Severing an Artery

BATTLE OF INDOCHINA

From Red China down to south IndoChina this year have gone 3,000 Chinese military instructors, 3,000 tons of military equipment and quantities of salable opium. Up from south Indo-China have gone 35,000 tons of rice, 5,000 tons of salt and 30,000 trained replacements for the Viet Minh Communist army. The artery for this traffic was Route Coloniale No. 12, which passes through Hoa Binh, 32 miles southwest of Hanoi.

General de Lattre de Tassigny had promised Paris and the Pentagon that he would take Hoa Binh around January 1952. After the sweeping success of his breakout offensive (TIME, Nov. 19) De Lattre last week ordered his staff to prepare an immediate attack on Hoa Binh, was told it would take "at least eight days." Said De Lattre: "Do it in four." From the battlefield, TIME Correspondent John Dowling gave this report of how it was done.

IN less than four days the French forces, under sad-eyed, three-star General Raoul Salan, literally leaped on Hoa Binh. The first wave of parachutists came down on a hill overlooking the town, but found that the Communists had already beaten them to the mountains. The second wave of parachutists landed in the tall elephant grass of the Black River valley, and quickly cleared a strip for the Morane-Saulniers (French liaison planes). Two hours later the third wave--half French, half Mung tribesmen--went down, taking with them a complete surgical hospital and staff.

The paratroopers cut the Viet Minh communications wire, captured a Viet Minh convoy on its way northward with salt. But they found Hoa Binh burned-out and deserted. The only local inhabitant to meet them was pretty 25-year-old Nguyen Thi Ky. Her arms loaded with silver bracelets, her teeth painted an artistic black, she nervously approached the paratroopers, holding out an old laissez passer bearing General de Lattre's picture. When Nguyen Thi Ky explained that she had known a French officer in Hoa Binh in the good old days and would like to renew the acquaintanceship, the paratroopers gave her apples and cookies, sent her off to bring back her people. That night Sergeant Chef Guy Pinceau, who had jumped with his pet poodle stuffed in his leg bag, served a dinner of beefsteak, peas and condensed wine to 2,000 paratroopers in Hoa Binh. It had been the biggest drop ever in Indo-China, and another handsome victory for General de Lattre.

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