French dropped about 120 tons of supplies to the besieged defenders of Dien Bien Phu between March 13 and May 7, of which about 100 tons were recovered by the army. The balance was retrieved by the Rats of Nam Yum and the Viet Minh. Giap ordered suicide attacks repeatedly which yielded mixed results. The French used up ammunition, Giap's army was thinned considerably, and the garrison held. Giap faced the combined French army of Algerians, Indochinese, legionnaires and regulars with about 50,000 Viet Minh troops of mixed training and experience. The suicide attacks decimated the French, but ultimately Giap gave them up for traditional trench warfare. The Viet Minh surrounded Dien Bien Phu and moved them closer and closer to French lines, until they were able to move almost directly from the protection of the trenches to the French entrenchments. In order to support the effort to maintain adequate strength at Dien Bien Phu, the decision was made to parachute troops into the perimeter. The 1st battalion, 3e étrangère, and 5e étrangère both called for and received volunteers. The 13e DBLE prevented men from volunteering for Dien Bien Phu in order to keep the formation up to strength. With out a doubt, there have never been braver men than those who volunteered to parachute in the dark of night into the besieged strip of jungle which was under continuous artillery fire from Viet Minh guns. But guts and bravery can not prevail against a vastly superior army operating in their own country, properly supplied and motivated. In early May, the Viet Minh rolled up the remnants of the French Army. On May 1, the legionnaires holding the firebase Huguette collapsed when the elite Viet Minh 308th Division (the Iron Division) hit them hard. On May 7, firebase Elaine fell. Later that night, the Viet Minh over-ran Isabelle and with its fall, the battle of Dien Bien Phu ended. Those legionnaires who survived were taken prisoner, and on May 7, Paris received a message from French military headquarters in Hanoi: "Delete from the muster roll the name of the the expeditionary force of legionnaire parachutists. " The French era in Indochina was about to end. |
Creating the figure
This is my representation of an Indochina French Foreign Legion Paratrooper Sergeant, 2e BEP, Ba Vi, Vietnam 1952. The BEP or Battalion Etranger de Parachutiste was the airborne/parachute arm of the FFL. The helmet has customised paratrooper strappings and leather chin-cup, I did this in 1999 and updated it with a light drab olive wash on the straps, foilage band and a customised field dressing attached to the side of the helmet. The USMC jacket is from Dragon. The scratchbuilt trousers are of the British 1942 windproof camouflage suit, used by the BEPs in Indochina. Based on a photograph of an actual pair of trousers, it is generously cut and the waist, tightened by a draw-tape. The camo patterns were tediously handpainted.
At bottom is a digital diorama photographs depicting a VietMinh attack on one of the outposts at Dien Bien Phu. The battle of Dien Bien Phu was the longest, most furious battle of the French Expeditionary Corps in the Far East. 170 days of confrontation, 57 days of hell.
On that day, legend has it that Ho Chi Minh, surrounded by his staff in his command post at Muong Phan, half-way between Dien Bien Phu and Tuan Ciao, took off his tropical helmet, turned it over and putting his fist in it said," The French are here." And slowly running his finger around the edge he quietly said in a sly manner " and we are here." The fight between the tiger and the elephant was about to begin: the tiger, hiding in the jungle, would worry the immobile elephant who would slowly bleed to death.
