The French first colonized Indonesia in 1893. Like most colonies, Indonesia was administered brutally. Then came WWII. When the Japanese attacked Indochina in 1940, the western nations shafted the French and refused to send aid to the small French force based there or to the many guerrilla groups.

By 1946 the Japanese had left and the Communist Viet-Minh had exterminated both anti-French and anti-Communist political groups and the remnants of the Pre-war French governmental system. By treaty France brought into Vietnam two divisions in 1946. When negotiations between the Viet-Minh and French broke down in December of 1946, war was inevitable.

The Army the French fielded in Indochina was too large to be defeated in open battle and not small enough to prevent the French from attempting to use it in an Indochina war, but the Army was too small for the Viet-Minh not to try to gain their independence by pushing the French into Tokin Gulf, which they did.

The Viet-Minh, too weak at this time to engage in combat with the French, withdrew into the mountainous area north of Hanoi. The French, in Operation Lea, attempted to encircle and destroy the Viet-Minh. In October of 1947 after greatly reinforcing the original two divisions, the French groupment mobiles rumbled off on their 200 mile journey from Hanoi to Chiem Hoa and from Cao Bang to Chiem Hoa. Eventually the entire area was "encircled" by French armored and infantry units, A daring parachute operation dropped the men of groupment "S" over the revolutionary headquarters village of Cho Don, and the villages of Cho Moi and Bac-Kan, capturing Nazi and Japanese instructions but missing No Chi Minh, and his military leader, General Giap by hours.

Operation Lea died on 8 November 1947 when after encircling the entire Communist stronghold, the Viet-Minh regiments and battalions slipped through the corridor to safety.

Cao Bang, occupied during Operation Lea, was ordered withdrawn from in 1950. The war had changed from 1947 however, and the withdrawal marked a tremendous increase in strength for the VietMinh. The Viet-Minh had organized, the companies formed into battalions, the battalions into regiments, and finally into 10,000-man divisions.

In 1949 the Chinese border was no longer a safe area for the French, the Chinese Communists had defeated the last of Chaing Kai-Sheck's Army and sealed the Sino-Vietnamese border off. From this the Viet-Minh were given a sanctuary to rest, refit, and train the divisions to defeat the French. South Vietnam had taken a turn for the better. The police acquired a new commander who used assassination and mass executions to wipe out the revolutionary cells in Siagon. But this was not South Vietnam, this was the Chinese border, and the French were not to survive the evacuation of Cao Bang.

Evacuation

The plan for the evacuation of Cao Bang seemed easy enough: Col. Lepage was to advance on Cao Bang from LangSong with his column of four infantry battalions, the 1st Tabor, 11th Tabor, 8th R.T.M.; 1st B.E.P. - Foreign Legion Expeditionary force, to meet with Col. Charton's garrison of 3 1/2 battalions evacuating Cao Bang.

Lepage left Lang Song on 15 September advancing northwest toward That Khe, and arrived there without incident four days later. Concentrating in the jungle and mountains between Dong Khe and That Khe the Viet-Minh ambushed Lepage as his force attempted to bypass the town by going through the valleys northeast of Dong Khe.

Unaware of Lepage's plight, Col. Charton evacuated Cao Bang on schedule on 3 October to meet with Lepage three days later. Charton, a jungle-wise veteran, refused to travel on route four through, the gorges and instead left route four on a jungle trail that passed Dong Khe to the west! This move temporarily out-paced the shadow Viet-Minh force and he reached Lan Hai, a small village on the ningt of 6 October.

Lepage, trapped in the valley east of Dong Khe contacted Charton on 5 October by radio -- the last hope for the withered remnants of his column. Lepage gave orders to break out on 6 October and meet Charton, who was advancing in the direction of Lepage. At the break of dawn Charton came under heavy Viet-Minh ambushes and his Moroccan battalion was routed and the ridge between them and a new relief force from That Khe was lost. Lepage ordered his reduced column to move into a small valley where they were promptly besieged by the Viet-Minh.

Only the 1st B.E.P. remained in the hills to cover the move, and they were slaughtered by the Viet-Minh losing over half its already reduced strength. Their sacrifice offered Lepage time to execute a breakout and the Tabors fled and met with Charton's column west of Dong Khe.

At the moment the two columns met, the Communists sprang the largest ambush up to that time; Lepage's column, after fighting day and night for several days, could not take any more and ran into the hills a broken force. Lepane was killed at this time Charton captured. Only isolated stragglers reached That Khe, most of whom fell into Communist hands after the French evacuated the city. The French had lost the first action in the war and R.C.4.

R.C.4 set the tactical pattern for the entire Indochina war: isolated battles having important, but rarely achieved (until the end) strategic objectives. It was during this time that the companies scattered across Tonkin and the battalions that destroyed the French at R.C.4 were formed into regiments, and finally hard-fighting, 10,000-man divisions.

In 1950 Giap formed five, later to become six, regular infantry divisions, the 304th, 308th, 312th, 316th, 320th; 324th,and in the opening months of 1951 two heavy regiments almost completely armed with the heaviest artillery and automatic weapons were formed into the 351st heavy division. A third heavy regiment was formed in 1952 (?) but remained independent of the division. By 1954, with the addition of Soviet automatic weapons, the Viet Minh's firepower increased 300% over the norm to where it equaled or bettered the French.

The French Army of Indochina (FUF - Forces de Union Francaise, I'll refer to it as the French Army) formed seven Mobile Groups (numbers 1,2,3,4,7,51, and North African, then in 1953, the Vietnamese Mobile Group) to wage war in the Tonkin area of Vietnam, more were formed in Laos and South Vietnam.

A Mobile Groun (Groupment Mobile in French) which explains the abbreviation G.M.) consists of tvo or more infantry battalions augmented by a tank platoon and one of the infantry battalions is usually motorized. The French Army fielded five Foregn Legion regiments in North Vietnam and one in the South, six parachute battalions and two more in the South, and three Dinassaunts, or Naval Assault Divisions.

Dinassaunts

A Dinassaunt is a collection of landing craft, small sea-going craft, and river craft left over from WWII, usually LCTs, LCPs etc., that operated in the many watercourses of Vietnam. A very flexible formation, the Dinassaunts were used to deliver direct fire support to units fighting near rivers and frequently convoyed supplies when land traffic became hazardous. Near the Gulf of Tonkin the river delta was deep enough for the French Navy to lend fire support miles inland like at Man Khe. The French Air Force, a small collection of WWII fighters and American C-30 transport craft, never fielded more than 275 aircraft of all types for the entire theatre, an area eight times the size of Korea! All this, along with nearly 278,000 men, constituted the Forces de l'Union Francaise, the French Army of Indochina.

More Tonkin War 1950-1954

Opening Involvement
The Battle for Hanoi January-June 1951
Hoa-Binh (Nov 1951 - Feb 1952) to Operation Lorraine (Oct-Nov 1952)
Dien Bien Phu