Fog covered the Black River near Hoa Binh that morning, but by 1230 enough of it had cleared to drop in the 2nd Colonial Parachute Battalion (2nd BPC), an airborne engineer platoon, an airborne artillery section and a small paratroop battle staff. The 1st Colonial Parachute Battalion (1st BPC) jumped in at 1410, followed by the 7th Colonial Parachute Battalion (7th BPC) at 1730. The paratroops took their objectives with almost no resistance. Four paratroopers were wounded by mines, and one came up missing in action. Three Viet Minh troops were captured.

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Meanwhile, the ground elements of Operational Group South, with Mobile Group 3 in the lead, continued clearing Viet Minh forces from Colonial Route 6 while two engineer battalions set to repairing the roadway in their wake. By evening, Vanuxem’s Muongs had pushed out of the forest and down into the Hoa Binh depression, where they crossed the Black River to link up with the paratroops. Hoa Binh was officially liberated.

On November 19, General de Lattre himself flew in to take the salute from the victorious forces and to award two paratroop officers the Legion of Honor. Total French casualties for both Cho Ben and Hoa Binh were eight dead and nine wounded for 608 estimated enemy dead. By November 22, the operation was officially over. While the rest of the paratroops returned to Hanoi, the 1st Colonial Paras remained behind to garrison the Ap Da Chong crossroads.

If de Lattre had succeeded in seizing the initiative, he did not delude himself into thinking that he had purchased an easy victory. Anticipating the hard fighting that lay ahead, he divided the area into three sectors, all manned with elite forces: the Colonial Route 6 sector, organized around Clements’ Mobile Group 2, covered critical terrain along the road from Xuan Mai to Xom Pheo; the Black River sector, manned by Dodelier’s Mobile Group 7, held critical points between La Phu and Tu Vu; and the Hoa Binh sector, structured around Vanuxem’s Mobile Group 3, held the town, the airfield and the ferry points. The Black River and Colonial Route 6 sectors each counted a certain number of company-size outposts, backed up by fireballs and mobile reaction forces, whose mission it was to keep the lines of communication clear.

The Hoa Binh sector’s mission was to establish and maintain a center of fortified resistance on both sides of the Black River and a forward defense of the Hoa Binh depression, using the Hoa Binh airfield as their center of gravity. Forces within Hoa Binh included the 3rd Battalion, 13th Foreign Legion Demi-Brigade (3/13th DBLE) to the south, and the 2nd Colonial Paratroop Battalion (2nd BPC) standing in reserve. Mobile Group 3, consisting of the 1st and 2nd Muong battalions and a platoon of automatic weapons carriers, moved throughout the sector, receiving support from a platoon of Chafe (M-26) light tanks, three 105mm artillery batteries and an engineer company.

The taking of Hoa Binh did not derail Viet Minh plans for a series of attacks in the Red River delta, but it did force Giap to draw off forces to deal with this new French threat. The Viet Minh had five divisions in late 1951, the oldest of which had only been in existence for a year. On November 21, Giap ordered the 304th Division, commanded by Colonel Hoang Minh Thao, and the 312th Division, under Colonel Le Trong Tan, to move against Hoa Binh. While new, both divisions had already been blooded. The 304th Division had fought in the Day River battles around Ninh Binh in which de Lattre’s son had been killed, while the 312th’s arrival was delayed by the 3rd Thai Battalion, which had moved into the division’s rear area on November 7. An attack by Regiment 165 on November 24 split the 3rd Thais, bottling up two companies and the command element in Lag Mange depression while the remainder escaped to friendly garrisons. Regiment 165 pressed their attack into the Lag Mange depression, but had to divert forces against the 7th Colonial Paras, who had dropped some 35 kilometers away to rescue the Thais. The Paras and Thais linked up on November 30, after which Regiment 165 broke contact and moved to rejoin the division near Hoa Binh.

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