Offensive That Failed

BATTLE OF INDOCHINA

In Paris, General de Lattre de Tassigny read the news with pursed lips: the expected offensive had come; 30,000 Viet Minh Communists were attacking the eastern end of the highway between Hanoi and the port of Haiphong. Already, the French had lost four small outposts along Route Coloniale No. 18.

De Lattre wasted no time. With his government's promise of 15,000 picked reinforcements soon to come, he boarded his Constellation for Indo-China. As he flew over India, the news from IndoChina was bad: the Reds had come close enough to cut the Haiphong water supply. De Lattre ordered his pilot to fly direct to Haiphong, but the same crachin mist which was giving cover to the Communists prevented the big Constellation from landing. De Lattre landed at Saigon, rode a light plane back to Haiphong, took charge of the battle.

His deputies had acted with praiseworthy caution while he was away. They had not committed the precious French mobile reserve to the defense of Route Coloniale No. 18. When the Communists attacked, the French had retreated slowly.

As soon as the mist cleared, De Lattre sent in his Hellcats and B-26s with bombs and napalm. The Viet Minh soldiers fled, leaving behind 1,200 dead, 3,000 wounded and 400 prisoners. Four days later the French reopened Route Coloniale No. 18.

Meanwhile, coming down the Sontay valley to the west were more Communists, this time threatening Hanoi. Again De Lattre broke up their concentrations with his bombers. But the next day, on an 18-mile front in the mountains southwest of Dongtrieu, the Communists launched their heaviest attack. To the sound of bugle calls, Communist infantrymen loaded with suicide equipment threw themselves, screaming, on the French lines. After two days' steady fighting, the French threw the Communists back with a loss of 500 dead, 1,500 wounded. In the recaptured territory the French found another French officer tortured to death.

The offensive had been a major defeat for Ho Chi Minh. On the Red radio, he told his troops that they must now abandon open warfare and go back to their former guerrilla tactics. Said Ho's Commander in Chief General Vo Nguyen Giap: "Our objective is not to take Haiphong or Hanoi, but to start a war of attrition."

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