Word: prabang
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Dates: during 1953-1953
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Advancing in five columns, Viet Mink Communists were in sight of the ancient Laotian capital of Luang Prabang last week. Flying in with French reinforcements, TIME Correspondent John Dowling reported: THE plane, loaded with Legionnaires, JL jeeps, artillery, barbed wire, ammunition, slips smoothly into the grass airstrip. We step out and the hills and mountains enclose us in their green embrace. To the west, rising from the jungle, is a hill surmounted by a white, bell-shaped stupa (shrine) whose glistening, golden spire points needlelike at a soft blue sky. To the east and south tower the forest-clad mountains...
...week's end the Communists had flowed around the Plaine des Janes, after giving it a blast of mortar fire, and were pouring past it westward. As the three columns began to converge, it became clear that Giap's objective was the ancient Laotian capital of Luang Prabang, seat of King...
...Luang Prabang would be defended, the French promised: "It is a matter of prestige." From Hanoi, the French began airlifting soldiers and equipment to Luang Prabang. Inside the Hanoi delta, Giap launched a surprise attack on Kien Airfield, clearly intending to delay air reinforcements to Laos. The Red guerrillas swarmed over the airfield, the finest in Indo-China and specially designed for jet aircraft, and dispersed the guard. They killed 20 Frenchmen, captured and executed Provincial Chief Trinh Nhu Tiep, burned the barracks, set off 3,000 tons of ammunition. A French counterattack killed 212 Viet Minh, captured...