Word: balding
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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...Plus-One: An elite Moroccan battalion counterattacks on Bald Head. It is close-quarter battle with light machine guns, rifles, knives, grenades and crude bamboo spears. Six times the hill changes hands. At 0700, French 19-ton tanks and flamethrower squads sear the Communists out. The Moroccans count 300 Communist dead on just one segment of their broken wire. De Castries radios HQ: "I am still master of the situation...
...Plus-Two: Just after midnight, the Communists surge again towards Bald Head, marked by a single lightning-blasted tree-stump etched against the flarelight. The Moroccans repel them, and quiet comes. For almost eleven hours the tired armies get a rest. Early afternoon, the Communists slam in heavy strength against Bald Head, and edge the Moroccans off the crest. But De Castries is still confident. "Le moral de mes hommes est formidable," he says on the radio to HQ. "If you see my wife," adds De Castries coolly, "give her a kiss from...
Then the Moroccans launch one of the epics of the battle: they make eleven separate counterattacks against Bald Head and eleven times they fail with losses. They try once more-and win. From Paris comes word that France's highest unit citation has been awarded to the entire garrison: "The heroic sacrifice of those who have fallen, the fierce tenacity of the fighters, adds a new glory to ... our arms," says France. De Castries is nominated for brigadier general...
...Plus-Four. The tireless De Castries orders another counterattack at 0400. This one clears Huguette of the enemy. At dawn, he attacks from Bald Head, and for the first time in the battle, some C ommmunists drop their arms...
More good news: reinforcements from Hanoi are dropped-tough paratroopers in red berets. Red gunfire slackens, and the Reds pull back 500 yards from Bald Head to regroup. The situation, says French HQ. is "serious, but less critical...