To Save Dien Bien Phu
The French in Indochina

French Plans

by John Prados


As the American warships steamed into Subic, a critical meeting of French officers was being held in Hanoi. A few days before, in Paris, the French joint chiefs chairman had told an American reporter that saving Dien Bien Phu through an overland relief column from Luang Prabang would be "exceedingly difficult" because it was a "very complicated process" to assemble the force and "virtually impossible" to move it through the mountains. [9]

These doubts were reflected in the top secret letter No. 18 that Navarre sent to General Rene Cogny, his Tonkin theater commander, on 15 April. The missive instructed Cogny to consider alternatives to CONDOR if he judged that operation too hazardous.

At the Hanoi meeting on 16 April, the French discussed an attack to sever Viet Minh supply lines in the vicinity of the Red River delta. [10] That was unacceptable because it could have no impact at Dien Bien Phu in the short term. Another possibility was a large airdrop to the northeast of the entrenched camp. This was rejected also because the parachute battalions were being sent in to force Dien Bien Phu one by one and the aircraft were tied up parachuting supplies to the camp. These same factors also obviated the airdrop called for in the CONDOR plan itself, which had been scheduled for 29 April, but was impossible in view of the circumstances.

CONDOR was laid to rest then, and plan ALBATROS substituted for it. The ground columns from Laos were not only to try to get as close to Dien Bien Phu as possible so that French troops might break out of the camp and join them. Groupe Mobile Nord was now to hold a forward position along the Nam Ou river while a close approach would be attempted by commandos and French partisans. The reversed operation still required 45 tons of supplies daily, a heavy drain on the limited French air transport capacity.

The partisan groups belonged to the Groupement Mixte d'Intervention (GMI), a counterguerrilla organization under Major Roger Trinquier that ran partisan bands in many sectors throughout Indochina. [11]

About 3,000 of its 15,000 effectives were in Laotian bands used in ALBATROS. The importance of the operation was such that Trinquier himself moved up to a forward command post at Khang Khai on the Plain of Jars to control the groups. One force moved from Sam Neua northwest to Muong Son, where it held a base for use by an intervention commando.

A second group marched north from the Plain of Jars and assumed positions between the Nam Ou and Pak Seng rivers and Dien Bien Phu, codenamed GRAPEFRUIT and BANANA (see Map). One final GMI band under Lt. Vang Pao, who would achieve fame in the second Indochinese war, acted as rear-guard for the partisans.

In a separate component of ALBATROS the French assembled a force of four commandos; numbers 31 and 33 from Cogny's Tonkin command and number 610 from central Vietnam operated as maneuver elements. [12]

The last commando remained at Nam Bac to protect the command post, under Col. Molla. The four commando groups were in place with a total strength of some 450 troops by 29 April. Including the GMI and the regular troops, the total force assembled for ALBATROS amounted to a little over 5,000 men. Surrounding Dien Bien Phu the Viet Minh had almost 50,000.

Molla was considered a baroudeur, French army parlance for a real fighter. His deputy, Capt. Oudinot, was a World War II veteran of the French commando in the British SAS. Great fighting spirit would be an absolute requirement in ALBATROS for the time was very short -- at the final mission briefing, held at Nam Bac before the three commandos left for the north, their field commander, Capt. Henri Loustau, was told that the entrenched camp would not hold out past 10 May.

In the valley of Dien Bien Phu, the Viet Minh siege units inched relentlessly ahead. French defenders were driven back toward the center of their fortress. Desperation went with the serious military situation. General Navarre now told the French government that only an American airstrike could save the position. Once again the French approached the United States. By now the American intervention had acquired its own code name, operation VULTURE ("VAUTOUR"). [13]

To Save Dien Bien Phu The French in Indochina

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