Kevin Boylan

The defeat of the French forces at Dien Bien Phu by the Vietnamese People’s Army (VPA) lead by General Vo Nguyen Giap was as monumental an event for the second half of the twentieth century as the assassination of Archduke Ferdinand was to the first half. As much as any other event, it signaled the death knell of colonialism and coalesced the proponents of Marxism/Leninism with the first military defeat of the Truman Doctrine.

Unfortunately, “Valley of the Shadow” by Kevin Boylan and Luc Olivier cannot be recommended either as an unbiased presentation of the events or as a clear narrative of what took place during the battle.

The authors rely heavily on Vietnamese publications and online sources that have become recently available. General Giap’s memoirs and writings are also freely sourced. While much of the sourcing is interesting, there is little presented that dispels the conventional wisdom that the battle was lost not by the French troopers on the ground nor won by the unflinching valor of the VPA troops and Giap’s brilliant leadership. The battle was lost due to mistaken assumptions by the French leadership, including their inability, much like the Germans at Stalingrad, to continue to supply the garrison by air through bad weather conditions and constant harassment. This leadership blunder thesis was essentially unchanged from Bernard Fall’s “Hell in a Very Small Place” published in 1966.

Many of the online references given in the notes were not accessible for examination.

The presentation in the book is very confusing. The Order of Battle is not well defined and the French units are presented in acronyms along with unit numerical designations, e.g. V/7 RTA or 8/2 BEP. There is no convenient table listing what all the acronyms stand for and there are at least eleven different types of battalions/regiments/companies. When the VPA acronyms were cited in the same paragraph, it is easy to confuse who is who. It would have been helpful to, say, the first time a unit is cited in a chapter to designate what the composition of the unit was, e.g. V/7 RTA (Algerian Rifle Regiment) or 8/2 BEP (Foreign Legion Parachute Battalion). Half-way through the book the authors stop referring to the VPA and begin referring to them as bo doi without giving any explanation. Why?

The ostensible commander of the ground troops, Col. Pierre Langlais, is addressed only anecdotally. While General de Castries was the CinC, the day to day strategy and tactics fell upon the shoulders of Col. Langlais. By all accounts, Langlais was a difficult and abrupt officer who had no qualms dressing down a subordinate in public. But he was also an extremely competent tactician and officer dealing with a nearly untenable situation while receiving less and less support from his superiors in Hanoi. He first and foremost believed in the honor of his profession. His portrayal in this book is more like a hot-head of limited mental capacity. It is an unfair portrait.

Similarly, at the very beginning and at the end of the book, General Giap is presented as a near genius. This, again, is puzzling as throughout the book he is presented as making decisions that could have gone completely against him had slight variables gone differently. This battle was a very close run thing that could have gone in either direction but for small, uncontrollable occurrences (weather, French command decisions, etc.). However, one must concede that, in warfare, being lucky is better than being good.

The authors claim that the present volume is not intended to be a comprehensive study but a correction of previous accounts by having access to previously unavailable material. Early on reveal their leanings, calling the battle “a triumph for Marxist Revolutionary Warfare theory.” They also present the dan cong, the civilians who were conscripted to help transport food and munitions through the jungle terrain, as willing, even cheerful, volunteers. This seems an exaggeration; even years later, US forces found much of the countryside ambivalent at best to the political machinations of the outside world. Giap, in true Marxist fashion, had little regard for the situation of the individual as it related to the Revolutionary cause.

Short shrift (perhaps a page) is given to the prisoners and the truly horrible treatment at the hands of their communist captors. Much greater attention is paid to comments by the French leadership that the authors purport are evidence of racism. In the context of the day there was nothing untoward in these comments. A more detailed study reveal that most of the French leadership gave credit where it was due and where African or Laotian troops faltered, it was noted. Mostly this happened when officers or NCOs were killed or otherwise incapacitated. This did not generally happen within the elite paratrooper units.

One last, galling and unnecessary comment comes in the last chapter of the book in which the authors state unequivocally that the claim “that the US actually won its Vietnam War militarily, only to throw the victory away on account of a loss of political will on the home front” is a false assuagement. I would refer the authors to numerous articles and publications over the years, e.g. “Abandoning Vietnam, How America Left and South Vietnam Lost its War” by James H. Willbanks, University Press of Kansas, 2004.

A much better, much more accurate and unbiased account of the Battle of Dien Bien Phu is presented in “The Last Valley” by Martin Windrow, Da Capo Press, 2004.

Of course there is the classic “Hell in a Very Small Place, the Siege of Dien Bien Phu” by Bernard Fall, Lippincott, 1966.… (mais)