15. The French Disaster at Dien Bien Phu
During the First Indochina War, the French had superior firepower and technology, but were unable to bring the lightly armed Viet Minh to offer a pitched battle in which such superiority could prove decisive. So the French reasoned that if they could not take their superior firepower to the Viet Minh, then they would bring the Viet Minh to superior French firepower. A plan was concocted to entice the Vietnamese into massing for a pitched battle by offering them an irresistible lure: French paratroopers airdropped into an isolated base, Dien Bien Phu.
Unfortunately for the French, so many aircraft were shot down while attempting to resupply the paratroopers, that their situation became critical. The French had also assumed the Vietnamese would have no artillery. The Viet Minh commander, general Giap, organized tens of thousands of porters into a supply line that hauled disassembled guns over rough terrain to the hills overlooking the French. Within two months, the Dien Bien Phu garrison had lost 4000 dead and missing, and nearly 7000 wounded. The survivors, numbering nearly 12,000, were forced to surrender.
