Word: giap
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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...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 in the gunsmoke. The battle last week...
DDay: Overcast and grey. At 1600, Giap orders gunfire against the five remaining French strongpoints in the 12-by-4-mile valley. At 1630, black-garbed Communist infantry come at a run for the southern strongpoint. It is only a feint. Half an hour later 105-mm. fire hits the northeast and southeast strongpoints, and Communist infantry moves into trenches near the French barbed wire...
...Plus-Three: The day of climax. At 0100, Giap hurls part of his third and only fresh division against Dienbienphu's untouched northwest strongpoint. Its code name: Huguette. The French here are outnumbered six or eight to one. The defenses crumble. By 0400, the Communists locust-swarm over two of Huguette's five or six outposts. One 50-man suicide squad infiltrates the French center, gets within 200 yards of De Castries' command post before it is wiped out. De Castries calls out staff officers, cooks, orderlies, switchboard operators for the infantry fight. Reports sift out that...
...five days & nights, the Communists have gained one-half of the northeast and a clawhold in the northwest-at a fearful price of 7,000 dead, some 10,-ooo wounded and 80 prisoners (on top of 9,000 casualties in Phase One). This is more than half Giap's original striking force. The dangling Communist dead are beginning to putrefy on the wire, and French planes drop leaflets in the enemy lines: "Remember Giap, the Butcher of Dienbienphu." The French have lost perhaps 2,000. But Dienbienphu holds...
...French were close to certain that Giap planned to renew his offensive when his buildup was complete-perhaps early in April, before the full moon...