Word: tonkin
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
Last week, outnumbered and outgunned, the French pulled out of Hoa Binh, bringing 1,000 civilians out with them. Fighting all the way, they retreated towards Hanoi, abandoning a network of forts along Route Coloniale No. 6 (linking Hoa Binh to the Tonkin capital of Hanoi...
Into this drowsy, gentle kingdom came the Communists. They smuggled arms from Siam across Cambodia to Viet Minh soldiers in Tonkin. Commissioner de Raymond complained to Cambodia's plump, 29-year-old King Norodom Sihanouk, who sits more easily on a horse than on a throne. The Cambodians answered with a couple of questions: If things are so bad, why doesn't the Commissioner himself take more precautions, especially since the assassination of South Viet Nam Commissioner Chanson (TIME, Aug. 13)? And why did the Commissioner keep a house full of Vietnamese servants? Said De Raymond...
...last week, and the Communist-led Viet Minh attacked. The Communist objective was to cut off the small federation of Thai states near the border of China's Yunnan province. The Thais are loyal to the French, and 7,000 of their sturdy mountaineers make up the Northwest Tonkin Frontier Guard, one of the French Union's crack guerrilla outfits. But the Thai states are connected with the strongly defended Red River delta country only by overland trails and water routes...
When Communist rebellion erupted in Tonkin's Red River delta four years ago, the French relied on a web of 900 funny little Beau Geste forts built of bricks, mud and logs. This winter, Chinese Comrade Mao Tse-tung gave Indo-Chinese Comrade Ho Chi Minh bazookas, mortars and artillery, which blasted many of the French forts to rubble. Only the dynamic leadership of newly arrived General Jean de Lattre de Tassigny and hastily shipped U.S. arms hurled Ho back...
Last week Tonkin's uneasy quiet was broken by the urgent growl of American bulldozers and cement-mixers. De Lattre, in furious haste, was replacing the Beau Geste forts on his northern front with modern concrete bunkers. His main concern: protection of the vital 60-mile road and rail link between Hanoi and the supply port of Haiphong...