13 March in military history: Battle of Dien Bien Phu begins, 1954

13 March 1954 · 72 years ago

A camp in a valley

On 20 November 1953 French paratroopers dropped into the valley of Dien Bien Phu, in northwest Tonkin near the border with Laos. The operation was called Castor. General Henri Navarre, the French commander in chief, meant the base to bar the way into Laos for the Viet Minh. The site was chosen for its airstrip, and the camp lived on what came in by air.¹

The airstrip was ringed by strongpoints on the surrounding hillocks, among them Beatrice, Gabrielle and Anne-Marie. By the end of December the garrison, some twelve battalions under Colonel Christian de Castries, was surrounded.²

The odds

Against the camp General Vo Nguyen Giap massed the 308th, 312th and 316th infantry divisions and the heavy 351st Division. Artillery of 75 mm and 105 mm was dug into the hills around the valley, with anti-aircraft guns to protect it. The French command expected the attack and was confident it could break it with its own firepower.³ › Battle of Vĩnh Yên, 1951

The night of 13 March

The Viet Minh guns opened fire in the early evening of 13 March, between five and six o'clock, and the infantry went in after the bombardment. That night Beatrice, held by a Foreign Legion battalion, was overrun. The battalion was all but destroyed. Other positions attacked the same night held and threw the assault back.⁴

Gabrielle and Anne-Marie

Gabrielle fell next, by 15 March, after a hard fight. Within days Anne-Marie was lost as well, and the whole northern part of the camp was in Viet Minh hands. The French dropped fresh parachute battalions into the valley on 14 and 16 March, but the lost strongpoints were not retaken. By the reports of 16 to 18 March the French had lost about two battalions.⁵

The airstrip closes

The Viet Minh guns now commanded the airstrip, and within days of the first attack no plane could use it safely. From then on reinforcements and supplies reached the garrison only by parachute, dropped into a camp that kept shrinking.⁶

Surrender and Geneva

The garrison held out for almost two months and surrendered on 7 May 1954. In Washington the possibility of an American intervention was discussed, but President Eisenhower would not act without allies, and his conditions were never met. At Geneva, on 21 July, the agreements were signed that ended the war and divided Vietnam.⁷

Winter War: the peace of Moscow

The peace treaty between Finland and the Soviet Union was signed in Moscow on the night of 12 March 1940. Fighting stopped the next day, 13 March, and the Winter War was over. Finland had to give up the Karelian Isthmus with the city of Viborg (Viipuri).⁸

President Roosevelt said that the Finns had "won a moral right to live in everlasting peace and independence in the land they have so bravely defended". In the view of the US Army historian Earl F. Ziemke, the peace also wrecked an Allied plan to land in Norway.⁹