Reviewed by Peter Brush
By Martin Windrow
Da Capo Press, Cambridge, Mass., 2004
The bloody encounter between the French and Viet Minh at Dien Bien Phu in 1954 was one of the most decisive battles of the 20th century. Martin Windrow, a prolific writer and publisher of military history, deserves the highest praise for his fine account, The Last Valley: The Battle That Doomed the French Empire and Led America Into Vietnam (Da Capo Press, Cambridge, Mass., 2004, hardcover $30). It is all the more remarkable given the paucity of reliable sources on the Communist side and the widespread destruction of French army documents following France’s withdrawal from Vietnam.
In 1943 the Communist Viet Minh began guerrilla operations against Japanese troops in Indochina. After the 1945 surrender, the Viet Minh proclaimed the independent Democratic Republic of Vietnam. French politicians, humiliated by defeat and occupation in World War II, tried to reclaim imperial glory by reestablishing control of their Indochinese colonies. In 1946 fighting began between the Viet Minh and the French Far East Expeditionary Corps (CEFEO). The 1949 Communist triumph in China gave the Viet Minh access to Chinese arsenals and training camps, allowing them to grow from a modest guerrilla movement into a large conventional army. By 1953 French control had been reduced everywhere, with CEFEO forces concentrated in the Tonkin delta. Frustrated by his inability to close with the elusive Communist forces, French commander General Henri Navarre ordered the construction of a fortified airfield (base aero-terrestre) at Dien Bien Phu in northern Vietnam near the Laotian border. From this strongpoint French forces would sever lines of communication and inflict punishment on the Communist forces. Although the French had no hope of winning the war by this stage, Navarre’s goal was to create conditions whereby France could achieve peace with honor, improving the French position at future negotiations.
French forces began pouring into Dien Bien Phu in November 1953, eventually numbering about 15,000. These included regular army and Foreign Legion battalions, Arabs from Morocco and Algeria, black Senegalese from West Africa, Thai auxiliaries and about 5,000 Vietnamese. General Vo Nguyen Giap meanwhile had assembled a force of 40,000. The Viet Minh dragged huge quantities of artillery and ammunition 500 miles from logistic bases in China. The guns were laboriously dug into the hills surrounding the French base. Starting in January 1954, Viet Minh gunners would eventually fire 130,000 artillery, recoilless rifle and mortar rounds into the French positions.
Although their morale was high, the French Union forces’ means were insufficient. Their equipment was outdated, unstandardized and never in sufficient quantity. The United States provided money, training, supplies and aircrews, but never as much as the French wanted. Giap’s Viet Minh had a major advantage in manpower and unexpectedly large quantities of artillery and anti-aircraft guns. When the Viet Minh cut the roads, Dien Bien Phu could only be supplied by air. When artillery fire cratered the airstrips, the French could only be supplied by parachute. Many air-dropped supplies fell into enemy hands — and were used against the defenders.
Windrow is at his best in portraying the near-superhuman endurance of both attackers and defenders. He is sympathetic to the French — not to their colonialism, but to the heroism and professionalism of the legionnaires and paratroops.
As a veteran of the siege at Khe Sanh, this reviewer has a lot of experience building bunkers. Windrow’s discussion on how to construct fortified positions to withstand shellfire is outstanding. His descriptions of what happens to the human body when struck by high velocity bullets and shrapnel are informative, clinical and frightening. So are other aspects of the book: What do you do with your dead when the cemetery is repeatedly struck by incoming artillery? When the ground is soupy mud, how do you dispose of amputated limbs — often gangrenous — in the face of incessant sniper and artillery attacks?
Squeezed to their limit and denied further reinforcement by their government, on May 7, 1954, after 56 days, the French stopped fighting. They fired off all remaining artillery shells and destroyed their guns. Aerial combat supply ceased. Everything combustible was burned. Windrow notes, “The battle was over at last; now the dying would really start.” French casualties were more than 7,000, almost half the total force. Of the 9,000 POWs taken by the Viet Minh, half would die or disappear. In July at Geneva, the French agreed to begin their withdrawal from Vietnam, opening the door for the Americans, who replaced them. Martin Windrow’s study of the events leading up to that development is an important story wonderfully told.
