Word: fortresses
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French intelligence reported that Giap was also using the lull to bring up heavy reinforcements and supplies and to redraw his battle lines-nearer and nearer the fortress...
...slim woman in a blue linen suit spoke into the radiotelephone at French GHQ: "This is Mme. de Castries calling Dienbienphu. Is that you, darling?" In the fortress command post 175 miles away, Colonel de Castries came to the set. Asked Mme. de Castries: "Are you all right, Christian?" Said the colonel: "Never better." Mme. de Castries warned of the coming monsoon: "I hope your raincoat has not been destroyed." The colonel later messaged his wife for razor blades and shaving cream. "He is extremely confident," Mme. de Castries told a London Daily Express reporter. "I know...
...press camp in Hanoi one night this week with stirring news "We may now consider," he said, "that the second phase of the battle for Dienbienphu is ended." This meant that 15,000 surrounded, bonetired French Union troops had again thrown back 40,000 Communists assaulting the rubble-dust fortress of Dienbienphu. The army of Red General Giap, torn by frightful casualties, was still coming in from the jungle and the hills, and a third great assault was abuilding. But so far, Dienbienphu had gallantly defended the hopes of the free world, and the tricolor still rippled free...
Problem No. 1 was Giap's artillery. It was considerably better than the French had anticipated. Red 105-mm. gun crews and their Chinese instructors commanded all six remaining French strong points of the fortress as well as its two shell-pocked airstrips. French planes and helicopters could not get down tp evacuate more than a few of Dienbienphu's wounded. French patrols, water parties and couriers had to run a deadly daytime gauntlet. French pilots chalked such notes as "best wishes" and "May your buttocks be scorched" on their bombs, and flew three missions a day against...
Problem No. 2 was Giap's "mole-man" infantry. Every night the Communists dug and tunneled up to the French wire, loosening ground so that they could quickly dig assault trenches when the signal came to go in; they neatly infiltrated between the fortress' HQ and its southern strong point. Five times last week the French sent out tanks and infantry to ease the throttlehold; they killed 260 Communists and captured 14. At week's end the French launched a strong counterattack, claimed 1,000 casualties. But every night the Red moles came back...