Amazing details on Dien Bien Phu retold
Vo Nguyen Giap, hero of Vietnam’s war for independence, recently died at the age of 102. He was given a state funeral. Columnists Ramon Farolan (in his Oct. 14 column) and Amando Doronila (Opinion, 10/18/13) paid him tribute. Governments, like France and Singapore, sent their condolences to Vietnam. Farolan urged our government to follow suit. We hope that the Department of Foreign Affairs heeded his suggestion.
History has chronicled the exploits of military heroes and heels since ancient times. Structures have been erected to memorialize war (and religion). Thus we have the Pyramids of Egypt, (ruined) cities of Alexandria and St. Sophia, Arc de Triomphe, Gate of Brandenburg, and other memorials around the world. History celebrates military feats, too—from Darius the Great’s (his large army would drink a river dry) to Alexander the Great’s (who, still young at his deathbed, wondered whether he had no more lands to conquer); from Hannibal’s (whose army, with its elephants, crossed the Alps) to Napoleon’s (who crowned himself emperor); from Hitler’s (who plunged Europe into World War II, with Rommel, the Desert Fox) to Eisenhower’s (who steered the allied forces to victory in WWII, with Paul Tibbits dropping the first atomic bomb in history). The conquests by the Khans of the Mongols, on to the Caesars of the Roman empire, East or West, need more space.
In Asia, we have also war geniuses and villains: From the great and honorable Islamic commander Saladin during the Crusades to Genda (architect of the Pearl Harbor attack, with Fuchida, the lead ace pilot); from Giap of Ho Chi Minh, the founder of the new Vietnam to Mao Tse tung (liberator and father of modern China).
Going back to Dien Bien Phu, Doronila and Farolan stressed that in 1954, the French Army tried to lure the struggling Vietminh to a final battle at the valley of Dien Bien Phu. French Col. Christian De Castries fortified his position; the Vietnamese however, “hauled up to a higher elevation” their big guns.
I was in mid-60s, a young assistant of foreign undersecretary Jose Ingles, when we were joined by a bright officer, Minister Pacifico Castro, who was just recalled from our embassy in Paris. Castro narrated to me amazing details of the Dien Bien Phu story, thus: The peasant soldiers of Giap dismantled their big guns and artillery, carried each piece, by hand, at night, to the mountains surrounding the valley, and then assembled those pieces to form their batteries, overlooking the French fortification. After almost two months of battle, the French Army, unable to escape, capitulated. Col. Charles Piroth committed suicide (The US almost nuked the Vietminh to save the French).
General Giap did not rest with his laurels of 1954. In 1968, Giap launched the “Tet Offensive”—which defeated the United State militarily and diplomatically. Vietnam became one independent nation in 1975. (I could only sigh that the Vietcong fought with their old rifles and only in their “pajamas,” but with their hearts burning with the fire of patriotism).
—NELSON D. LAVIÑA,
retired ambassador,
