The Battle of Dien Bien Phu 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 French Far East Expeditionary Corps and Viet Minh communist revolutionaries.
The First Indochina War began in French Indochina on December 19, 1946, and lasted until July 20, 1954. Fighting between French forces and their Việt Minh opponents in the south dated from September 1945. The conflict pitted a range of forces, including the French Union's French Far East Expeditionary Corps, led by France and supported by Bảo Đại's Vietnamese National Army against the Việt Minh, led by Hồ Chí Minh and the People's Army of Vietnam led by Võ Nguyên Giáp. 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.
Opération 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.
The Battle of Mang Yang Pass was the last official battle of the First Indochina War. It was one of the bloodiest defeats of the French Union together with the Battle of Dien Bien Phu in 1954 and the Battle of Cao Bằng in 1950.
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.″
René Cogny was a French Général de corps d'armée, World War II and French Resistance veteran and survivor of Buchenwald and Mauthausen-Gusen concentration camps. He was a commander of the French forces in Tonkin during the First Indochina War, and notably during the Battle of Dien Bien Phu. His post-war private and legal conflict with superior General Henri Navarre became a public controversy. Known to his men as Le General Vitesse, and reputable for his military pomp, physical presence and skill with the press, Cogny was killed in 1968 Ajaccio-Nice Caravelle crash in the Mediterranean near Nice.
Operation Camargue was one of the largest operations by the French Far East Expeditionary Corps and Vietnamese National Army in the First Indochina War. It took place from 28 July until 10 August 1953. French armored platoons, airborne units and troops delivered by landing craft to the coast of central Annam, modern-day Vietnam, attempted to sweep forces of the communist Viet Minh from the critical Route One.
The 1st Foreign Parachute Regiment was an airborne regiment of the French Foreign Legion 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.
The 308th Infantry Division is a division of the People's Army of Vietnam (PAVN), first formed in August 1950 in southern China from the previous Regimental Group 308.
Operation Hirondelle took place during the First Indochina War in July 1953. It was an airborne raid on Viet Minh supply depots near Lạng Sơn, involving parachute units of the French Army and Vietnamese National Army. Raids near the junction of Route Coloniale 4 and Route Coloniale 1 revealed supply caches hidden in caves, which were photographed and destroyed.
The Battle of Muong Khoua, also called Upper Laos campaign by the Vietminh, took place between April 13 and May 18, 1953, in northern Laos during 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 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 several 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.
The Battle of the Day River took place between late May and early June 1951, around the Day River Delta in the Gulf of Tonkin. Part of the First Indochina War, the battle was the first conventional campaign of Võ Nguyên Giáp, and saw his Việt Minh People's Army of Vietnam (VPA) forces tackle the Catholic-dominated region of the Delta in order to break its resistance to Việt Minh infiltration. On the back of two defeats at similar ventures through March and April that year, Giap led three divisions in a pattern of guerrilla and diversion attacks on Ninh Bình, Nam Định, Phủ Lý and Phat Diem beginning on May 28 which saw the destruction of commando François, a naval commando.
Operation Adolphe a military operation by the French Army that took place during the First Indochina War, commencing in April 1953. It was the last of several operations that spring, concluding before the monsoon season made campaigning difficult until the commencement of Operation Camargue in July.
On December 19, 1946, Viet Minh soldiers detonated explosives in Hanoi, and the ensuing battle, known as the Battle of Hanoi marked the opening salvo of the First Indochina War.
Operation Papillon was a large scale air and ground assault on the Viet Minh at Hòa Bình by the French Army and Air Force in April 1947, during the early stages of the First Indochina War.
The 1st Foreign Parachute Heavy Mortar Company was an ephemeral foreign airborne heavy mortar company of the French Foreign Legion which fought during the First Indochina War at the corps of the French Far East Expeditionary Corps.
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 Lea, Ceinture intended to rid the region between Hanoi, Thai Nguyen and Tuyen 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.
Viet Minh 
