Word: ghq
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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...sprang an oil leak and could not be repaired until morning. Promptly at dawn the Communists knocked the C-47 °ut of the war, and Nurse de Galard was marooned with the garrison. "The boys have invited me to stay for the siege," she radioed her mother via GHQ...
...with silk sheets, made from parachutes by one of General de Castries' orderlies, but more often she would sleep on a cot beside the wounded. Often, during the bitter days, she would take the last messages of the dying. "I am glad I am trapped," she once told GHQ. "I am proud to be here." Only once did she request a favor: she wanted new underwear, cosmetics and some clean blouses. But her package was dropped, like so much of Dienbienphu's supply, behind the Communist lines...
Discovery at GHQ. At week's end a second French delegation flew to Dienbienphu. But around this time, it finally dawned upon the French commanders that they had been outwitted: the Communists were releasing no more than a pathetic handful of wounded per day, while their advance guards were driving down roads the French had agreed not to bomb (see below}. The French were risking defeat in the next battle to save a few gallant survivors of the last. So GHQ decided, "for technical reasons," to cancel the entire evacuation agreement, and to start bombing Route Coloniale...
...could not go on. At 1730, De Castries called GHQ for the last time: "After 20 hours of ceaseless combat, just now man-to-man, the enemy has infiltrated right through our central bastion. Munitions are short. Our resistance is about to be submerged. The Vietminh are only a few yards from the radio where I speak. I have given orders for maximum demolitions. The ammo depots are going up already. Au revoir...
...Dienbienphu radio operator added his piece with no show of emotion: "There is fighting around the door. The general has ordered me to destroy this equipment. Say hello to Paris for me. Au revoir." Then silence. At GHQ, staff officers, generals, signalmen and clerks were leaden with a dread despair. "It was like hearing the tap on the hull of a submarine that lies helpless at the bottom of the sea," said one who listened...