Word: dongtrieu
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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...January 1951, De Lattre blunted the Communist offensive at Vinnyen, 25 miles short of Hanoi. In April he stopped them at Dongtrieu. and in May, again, at the Day River. The high-riding French coined a new phrase: Esprit De Lattre. In November, the great soldier cried, "From now on, the initiative is mine," and launched France's biggest attack. But the Communists faded back into the jungles, and would not give battle...
What the French wanted was a set piece battle. For six years they had been fighting an enemy who avoided meeting them face to face or matching them gun for gun. In last year's Vinhyen and Dongtrieu battles, the late great Marshal de Lattre de Tassigny had shown briefly what could be done if the Viet Minh Communists could be tricked out into open combat. Now, at the encircled air strip of Nasan, 117 miles west of Hanoi, there was a chance that Communist General Giap would repeat his earlier mistakes...
Meanwhile, coming down the Sontay valley to the west were more Communists, this time threatening Hanoi. Again De Lattre broke up their concentrations with his bombers. But the next day, on an 18-mile front in the mountains southwest of Dongtrieu, the Communists launched their heaviest attack. To the sound of bugle calls, Communist infantrymen loaded with suicide equipment threw themselves, screaming, on the French lines. After two days' steady fighting, the French threw the Communists back with a loss of 500 dead, 1,500 wounded. In the recaptured territory the French found another French officer tortured to death...
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