The last stand of the French, Position "Elaine". Dien Bien Phu.

[firth1974 2,659]

These photos are from the infamous Hill A 1, or better known as "Elaine 2".

The battle for Elaine took the French back to the battle of the Somme in 1916, and to the dirt of trench warfare. To walk across this hill and see all the trenches and pillbox's is an amazing thing to see. I can only imagine the horror that the defenders faced in these soaking wet and rat infested trenches!

The Viet Minh launched a massed assault against the exhausted defenders on the night of 1 May, overrunning "Eliane 1", "Dominique 3", and "Huguette 5", although the French managed to beat back attacks on "Eliane 2". On 6 May, the Viet Minh launched another massed attack against "Eliane 2". The attack included, for the first time, Katyusha rockets. The French artillery used an innovation, firing with a "TOT" (Time On Target) attack, so artillery rounds fired from different positions would strike on target at the same time.^] This barrage defeated the first assault wave. A few hours later that night, the Viet Minh detonated a mine shaft, blowing "Eliane 2" up. The Viet Minh attacked again, and within a few hours had overrun the defenders.

On 7 May, Giáp ordered an all-out attack against the remaining French units with over 25,000 Viet Minh against fewer than 3,000 garrison troops. At 17:00, de Castries radioed French headquarters in Hanoi and talked with Cogny.

De Castries: "The Viets are everywhere. The situation is very grave. The combat is confused and goes on all about. I feel the end is approaching, but we will fight to the finish."
Cogny: "Of course you will fight to the end. It is out of the question to run up the white flag after your heroic resistance."

 

By nightfall, all French central positions had been captured. The last radio transmission from the French headquarters reported that enemy troops were directly outside the headquarters bunker and that all the positions had been overrun. The radio operator in his last words stated: "The enemy has overrun us. We are blowing up everything. Vive la France!" That night the garrison made a breakout attempt, in the Camarón tradition. While some of the main body managed to break out, none succeeded in escaping the valley. However at "Isabelle", a similar attempt later the same night saw about 70 troops, out of 1,700 men in the garrison, escape to Laos.

The whole surface area of this hill is pock-marked everywhere with shell craters, and if you look very closely as you are walking around, you will see where other trenches were during the battle. These have obviously not been dug out and preserved by the Vietnamese, but this whole place just looks like a huge jigsaw puzzle of lines and holes!!!

And here are Chaffee tanks #3,4 and 5.......................................

Some of the many barbwire fortifications that were erected to try and halt the attacks on "Elaine".....................................

This is the view looking south out of DBP towards "Isabelle". The hill of Isabelle can be seen in the background of this photo...............................

Chaffee tank #6. Ive now seen 6 out of 10 Chaffee tanks that the french were given from the Americans..................................

This is the position that the Viet Minh dug a mine shaft under the command post and blew it up, basically ending the battle for Elaine...........................

If this photo was taken 60 years ago, this would of been a very rare sight indeed for the defenders, of a re-supply aircraft coming into land at the airstrip. As it happens, the Viet Minh had the airstrip pinned down tight from artillery fire, and very very few aircraft actually landed here during the battle...............................

[firth1974 2,659]

I guess this is where 1960's fun fair rides go to die!. These were seen in the grounds of the local school...............................

This airport only has 2 flights in and 2 flights out daily. Its not a very busy airport at all.....................................

[Gawd Elpus 798]

Smashing pics, thanks for sharing

[firth1974 2,659]

Smashing pics, thanks for sharing

 

Cheers mate, glad there is at least 2 boards that appreciate photos and content.

[Butch 3,456]

Thanks for the pics firth, as it happens I'm currently researching this particular event in FFL history, it reads as a catalogue of errors on the part of the French, more political than Military pressure and of course they were up against Giap who was arguably a very capable strategist and adjusted very well to the kind of warfare the Legion were delivering.

 

Your pics give me a much more detailed and better understanding of the terrain, because at the moment I'm working off 2 dimensional maps of the period with no idea of the density of vegetation and elevation of the hills, so for that I'm very grateful, as well as for the time you take in posting these awesome pic reports.

 

Interestingly, I've heard a yarn that one of the attacks the Viets used against one of the French bases was to get hold of several cats, wrap them in rags doused in petrol and set fire to them, then throw them over the fence in the hope one of the errant felines would run into an ammunition store and cause an explosion. It worked, but wasn't repeated because "rumour" has it that the cats were preferred for other culinary reasons...

 

Anyway, as I said one of my guilty pleasures is to spend an evening going through your pic reports with a pot of tea and packet of biscuits, reading and enjoying them, the trouble is I run out of greens too quickly!.

[Bullfrog 2,225]

Thank you very very much for this.

 

I like to think myself as knowledgeable on most subjects but you have just blown a hole right through that!!!

 

The human race has a lot to learn ...