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 French Union's colonial Far East Expeditionary Corps and Viet Minh communist revolutionaries. The United States was officially not a party to the war, but it was secretly involved by providing financial and material aid to the French Union, which included CIA-contracted American personnel participating in the battle. The People's Republic of China and the Soviet Union similarly provided vital support to the Viet Minh, including most of their artillery and ammunition.
The First Indochina War was fought between France and Việt Minh, and their respective allies, from 19 December 1946 until 20 July 1954. Việt Minh was led by Võ Nguyên Giáp and Hồ Chí Minh. Most of the fighting took place in Tonkin in Northern Vietnam, although the conflict engulfed the entire country and also extended into the neighboring French Indochina protectorates of Laos and Cambodia.
Điện Biên Phủ (Vietnamese:[ɗîənˀɓīənfû] is a city in the northwestern region of Vietnam. It is the capital of Điện Biên Province. The city is best known for the decisive Battle of Điện Biên Phủ, which occurred during the First Indochina War of independence against France. The region is a center of ethnic Thai culture. In prior history, the city was formerly called Muang Thaeng.
Henri Eugène Navarre was a French Army general. He fought during World War I, World War II and was the seventh and final commander of French Far East Expeditionary Corps during the First Indochina War. Navarre was in overall command during the French defeat at the Battle of Điện Biên Phủ.
Christian Marie Ferdinand de la Croix de Castries was the French commander at the Battle of Dien Bien Phu in 1954.
Operation Castor was a French airborne operation in the First Indochina War. The operation established a fortified airhead in Điện Biên Province, in the north-west corner of Vietnam and was commanded by Brigadier General Jean Gilles. The Operation began at 10:35 on 20 November 1953, with reinforcements dropped over the following two days. With all its objectives achieved, the operation ended on 22 November. Castor was the largest airborne operation since World War II.
Pierre Schoendoerffer was a French film director, a screenwriter, a writer, a war reporter, a war cameraman, a renowned First Indochina War veteran, a cinema academician. He was president of the Académie des Beaux-Arts for 2001 and for 2007.
Diên Biên Phu is a French 1992 epic war film written and directed by French veteran Pierre Schoendoerffer. With its huge budget, all-star cast, and realistic war scenes produced with the cooperation of both the French and Vietnamese armed forces, Dîen Bîen Phu is regarded by many as one of the more important war movies produced in French filmmaking history. It portrays the 55-day siege of Dien Bien Phu (1954), the last battle by the French Union's colonial army in the First Indochina War during the final days of French Indochina, which was soon after divided into North and South Vietnam. This was a prelude to the Second Indochina War, known in the United States as the Vietnam War.
Pierre Charles Albert Marie Langlais was a senior French military officer who fought in World War II and the First Indochina War. Hailing from the Brittany region of France, Langlais was known as a tough and uncompromising character with an "unflagging devotion to his men."
Charles Jean Clément Piroth was a French artillery officer and World War II veteran. He served three tours in Vietnam during the First Indochina War. Piroth commanded the artillery during the Battle of Điện Biên Phủ. He was bold and optimistic before hostilities erupted, exulting: "I've got more guns than I need." After failures by his artillery batteries to provide adequate support, he committed suicide in his bunker.
Operation Condor was a secret operation of the French Groupement de Commandos Mixtes Aéroportés against the Viet Minh supply column. It happened during the First Indochina War's climactic Battle of Dien Bien Phu from April, 28th to May, 10th 1954.
The 1st Foreign Parachute Regiment was an airborne regiment of the Foreign Legion in the French Army which dated its origins to 1948. The regiment fought in the First Indochina War as the three-time reconstituted 1st Foreign Parachute Battalion, the Suez Crisis and Algerian War, but was dissolved along with the 10th Parachute Division and 25th Parachute Division following the generals' putsch against part of the French government in 1961.
Operation Mouette was an operation in 1953 by the French Army in Northern Vietnam during the First Indochina War. It was launched on October 15 in an attempt to locate and destroy Viet-Minh Chu Luc troops operating under the command of Võ Nguyên Giáp around the area of Phu Nho Quan, south of the Red River Delta. Following the establishment of a French camp in the area, various troops were dispatched to engage the Viet-Minh forces. The operation was ended and the French withdrew by November 7, claiming approximately 1,000 enemy combatants killed, twice as many wounded, and 181 captured as well as a substantial quantity of weapons and ammunition.
Operation Brochet took place during the French Indochina War, between August and October 1953. A combined arms operation, Brochet involved 18 battalions of the French Expeditionary and Vietnamese National Armies fighting against the 42nd and 50th Viet Minh Regiments, fighting in the southern reaches of the Red River Delta near Tonkin in North Vietnam. The 1st and 2nd Parachute Battalions of the French Foreign Legion (BEP), and the 1st and 3rd Colonial Parachute Battalions (BPC) took part, as did forces of the Vietnamese National Army. Their objective was to sweep the Delta and remove Viet Minh influence.
The Battle of Muong Khoua took place between April 13 and May 18, 1953, in northern Laos during the First Upper Laos Campaign in the French Indochina War. A garrison of a dozen French and 300 Laotian troops occupied a fortified outpost in the hills above the village of Muong Khoua, across the Vietnamese border from Điện Biên Phủ. Muong Khoua was among the last French outposts in northern Laos following the decision of the French High Command to string isolated garrisons through the region in order to buy time to fortify the major Laotian cities against Việt Minh attack.
Operation Atlante was a military operation of the First Indochina War which consisted of three stages, Aréthuse, Axelle and Attila, taking place across six months from January 20, 1954. French Army commander General Henri Navarre employed 53 battalions of French infantry and artillery in an attempt to ensnare 30,000 Việt Minh troops thought to be secreted among the 2,000,000 strong local population in the marshy lagoons between Da Nang and Nha Trang in southern Vietnam. The objective was to pacify the local populace and re-establish the sovereignty of the Bảo Đại government.
The Battle of Cao Bằng was an ongoing campaign in northern Indochina during the First Indochina War, between the French Far East Expeditionary Corps and the Việt Minh, which began in October 1947 and culminated on September 3, 1949. Since the start of the conflict, Việt Minh troops had ambushed French convoys along the Vietnam–China border from the Gulf of Tonkin on a 147-mile route to a French garrison at Cao Bằng, known as Route Colonial 4, or RC4. Repeated ambushes led to repeated French operations of increasing strength to reopen the road, including a costly mission by the Foreign Legion in February 1948. On July 25, 1948, the Cao Bằng encampment was itself attacked and held out for three days with two companies defending against two battalions of Việt Minh. A further 28 ambushes took place in 1948.
Operation Ceinture was a late 1947 military endeavour by the French Far East Expeditionary Corps against the Viet Minh during the First Indochina War. A month-long effort that commenced on 20 November following the cessation of Operation Léa, Ceinture intended to rid the region between Hanoi, Thái Nguyên and Tuyên Quang of Viet-Minh infiltration. The French utilised 18 paratroop battalions and naval landing craft to engage the Viet-Minh's 112 Regiment, however the latter were able to for the most part slip through French cordons, abandoning weapon caches. The cumulative casualties after Operation Ceinture and Operation Lea were 1,000 for the French and 9,500 for the Viet Minh.
Operation Pollux was a military operation during the First Indochina War by the French forces in northwest Vietnam in November and December 1953 was one of a twin operation, the other being Operation Castor. The names of these operations are based upon the mythological twins, Castor and Pollux. Operation Castor recaptured and then established a fortified airfield in Điện Biên Phu, in the north-west corner of Vietnam. Operation Pollux was the name of the second operation, which took place weeks later. These operations were developed by General Navarre who had replaced General Salan as Commander in Chief in early 1953 after the Viet Minh had conducted their successful offensive in the Black River area of northwest Vietnam and then subsequently invaded Laos in April 1953.
Phạm Thanh Tâm was a Vietnamese journalist and war artist, who used the pen name Huỳnh Biếc. His career spanned the First Indochina War as a Việt Minh soldier participating in the resistance against French colonialism, as well as the Second Indochina War as a member of the People's Army of Vietnam against South Vietnam and the United States.
