Word: binh
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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...among French generals cut a figure half so dashing as the Lanvin-tailored De Lattre? Without De Lattre's dynamic leadership, what was going to happen to Indo-China? France's fears deepened when, in February, the Viet Minh Communists forced the French out of Hoa Binh, which Marshal de Lattre had so boldly taken. Since that low point, the military situation has steadied under the firm hand of De Lattre's sad-eyed friend and deputy, General Raoul Salan. Last week the French cabinet confirmed Salan as commander in chief of French forces in Indo-China...
Then De Lattre died (TIME, Jan. 21), and with him some of the audacity which had heartened the French Union forces in their mean and costly five-year-old war. To the west of Hoa Binh, Viet Minh hacked out new roads in the jungle. A human chain of 50,000 Chinese moved 4,000 tons of war material south to the Communist forces. Included, according to French reports: 10 million Chinese-made cartridges, 100,000 mortar shells, 100,000 hand grenades. Russian-built trucks hauled in heavy cannon; Chinese "military advisers" stiffened Viet Minh's 45,000 regulars...
...hold Hoa Binh against Communist counterattacks, General Raoul Salan, De Lattre's successor in Indo-China, increased the French garrison to 23,000 men, sent his shoestring air force to strafe Red convoys. But the Reds were too strong: using Russian antiaircraft guns, they shot down ten French planes in seven days' fighting. Viet Minh raiders slipped through the French defenses, infiltrated the delta...
Last week, outnumbered and outgunned, the French pulled out of Hoa Binh, bringing 1,000 civilians out with them. Fighting all the way, they retreated towards Hanoi, abandoning a network of forts along Route Coloniale No. 6 (linking Hoa Binh to the Tonkin capital of Hanoi...
General Salan described the retreat as a "tactical maneuver," and pointed out that it would leave more of his troops free to tackle Communist guerrillas operating near Hanoi. But Communists crowed victory. The capture of Hoa Binh gave them Route No. 12 as a supply line to the Chinese border; it also gave them a commanding jumpoff base from which their guerrilla bands could stab at Hanoi, and the rice-rich Red River delta...