Word: ren
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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...cloudless day last week, General René Cogny, commander of North Viet Nam, flew to the troubled southern zone of the Red River Delta. At Namdinh, 45 miles southeast of Hanoi, with evident pleasure, he presented a unit citation to the elite 2nd Amphibious Group, 1st Foreign Legion Cavalry Regiment; he tied the traditional fanon, an Arabian horse's tail, to the regimental colors. Then the strapping (6 ft., 200 Ibs.) three-star general called the legion officers around him. "Dienbienphu was a blow," he said, "but that's all over now. We must turn the page...
...child I had many dreams," René Cogny once recalled. "I was in love with the history of great French soldiers, and I read all I could about them." Cogny's own quest for glory was long frustrated by a run of bad luck. Born in April 1904, son of a civil servant in a Norman fishing village, he swept through high school and military academy with high grades (except for discipline); he graduated, class of 1929, from the Fontainebleau artillery school. Despite a long series of routine assignments, Cogny lost none of his enthusiasm. "I love troops...
Just before World War II Cogny was promoted to battery commander. In the early skirmishes of the war he won the Croix de guerre. But the German armored divisions rumbled smoothly through Belgium and swerved northeastward behind the Maginot Line. Among the 780,000 French prisoners was Captain René Cogny...
...Castries was on the air again: "The central redoubt is about to be fully overrun. Further resistance is becoming hopeless." At 1700, De Castries made another call to his commander, General René Cogny, in Hanoi...
...There was little rejoicing on the gaily beflagged, sunshiny boulevards, but neither was there much demonstration. On the V-E holiday, police lined the Champs Elysées to protect the government ministers who came to the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier at the Arch of Triumph. President René Coty-whose badge of office usually excites big applause -got only a scattering of handclaps. Premier Laniel's car rolled past and some shouted and hissed. "Send him to Dienbienphu," cried some. "Shoot him!" others shouted. Defense Minister René Pleven drew the same derision. "Resign! Resign!" some...