To Save Dien Bien Phu
The French in Indochina

US Naval and Air Support

by John Prados


A week after the siege began, the U.S. carrier group stationed at Subic Bay in the Philippines received secret orders to head to sea. Forces were lining up for the relief of Dien Bien Phu. [2]

The day Washington sent the message there had been a serous accident; it was only luck that it had not been fatal, for the ships at Subic Bay and the port facilities as well. That day the aircraft carrier Wasp loaded munitions from the tender Firedrake. A pallet of 500lb. bombs was being hoisted aboard when Wasp's after winch broke, tumbling the bombs into the sea between the two ships. Fortunately none of the munitions detonated.

It was also fortunate that Wasp rearmed. Her bomb stocks were low after weeks of "fair weather training" off the Philippines and the live-ammunition demonstrations carried out for Philippine President Ramon Magsaysay on 12 March, the eve of Dien Bien Phu. Now came the Washington cable, eyes only for the admiral commanding. It read:

TASK FORCE TO PROCEED TO SEA, AS CLOSE To 25 KNOTS AS POSSIBLE, FOR OPERATING AREA 10ONM SOUTH HAINAN TO CRUISE ABOUT TEN DAYS. OPERATING AREA LIMITS NOT DEFINED OTHER THAN BY ABILITY TO RESPOND TO SUPPORT ORDERS. AVOID BEING OBSERVED AT SEA. [3]

Admiral William K. Phillips received this message from the Chief of Naval Operations early on a Sunday morning, 21 March 1954. The cable triggered frantic activity aboard the ships of Task Force 70 and at the Subic Bay naval base.

"Sol" Phillips held this job only because of his previous post, from September 1952 until October 1953, when he had been chief of staff to the Commander in Chief Pacific Fleet (CINCPAQ. His bosses during that period were admirals Arthur W. Radford and Felix B. Stump. The latter was currently still CINCPAC, while Radford had moved on to become Chairman of the joint Chiefs of Staff. Radford and Stump each had great interest in French Indochina, as did the Chief of Naval Operations (CNO), Admiral Robert B. Carney, and all had great confidence in Sol Phillips, who had been ordered to the Philippines to command Task Force 70 when that was set up, in February 1954, to conduct "fair weather training" as a cover for possible action in Indochina. [4]

The underlying reason for the deployment was so secret that Phillips was told to inform no one but his own chief of staff. Thus the CNO's message of March 20th (West Longitude date) attempted to preserve this secrecy.

In November 1952, Phillips had been at Pearl Harbor during formulation of the original contingency plan for assisting French Indochina with air support. He knew the plan required supplying the French with radios compatible with those used in the U.S. Navy. A special radio pool had been set up at Subic: ten TDZ-RDZ sets, an equal number of MAR sets, and fifty MAY radios. As soon as he received his orders, Phillips knew he would have to get some of these radios aboard his ships.

Loading the radios without revealing the mission seemed a tricky proposition. Phillips decided to try calling it a no-notice exercise. [5] It was Sunday afternoon, of course, so base supply officers had to be summoned from their homes by telephone. Then the fun began. It turned out there was no record of what constituted a complete radio set, and no illustrations on the boxes of their contents. Only by breaking open boxes did sailors learn a MAY set was packed in two boxes and a MAR radio in five. Crystals were packed separately. Gasoline-driven generators for the radios could not be found at all.

When the boxes loaded on Wasp and her sister carrier Essex were all examined, only six of the MAR and ten of the MAY sets could be assembled. After the fleet sailed, Phillips ordered experiments on standard aircraft radios, AN/ARC-27, which were found to be adaptable for ground use with the addition of batteries.

Task Group 70.2, the carrier task force, sortied early on the morning of 22 March. Later that day a jet fighter was damaged while landing aboard Essex when its tail hook hit the flight deck. Four more of these accidents occurred before the fleet reached its operating area in the Gulf of Tonkin, all involving landing gear. This was particularly galling to Capt. Frank Turner of Essex, who had grounded all his F-OF "Cougar" jets for modifications during a recent port visit to Hong Kong. Meanwhile, Capt. Patrick Henry Jr. of Wasp logged, "underway at high speed for distant operating area off eastern coast of Indochina." [6]

The task force had its share of other difficulties as well. Phillips reported on the 25th that half his destroyers had had sonar dome failures since leaving Subic Bay. Essex on the 25th and Wasp on the 27th both fell victim to phantom radar returns, "blips" that looked like planes over the Tonkin Gulf but could not be found when combat air patrol jets were vectored to intercept. Similar "ghost" radar returns played a crucial role in the 1964 Gulf of Tonkin incident that accelerated U.S. intervention in Vietnam.

Soon after its arrival in the gulf, the task force's deployment was extended for another two weeks while Phillips was ordered to conduct aerial reconnaissance of points in Vietnam and southern China. Phillips received permission from the Chief of Naval Operations to cruise further into the Tonkin Gulf to bring the scouting targets in range. On the night of 4 April, "Sol" went along as an observer on the photographic mission over Dien Bien Phu. Three days later the French sighted seven contrails and six American jets at altitude over the Red Rive delta; the Viet Minh themselves saw jets over Dien Bien Phu on the 8th, while on 10 April a French naval aircraft sighted Task Group 70.2 south of Haiphong.

Meanwhile the fleet was reinforced on 4 April by the carrier Boxer, sailing directly from Pearl Harbor. The new ship brought 77 aircraft. This was a welcome addition since, while Essex had begun with 72 planes and Wasp with 68 more, some 23 aircraft had been lost in accidents or grounded for repairs so far in the "fair weather training." Indeed, on 9 April two more Essex planes suffered engine failures in flight and were lost at sea while a third jet fighter crashed on landing. While these were substantial losses, they Navy's rate of flight activity compares quite favorably with that of the French: in April 1954 the French FAEO and Navy combined flew 1,494 combat sorties over Dien Bien Phu, the carriers of Task Group 70.2 had 1,787. That month total French combat sorties over all parts of northern Indochina were 1,937. [7]

Phillips clearly had a substantial force, capable of doubling combat air support for Dien Bien Phu. The carriers were positioned to be able to intervene almost immediately in the battle. Washington was at first inclined to do just that. President Dwight D. Eisenhower told Admiral Radford and Secretary of State John Foster Dulles in late March that he did not exclude the possibility of an American air strike if it could be decisive.

Dulles in turn said to a British journalist on 1 April, "I can tell you that American aircraft carriers are at this moment steaming into the Gulf of Tonkin ready to strike." Eisenhower himself, at lunch that day with business friends, also mentioned this possibility and declared, "Of course, if we did, we'd have to deny it forever." [8]

Ike also met with Air Force chief of staff General Nathan F. Twining to discuss the capabilities of B-29 bombers in this situation.

Despite such inclinations the project came to nought. Radford found opposition within the Joint Chiefs, especially from the Army and Marine Corps, and had to admit to the President that the other chiefs were not all behind him. Dulles also was unable to line up international support for intervention - the British refused to go along. Both officials found Congress insisting on both international support and French political concessions as conditions for intervention.

By the time the French made a formal request for the strike, on 5 April, obstacles had materialized barring its approval. Congressional leaders laid down three ironclad preconditions: A coalition of nations, including the British Commonwealth and the Philippines, must be involved. The French must accelerate independence for the Indochinese states, so that the U.S. would not be cast in the role of supporting colonialism. And the French must agree to stay in the war against the communists.

On 7 April, Dulles offered the French 15 B-29's, if they would provide the aircrews. The French had no pilots to spare, and even experienced pilots and crews needed at least four months of training before they were capable of flying the bomber on a mission. Yet B-29's painted with French roundel markings were spotted at Clark Air Base in the Philippines, ready for the mission that never was.

The next day, Dulles allegedly made an even more bizarre offer: two atomic bombs for use in the Dien Bien Phu valley. While that would take care of the Viet Minh, he was informed, it would also vaporize the French garrison.

Eventually Phillips was ordered back to Subic Bay. The task force entered port 16 April. For the destroyers Erben, Porterfield, and Shields, it had been the longest continuous cruise in their deployments to western Pacific.

To Save Dien Bien Phu The French in Indochina

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