Operation Camargue
Encyclopedia
Operation Camargue was one of the largest operations by the French Far East Expeditionary Corps
and Vietnamese National Army
in the First Indochina War. It took place from 28 July until 10 August 1953. French armored platoons
, airborne units and troops delivered by landing craft
to the coast of central Annam
, modern-day Vietnam
, attempted to sweep forces of the communist
Viet Minh from the critical Route One.
The first landings took place in the early morning on 28 July, and reached the first objectives, an inland canal, without major incident. A secondary phase of mopping-up operations began in a "labyrinth of tiny villages" where French armored forces suffered a series of ambushes. Reinforced by paratrooper
s, the French and their Vietnamese allies tightened a net around the defending Viet Minh, but delays in the movement of French forces left gaps through which most of the Viet Minh guerillas, and many of the arms caches the operation was expected to seize, escaped. For the French, this validated the claim that it was impossible to operate tight ensnaring operations in Vietnam's jungle, due to the slow movement of their troops, and a foreknowledge by the enemy, which was difficult to prevent. From then on, the French focused on creating strong fortified positions, against which Viet Minh General Giap
could pit his forces, culminating in Opération Castor
and the battle of Dien Bien Phu
.
With the French forces withdrawn from the operation by the late summer of 1953, Viet Minh Regiment 95 re-infiltrated Route One and resumed ambushes of French convoys, retrieving weapons caches missed by the French forces. Regiment 95 occupied the area for the remainder of the First Indochina War and were still operating there as late as 1962 against the South Vietnamese Army
during the Second Indochina, or Vietnam War
.
, since 19 December 1946. From 1949, it evolved into conventional warfare
, due largely to aid to the communists from the People's Republic of China
("PRC") to the north. Subsequently, the French strategy of occupying small, poorly defended outposts throughout Indochina, particularly along the Vietnamese-Chinese border, started failing. Thanks to the terrain and the close border with China, the Viet Minh had succeeded in turning a "clandestine guerrilla movement into a powerful conventional army", something which previously had never been encountered by the western imperial powers. In October 1952, fighting around the Red River Delta
spread into the Thai Highlands
, resulting in the battle of Na San
, at which the Viet Minh were defeated. The French used the lessons learned at Na San – strong ground bases, versatile air support, and a model based on the British
Burma campaign
– as the basis for their new strategy. The Viet Minh, however, remained unbeatable in the highland regions of Vietnam, and the French "could not offset the fundamental disadvantages of a roadbound army facing a hill and forest army in a country which had few roads but a great many hills and forests".
In May 1953, General Henri Navarre
arrived to take command of the French forces, replacing General Raoul Salan
. Navarre spoke of a new offensive spirit in Indochina – based on strong, fast-moving forces – and the media quickly took Operation Camargue to be the "practical realization" of that.
in 1949, the Viet Minh established close ties with China. It enabled the Chinese to expand their area of influence into Indochina and the Viet Minh to receive much needed Chinese matériel and strategic planning support. From mid-1950, PRC military advisers were seconded to the Viet Minh at Battalion, Regiment and Divisional level. The common border meant that "China became a 'sanctuary' where the Viet Minh could be trained and refitted". When the Korean War
broke out, Indochina became "an important pawn in Cold War strategy". In December 1950, the United States, concerned about growing Chinese Communist influence, started providing military aid to the French, with a first payment of US$15 million.
In the spring of 1953, the Viet Minh launched campaigns in Laos and succeeded in linking up Laotian territorial gains with their bases in north-western Vietnam. Meanwhile, the winding down of the Korean War meant that China was able "to give much more attention to its southern neighbour". Similarly, the US "released from its heavy burden in the Korean conflict ... dramatically increased its military and financial support" to the French. By June 1953, the US "had sent: 1,224 tanks and combat vehicles; 120,792 rifles and machine guns; more than 200 million rifle and machine gun cartridges; more than five million artillery projectiles; 302 boats and 304 aircraft" (by end of the war, total US aid would amount to nearly four billion dollars).
Route One, also known as Route Coloniale One (or RC1), had been the main north–south artery along the coastline of Vietnam since the outbreak of violence in 1949. Communications and convoys along these lines suffered from regular attacks by Viet Minh irregulars, despite efforts by the French during 1952 in Operation Sauterelle. The Viet Minh paramilitary forces around Route One originated mainly from a region of fortified villages dispersed along sand dunes and salt marsh
es between Hué
to the south, and Quang-Tri
to the north. French forces had suffered from Viet Minh ambushes, an attack that the latter had become very proficient at throughout the war, most notably in the annihilation of Group Mobile 42
in 1950 and of GM 100
in 1954. The roads in Vietnam were almost all closed during the night and "abandoned to the enemy".
Between 1952 and 1954, 398 armored vehicles were destroyed, 84% of them from mines and booby trap
s. Typically, the Viet Minh ambushed convoys by obstructing the road with a fallen tree or pile of boulders, and then destroying the first and last vehicles of the halted convey with remote mines
. Caltraps, mines and the steep cliff faces naturally found at the road side aided in funneling the target convoy into a small area, where machine gun
s, mortars
and recoilless rifle
s were trained. Viet Minh Regiment 95 repeatedly deployed these tactics, inflicting severe losses on the French forces passing along Route One, which led to its French nickname of la rue sans joie ("the Street Without Joy
"). Regiment 95 was, along with Regiments 18 and 101, part of the Viet Minh Division 325, commanded by General Tran Quy Ha. The division was formed in 1951 from pre-existing units in Thừa Thiên just north of Route One, and became operational in the summer of 1952.
By early summer 1953, thanks in part to the wind-down of hostilities in the Korean War, the French command had "sufficient reserves" at hand to begin clearing the Viet Minh back from Route One. They assembled 30 battalions, two armored regiments and two artillery regiments for one of the largest operations of the conflict. Called Operation Camargue, it was named for the sandy marshland
to the west of Marseilles, France. The difficult terrain was to prove the decisive factor and gave a major advantage to the one Viet Minh regiment tasked with defending the Street Without Joy.
From a 100 metres (109 yd) deep beach of "hard sand" the French landing forces were to advance through a series of dunes. The dunes were up to 20 metres (22 yd) high and interspersed with precipices, ditches and a handful of small villages. Beyond this was an 800 metres (875 yd) belt of pagoda
s and temples, which war correspondent Bernard Fall describes as having excellent defensive potential. Beyond these temples was Route One itself with a series of closely packed and fortified villages, including Tân An, Mỹ Thủy, Van Trinh and Lai-Ha. This network of villages and hedgerows made both ground and air surveillance difficult. Across from Route One the villages continued amid an area of quicksand
, swamps and bogs, which would stop all but a few of the vehicles at the disposal of the French. Although there were roads, most were mined or damaged. Throughout the area, the civilian population remained and provided a further complication for the French high command.
, and two infantry companies from the Quang-Tri military base. Group C was to advance from the south-west into the back of Van Trinh through the swamps, and consisted of the 9th Moroccan Tabor
, 27th Vietnamese Infantry Battalion, 2nd Battalion of the 4th Moroccan Rifle Regiment, 1 Commando, a tank platoon of the Moroccan Colonials, an Armored Patrol Boat Platoon, and an LCM
Platoon. Group D consisted of 3rd Battalion of the 3rd Algerian Rifles, the 7th Amphibious Group, and a Commando group, and was to land at the south-east end of the beach, below Group A. These forces in total formed "two amphibious forces, three land-borne groupments and one airborne force" all of which was commanded by General Leblanc. This French force, vastly outnumbering the Viet Minh regiment opposing it, was tasked with sealing the Communist forces into a tight pocket, and systematically destroying them, as well as capturing as many prisoners, arms caches and as much equipment as possible.
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On 27 July 1953, the French landing craft departed from their assembly points, and by 04:00 on the following had begun disembarking 160 amphibious landing craft belonging to Group A's 3rd Amphibious opposite the coastline. By 06:00, these vehicles had landed on the beach
and proceeded to occupy sand ridges overlooking the dunes beyond. Proceeding into the dunes, the vehicles of 3rd Amphibious became stuck in the sand; in the meantime, other regular infantry elements of Group A were experiencing more difficulties in the sea, taking two extra hours to reach the beach. Thus unsupported, elements of 3rd Amphibious that either disembarked floundering vehicles or were pushed, managed to escape the dunes and advance between Tân An and Mỹ Thủy. The French amphibious vehicles were the World War II-era 29-C
cargo carriers, nicknamed the Crab or Crabe and LVT
4 or 4As, known as the Alligator. The latter was armed with two and two Browning machine gun
s and an M20 recoilless rifle. While the Alligators were heavily armored and well suited to the water, they struggled on land. In contrast, the Crab had difficulty in water and its large size presented too great a target on land; however, it was lighter and more maneuverable, except in paddy fields where its suspension became clogged with vegetation.
While Group A's forward elements were breaching the dune barrier unopposed, two of Group B's battalions crossed the Van Trịnh Cănal. By 07:45, when they made visual contact with the Crabs and Alligators of Group A, they had succeeded in sealing off the northern escape route of By 08:30, the 6th Moroccan Spahis also reached the canal, having had difficulty crossing the swamps on the landward side with their M24 Chaffee
tanks. No French units, as yet, had made any major contact with the Viet Minh. A minor fire-fight had taken place on the southern edge of advance when an Algerian company exchanged fire with 20–30 Viet Minh and suffered the first French fatalities. Simultaneously, had advanced into the center of the area of operation, and executed "the most complicated maneuver of the operation". This involved crossing Route One and sealing off the land side of the operational area, and was completed by 08:30.
Group D, finally, was tasked with advancing south from its landing point to close off an escape route that ran between the sea and an inland lagoon towards the city of Hué. Landing at 04:30, the group made quick progress through the beach and dunes, secured the small city of Thé Chi Dong and hit the north coast of the lagoon by 05:30, thereby sealing off that escape route with no enemy contact. The final act of sealing the noose was to move some of the French Navy
vessels north to the Vietnamese villages of Ba-Lang and An-Hoi where any attempt by Regiment 95 to flee by sea would have taken place.
With the landings and the encirclement of Regiment 95 complete and the net deemed secure, the French forces began the second phase of the operation and began to sweep through the area for the encircled Viet Minh. Each French group began to move through the villages around Route One in an attempt to locate the Viet Minh forces. Group B, which was lined up along the canal – the jump-off point for the second phase of the operation – moved to sweep the northern villages while Group C did the same further south. The method of searching each village was to seal it off entirely with encircling troops, and then inspect it with a heavily armed unit of minesweepers
and K-9
teams. Men of military age were arrested and screened by intelligence officer
s. This process was time-consuming, and by 11:00 Group B had traveled 7 kilometres (4.3 mi) through the network of villages with no results or resistance. At this time, the 6th Moroccan Spahis entered the village of Dong-Qué with their M-24 tanks and the support of the 1st Battalion of the Moroccan Rifles and the artillery of Colonel Piroth (later commander of the artillery at the battle of Dien Bien Phu) and his 69th African Artillery Regiment.
The Moroccan infantry took the lead, and the French commanders sealed themselves in their tank turrets and advanced behind. Viet Minh forces, which were waiting in ambush, fired almost the same instant as the lead Moroccan units who noticed their presence. The Moroccan forces spread out into the surrounding rice paddies, and the bazooka
s of the Viet Minh missed the French tanks. The French commander called in Piroth's artillery and Dong-Qué "disintegrated under the impact of their high-angle fire", particularly when a French shell found the Viet Minh ammunition depot. As the French tanks approached, the Viet Minh drove the civilians out to clog up the entrance to the village, however as the Viet Minh retreated they were spotted through the civilians by the Moroccan infantry and killed by 13:00. During this battle, however, most of the Regiment 95 personnel who had been elsewhere managed to escape towards the southern end of the French encirclement. Leblanc had realized the intentions of Regiment 95's commander, and had requested one of the two reserve paratroop units to be deployed at the border between the network of temples and the dune-filled area in front of where Group D had originally landed. This paratroop unit, 2nd Battalion of the 1st Colonial Parachute Regiment, began to advance towards the canal at 10:45, 15 minutes before Group B entered Dong-Qué.
Group C's 9th Tabor had also, like the M-24's of Group B, struggled through the marshes during the first phase of the operation, and were late in arriving at the jumping-off point for phase two, the canal. At 08:45, Moroccan units of Group C were investigating the village of Phu-An on the opposite side of the lagoon from Group D's landing area, when they came under heavy fire. Despite being nearer to Group D, the engaged units radioed their immediate commanders back in Group C, who were by now some distance away, further inland. This delay, coupled with the failure of many of the units SCR300 radios, meant that these advance elements of Group C failed to get through until 09:10. At 09:40, the commander of Group C called up various reinforcements from Hué including two companies of Vietnamese trainee NCOs
and five infantry companies, two of which came via landing craft and did not reach the beleaguered elements of Group C until 18:00, half an hour after the Moroccans had finally counter-attacked and occupied Phu-An. The 2nd Battalion of the Parachute Chasseurs Regiment had been requested to drop at 14:00 to support the advanced elements of Group C but did not jump until 16:50 and thus failed to assemble before the Moroccans themselves occupied Phu-An. With the final capture of Phu-An, the extreme southern tip of the encirclement, the pincer movement was complete.
By 17:30, with Phu-An captured, all French reserves now committed, and one half of the pocket fully swept by Groups B and A at the northern end of the battlefield, the French appeared to have gained the upper hand. By now, the expected windfall of arms caches and prisoners should have taken place. However, the unexpected time taken to capture Phu-An, and the delayed arrival of the paratroop reinforcements who had been scattered by the winds, had left a gap between Phu-An and the southern edge of the lagoon. This 12 kilometres (7.5 mi) gap was eventually covered by only four French battalions, leaving gaps through which the Viet Minh could escape. Crabs and Alligators were stationed on, or in some cases in, the canal network, and French infantry were scattered across the edge of the pocket throughout that night in order to detect escaping Viet Minh. However, despite the occasional shot, flare and searchlight, no Viet Minh were detected.
On the morning of 29 July 1953, the French forces continued to advance into the remaining 23 square kilometres (9 sq mi) pocket, encountering neither Viet Minh nor civilian. Groups A, B and D reached the edge of the canal opposite Group C by 13:00, having retrieved a small number of suspected Viet Minh and a "few weapons". At this time, however, a Morane
aircraft detected the movement of elements of Regiment 95 towards An-Hoi on the extreme northern corner of the operational area, outside of the pocket. The French carried out a raid on An-Hoi by commando groups and elements of Group A, which took place at 15:00 and returned with suspected Viet Minh by 18:00. The French then undertook a methodical house-to-house search of the entire area, sweeping each village, and the surrounding paddy fields and jungle, risking encounter with Viet Minh caltrops. Meanwhile, 2nd and 3rd Amphibious used their Crabs and Alligators to herd prisoners towards Trung-An for interrogation. By the end of 29 July, with resistance to the French forces having ceased, a general withdrawal of paratroopers, amphibious groups and marines began.
states in his memoirs that Operation Camargue was "one of the most successful French military operations during the Indochina war" in the area of Route One.
Newspapers stated that the operation had been a "total success, demonstrating once more the new aggressiveness and mobility" of the French forces. However, in the days following the end of the fighting, press reports on the French failure to capture the anticipated large numbers of Viet Minh began to appear though the British newspaper, The Times, did publish claimed casualty figures of 1,550 for the Viet Minh, 200 of which killed. This estimate was altered by the French the next day to 600 killed or wounded and 900 captured, and it was suggested that the operation did "not appear to have been successful". In contrast to these figures, Bernard Fall records 182 Viet Minh casualties and 387 prisoners. He also notes that "51 rifles, eight sub-machine guns, two mortars, and five BARs" were captured. Of the prisoners, however, it is not recorded how many were confirmed to be members of Regiment 95. Both Fall and the newspapers published in the days following the official termination of the operation on 10 August 1953, give French casualties as 17 dead and 100 wounded. Giap wrote "it was announced we suffered heavy losses although in fact our losses were insignificant ... their troops had to withdraw with heavy losses".
Fall goes on to record that the "major defect" of Operation Camargue was that the French had nothing like the numerical superiority to encircle a force in the terrain around Road One, 15:1 as opposed to the 20:1 or 25:1 that he believed required. He states that the slow French progress (around 1,500 yards an hour) and the large distances each unit had to guard from Viet Minh infiltration meant that the Viet Minh could easily escape the net. He also states that Viet Minh intelligence were always aware of French movements, as the size of French units and the complex technology involved in the operation gave its presence and intentions away almost immediately, whereas in contrast the simpler Viet Minh operations were far more difficult to detect.
French Far East Expeditionary Corps
The French Far East Expeditionary Corps was a colonial expeditionary force of the French Union Army sent in French Indochina in 1945 during the Pacific War.-Pacific War :...
and Vietnamese National Army
Vietnamese National Army
On March 8, 1949, after the Elysee accords, the State of Vietnam was recognized by France as an independent country ruled by Vietnamese Emperor Bảo Đại. The Vietnamese National Army or Vietnam National Army was the State of Vietnam's military force created shortly after that. It was commanded by...
in the First Indochina War. It took place from 28 July until 10 August 1953. French armored platoons
Tank
A tank is a tracked, armoured fighting vehicle designed for front-line combat which combines operational mobility, tactical offensive, and defensive capabilities...
, airborne units and troops delivered by landing craft
Landing craft
Landing craft are boats and seagoing vessels used to convey a landing force from the sea to the shore during an amphibious assault. Most renowned are those used to storm the beaches of Normandy, the Mediterranean, and many Pacific islands during WWII...
to the coast of central Annam
Annam (French Colony)
Annam was a French protectorate encompassing the central region of Vietnam. Vietnamese were subsequently referred to as "Annamites." Nationalist writers adopted the word "Vietnam" in the late 1920s. The general public embraced the word "Vietnam" during the revolution of August 1945...
, modern-day Vietnam
Vietnam
Vietnam – sometimes spelled Viet Nam , officially the Socialist Republic of Vietnam – is the easternmost country on the Indochina Peninsula in Southeast Asia. It is bordered by China to the north, Laos to the northwest, Cambodia to the southwest, and the South China Sea –...
, attempted to sweep forces of the communist
Communism
Communism is a social, political and economic ideology that aims at the establishment of a classless, moneyless, revolutionary and stateless socialist society structured upon common ownership of the means of production...
Viet Minh from the critical Route One.
The first landings took place in the early morning on 28 July, and reached the first objectives, an inland canal, without major incident. A secondary phase of mopping-up operations began in a "labyrinth of tiny villages" where French armored forces suffered a series of ambushes. Reinforced by paratrooper
Paratrooper
Paratroopers are soldiers trained in parachuting and generally operate as part of an airborne force.Paratroopers are used for tactical advantage as they can be inserted into the battlefield from the air, thereby allowing them to be positioned in areas not accessible by land...
s, the French and their Vietnamese allies tightened a net around the defending Viet Minh, but delays in the movement of French forces left gaps through which most of the Viet Minh guerillas, and many of the arms caches the operation was expected to seize, escaped. For the French, this validated the claim that it was impossible to operate tight ensnaring operations in Vietnam's jungle, due to the slow movement of their troops, and a foreknowledge by the enemy, which was difficult to prevent. From then on, the French focused on creating strong fortified positions, against which Viet Minh General Giap
Vo Nguyen Giap
Võ Nguyên Giáp is a retired Vietnamese officer in the Vietnam People’s Army and a politician. He was a principal commander in two wars: the First Indochina War and the Vietnam War...
could pit his forces, culminating in Opération Castor
Operation Castor
Opération Castor was a French airborne operation in the First Indochina War. The operation established a fortified airhead in Dien Bien Province, in the north-west corner of Vietnam. Commanded by Brigadier General Jean Gilles, Castor was the largest airborne operation since World War II...
and the battle of Dien Bien Phu
Battle of Dien Bien Phu
The Battle of Dien Bien Phu was the climactic confrontation of the First Indochina War between the French Union's French Far East Expeditionary Corps and Viet Minh communist revolutionaries. The battle occurred between March and May 1954 and culminated in a comprehensive French defeat that...
.
With the French forces withdrawn from the operation by the late summer of 1953, Viet Minh Regiment 95 re-infiltrated Route One and resumed ambushes of French convoys, retrieving weapons caches missed by the French forces. Regiment 95 occupied the area for the remainder of the First Indochina War and were still operating there as late as 1962 against the South Vietnamese Army
Army of the Republic of Vietnam
The Army of the Republic of Viet Nam , sometimes parsimoniously referred to as the South Vietnamese Army , was the land-based military forces of the Republic of Vietnam , which existed from October 26, 1955 until the fall of Saigon on April 30, 1975...
during the Second Indochina, or Vietnam War
Vietnam War
The Vietnam War was a Cold War-era military conflict that occurred in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia from 1 November 1955 to the fall of Saigon on 30 April 1975. This war followed the First Indochina War and was fought between North Vietnam, supported by its communist allies, and the government of...
.
Background
The First Indochina War had raged, as guerrilla warfareGuerrilla warfare
Guerrilla warfare is a form of irregular warfare and refers to conflicts in which a small group of combatants including, but not limited to, armed civilians use military tactics, such as ambushes, sabotage, raids, the element of surprise, and extraordinary mobility to harass a larger and...
, since 19 December 1946. From 1949, it evolved into conventional warfare
Conventional warfare
Conventional warfare is a form of warfare conducted byusing conventional military weapons and battlefield tactics between two or more states in open confrontation. The forces on each side are well-defined, and fight using weapons that primarily target the opposing army...
, due largely to aid to the communists from the People's Republic of China
People's Republic of China
China , officially the People's Republic of China , is the most populous country in the world, with over 1.3 billion citizens. Located in East Asia, the country covers approximately 9.6 million square kilometres...
("PRC") to the north. Subsequently, the French strategy of occupying small, poorly defended outposts throughout Indochina, particularly along the Vietnamese-Chinese border, started failing. Thanks to the terrain and the close border with China, the Viet Minh had succeeded in turning a "clandestine guerrilla movement into a powerful conventional army", something which previously had never been encountered by the western imperial powers. In October 1952, fighting around the Red River Delta
Red River Delta
The Red River Delta is the flat plain formed by the Red River and its distributaries joining in the Thai Binh River in northern Vietnam. The delta measuring some 15,000 square km is well protected by a network of dikes. It is an agriculturally rich area and densely populated...
spread into the Thai Highlands
Thai highlands
The Thai Highlands are mountains in the north of Thailand that are part of the range of hills extending through Laos, Burma and China and linking to the Himalayas, of which they may be considered foothills.-Geography:...
, resulting in the battle of Na San
Battle of Na San
The Battle of Nà Sản was fought between French Union forces and the communist forces of the Việt Minh at Nà Sản, Sơn La Province, during the First Indochina War for control of the T’ai region ....
, at which the Viet Minh were defeated. The French used the lessons learned at Na San – strong ground bases, versatile air support, and a model based on the British
Great Britain
Great Britain or Britain is an island situated to the northwest of Continental Europe. It is the ninth largest island in the world, and the largest European island, as well as the largest of the British Isles...
Burma campaign
Burma Campaign
The Burma Campaign in the South-East Asian Theatre of World War II was fought primarily between British Commonwealth, Chinese and United States forces against the forces of the Empire of Japan, Thailand, and the Indian National Army. British Commonwealth land forces were drawn primarily from...
– as the basis for their new strategy. The Viet Minh, however, remained unbeatable in the highland regions of Vietnam, and the French "could not offset the fundamental disadvantages of a roadbound army facing a hill and forest army in a country which had few roads but a great many hills and forests".
In May 1953, General Henri Navarre
Henri Navarre
Henri Eugène Navarre was a French Army general. He fought during World War I, World War II and was the seventh commander of French Far East Expeditionary Corps during the First Indochina War...
arrived to take command of the French forces, replacing General Raoul Salan
Raoul Salan
Raoul Albin Louis Salan was a French Army general and the fourth French commanding general during the First Indochina War. Salan was one of four generals who organized the 1961 Algiers Putsch operation and then founded the Organisation de l'armée secrète....
. Navarre spoke of a new offensive spirit in Indochina – based on strong, fast-moving forces – and the media quickly took Operation Camargue to be the "practical realization" of that.
Chinese and American backing
Following the Communist victory in the Chinese Civil WarChinese Civil War
The Chinese Civil War was a civil war fought between the Kuomintang , the governing party of the Republic of China, and the Communist Party of China , for the control of China which eventually led to China's division into two Chinas, Republic of China and People's Republic of...
in 1949, the Viet Minh established close ties with China. It enabled the Chinese to expand their area of influence into Indochina and the Viet Minh to receive much needed Chinese matériel and strategic planning support. From mid-1950, PRC military advisers were seconded to the Viet Minh at Battalion, Regiment and Divisional level. The common border meant that "China became a 'sanctuary' where the Viet Minh could be trained and refitted". When the Korean War
Korean War
The Korean War was a conventional war between South Korea, supported by the United Nations, and North Korea, supported by the People's Republic of China , with military material aid from the Soviet Union...
broke out, Indochina became "an important pawn in Cold War strategy". In December 1950, the United States, concerned about growing Chinese Communist influence, started providing military aid to the French, with a first payment of US$15 million.
In the spring of 1953, the Viet Minh launched campaigns in Laos and succeeded in linking up Laotian territorial gains with their bases in north-western Vietnam. Meanwhile, the winding down of the Korean War meant that China was able "to give much more attention to its southern neighbour". Similarly, the US "released from its heavy burden in the Korean conflict ... dramatically increased its military and financial support" to the French. By June 1953, the US "had sent: 1,224 tanks and combat vehicles; 120,792 rifles and machine guns; more than 200 million rifle and machine gun cartridges; more than five million artillery projectiles; 302 boats and 304 aircraft" (by end of the war, total US aid would amount to nearly four billion dollars).
Prelude to the battle
Salt marsh
A salt marsh is an environment in the upper coastal intertidal zone between land and salt water or brackish water, it is dominated by dense stands of halophytic plants such as herbs, grasses, or low shrubs. These plants are terrestrial in origin and are essential to the stability of the salt marsh...
es between Hué
Hue
Hue is one of the main properties of a color, defined technically , as "the degree to which a stimulus can be describedas similar to or different from stimuli that are described as red, green, blue, and yellow,"...
to the south, and Quang-Tri
Quang Tri Province
Quảng Trị is a province on the North Central Coast of Vietnam, north of the former imperial capital of Huế.-Geography:Located in North Central Vietnam, Quang Tri Province is surrounded by Quang Binh Province on the north, Thua Thien-Hue Province on the south, Savannakhet Province of Laos on the...
to the north. French forces had suffered from Viet Minh ambushes, an attack that the latter had become very proficient at throughout the war, most notably in the annihilation of Group Mobile 42
Battle of Route Coloniale 4
The Battle of Route Coloniale 4 was a battle of the First Indochina War. The battle lasted from 30 September to 18 October 1950...
in 1950 and of GM 100
Battle of Mang Yang Pass
The Battle of Mang Yang Pass was the last official battle of the First Indochina War. It was one of the bloodiest defeats of the French Union together with the battle of Dien Bien Phu in 1954 and the battle of Cao Bang in 1950.-Background:Groupement Mobile No. 100 The Battle of Mang Yang Pass...
in 1954. The roads in Vietnam were almost all closed during the night and "abandoned to the enemy".
Booby trap
A booby trap is a device designed to harm or surprise a person, unknowingly triggered by the presence or actions of the victim. As the word trap implies, they often have some form of bait designed to lure the victim towards it. However, in other cases the device is placed on busy roads or is...
s. Typically, the Viet Minh ambushed convoys by obstructing the road with a fallen tree or pile of boulders, and then destroying the first and last vehicles of the halted convey with remote mines
Land mine
A land mine is usually a weight-triggered explosive device which is intended to damage a target—either human or inanimate—by means of a blast and/or fragment impact....
. Caltraps, mines and the steep cliff faces naturally found at the road side aided in funneling the target convoy into a small area, where machine gun
Machine gun
A machine gun is a fully automatic mounted or portable firearm, usually designed to fire rounds in quick succession from an ammunition belt or large-capacity magazine, typically at a rate of several hundred rounds per minute....
s, mortars
Mortar (weapon)
A mortar is an indirect fire weapon that fires explosive projectiles known as bombs at low velocities, short ranges, and high-arcing ballistic trajectories. It is typically muzzle-loading and has a barrel length less than 15 times its caliber....
and recoilless rifle
Recoilless rifle
A recoilless rifle or recoilless gun is a lightweight weapon that fires a heavier projectile than would be practical to fire from a recoiling weapon of comparable size. Technically, only devices that use a rifled barrel are recoilless rifles. Smoothbore variants are recoilless guns...
s were trained. Viet Minh Regiment 95 repeatedly deployed these tactics, inflicting severe losses on the French forces passing along Route One, which led to its French nickname of la rue sans joie ("the Street Without Joy
Street Without Joy
Street Without Joy or La Rue Sans Joie was the name given by troops of the French Far East Expeditionary Corps to the stretch of Route 1 from Huế to Quảng Trị during the First Indochina War.-Situation:...
"). Regiment 95 was, along with Regiments 18 and 101, part of the Viet Minh Division 325, commanded by General Tran Quy Ha. The division was formed in 1951 from pre-existing units in Thừa Thiên just north of Route One, and became operational in the summer of 1952.
By early summer 1953, thanks in part to the wind-down of hostilities in the Korean War, the French command had "sufficient reserves" at hand to begin clearing the Viet Minh back from Route One. They assembled 30 battalions, two armored regiments and two artillery regiments for one of the largest operations of the conflict. Called Operation Camargue, it was named for the sandy marshland
Camargue
The Camargue is the region located south of Arles, France, between the Mediterranean Sea and the two arms of the Rhône River delta. The eastern arm is called the Grand Rhône; the western one is the Petit Rhône....
to the west of Marseilles, France. The difficult terrain was to prove the decisive factor and gave a major advantage to the one Viet Minh regiment tasked with defending the Street Without Joy.
Pagoda
A pagoda is the general term in the English language for a tiered tower with multiple eaves common in Nepal, India, China, Japan, Korea, Vietnam and other parts of Asia. Some pagodas are used as Taoist houses of worship. Most pagodas were built to have a religious function, most commonly Buddhist,...
s and temples, which war correspondent Bernard Fall describes as having excellent defensive potential. Beyond these temples was Route One itself with a series of closely packed and fortified villages, including Tân An, Mỹ Thủy, Van Trinh and Lai-Ha. This network of villages and hedgerows made both ground and air surveillance difficult. Across from Route One the villages continued amid an area of quicksand
Quicksand
Quicksand is a colloid hydrogel consisting of fine granular matter , clay, and water.Water circulation underground can focus in an area with the optimal mixture of fine sands and other materials such as clay. The water moves up and then down slowly in a convection-like manner throughout a column...
, swamps and bogs, which would stop all but a few of the vehicles at the disposal of the French. Although there were roads, most were mined or damaged. Throughout the area, the civilian population remained and provided a further complication for the French high command.
French order of battle
The French divided their forces into four Groupement mobiles ("mobile groups"): A through D. Group A consisted of Mobile Group 14, which contained 3rd Amphibious Group, 2nd Marine Commando, 2nd Battalion 1st Colonial Parachute Regiment, and 3rd Vietnamese Parachute Battalion. Operation Camargue was to be one of the final proving grounds for the use of French armor during the war. It was to land on the beach in line with the center of Route One. Meanwhile, Group B was to advance over land from the west of the north-east facing beach. This group consisted of Mobile Group Central Vietnam's 6th Moroccan Spahis, 2nd Amphibious Group, a tank platoon from 1st Foreign Cavalry Regiment1st Foreign Cavalry Regiment
The 1st Foreign Cavalry Regiment is the only armoured cavalry regiment in the French Foreign Legion. It is one of two cavalry regiments of the 6th Light Armoured Brigade....
, and two infantry companies from the Quang-Tri military base. Group C was to advance from the south-west into the back of Van Trinh through the swamps, and consisted of the 9th Moroccan Tabor
Tabor (Morocco)
A tabor is a Moroccan military term used to describe a formation of three or four goums. A goum in this case is equivalent to a Company and a tabor would thereby be equivalent to a Battalion...
, 27th Vietnamese Infantry Battalion, 2nd Battalion of the 4th Moroccan Rifle Regiment, 1 Commando, a tank platoon of the Moroccan Colonials, an Armored Patrol Boat Platoon, and an LCM
Landing Craft Mechanized
The Landing Craft Mechanized or Landing Craft Mechanical was a landing craft designed for carrying vehicles. They came to prominence during the Second World War when they were used to land troops or tanks during Allied amphibious assaults....
Platoon. Group D consisted of 3rd Battalion of the 3rd Algerian Rifles, the 7th Amphibious Group, and a Commando group, and was to land at the south-east end of the beach, below Group A. These forces in total formed "two amphibious forces, three land-borne groupments and one airborne force" all of which was commanded by General Leblanc. This French force, vastly outnumbering the Viet Minh regiment opposing it, was tasked with sealing the Communist forces into a tight pocket, and systematically destroying them, as well as capturing as many prisoners, arms caches and as much equipment as possible.
French landing
Amphibious warfare
Amphibious warfare is the use of naval firepower, logistics and strategy to project military power ashore. In previous eras it stood as the primary method of delivering troops to non-contiguous enemy-held terrain...
and proceeded to occupy sand ridges overlooking the dunes beyond. Proceeding into the dunes, the vehicles of 3rd Amphibious became stuck in the sand; in the meantime, other regular infantry elements of Group A were experiencing more difficulties in the sea, taking two extra hours to reach the beach. Thus unsupported, elements of 3rd Amphibious that either disembarked floundering vehicles or were pushed, managed to escape the dunes and advance between Tân An and Mỹ Thủy. The French amphibious vehicles were the World War II-era 29-C
M29 Weasel
The M29 Weasel was a World War II tracked vehicle, built by Studebaker, designed for operation in snow.-Design and development:The idea for the Weasel came from the work of British inventor Geoffrey Pyke in support of his proposals to attack Axis forces and industrial installations in Norway...
cargo carriers, nicknamed the Crab or Crabe and LVT
Landing Vehicle Tracked
The Landing Vehicle Tracked was a class of amphibious vehicles introduced by the United States Navy, Marine Corps and Army during World War II. Originally intended solely as cargo carriers for ship to shore operations, they rapidly evolved into assault troop and fire support vehicles as well...
4 or 4As, known as the Alligator. The latter was armed with two and two Browning machine gun
Browning machine gun
Any of the following designs by John Browning, a prolific weapon designer, may be referred to as a Browning machine gun:*M1895 Colt-Browning machine gun*M1917 Browning machine gun, a family of water-cooled machine guns in .30-'06...
s and an M20 recoilless rifle. While the Alligators were heavily armored and well suited to the water, they struggled on land. In contrast, the Crab had difficulty in water and its large size presented too great a target on land; however, it was lighter and more maneuverable, except in paddy fields where its suspension became clogged with vegetation.
While Group A's forward elements were breaching the dune barrier unopposed, two of Group B's battalions crossed the Van Trịnh Cănal. By 07:45, when they made visual contact with the Crabs and Alligators of Group A, they had succeeded in sealing off the northern escape route of By 08:30, the 6th Moroccan Spahis also reached the canal, having had difficulty crossing the swamps on the landward side with their M24 Chaffee
M24 Chaffee
The Light Tank M24 was an American light tank used during World War II and in postwar conflicts including the Korean War and with the French in the War in Algeria and First Indochina War. In British service it was given the service name Chaffee, after the United States Army General Adna R...
tanks. No French units, as yet, had made any major contact with the Viet Minh. A minor fire-fight had taken place on the southern edge of advance when an Algerian company exchanged fire with 20–30 Viet Minh and suffered the first French fatalities. Simultaneously, had advanced into the center of the area of operation, and executed "the most complicated maneuver of the operation". This involved crossing Route One and sealing off the land side of the operational area, and was completed by 08:30.
Group D, finally, was tasked with advancing south from its landing point to close off an escape route that ran between the sea and an inland lagoon towards the city of Hué. Landing at 04:30, the group made quick progress through the beach and dunes, secured the small city of Thé Chi Dong and hit the north coast of the lagoon by 05:30, thereby sealing off that escape route with no enemy contact. The final act of sealing the noose was to move some of the French Navy
French Navy
The French Navy, officially the Marine nationale and often called La Royale is the maritime arm of the French military. It includes a full range of fighting vessels, from patrol boats to a nuclear powered aircraft carrier and 10 nuclear-powered submarines, four of which are capable of launching...
vessels north to the Vietnamese villages of Ba-Lang and An-Hoi where any attempt by Regiment 95 to flee by sea would have taken place.
Tightening the loop
Demining
Demining or mine clearance is the process of removing either land mines, or naval mines, from an area, while minesweeping describes the act of detecting of mines. There are two distinct types of mine detection and removal: military and humanitarian.Minesweepers use many tools in order to accomplish...
and K-9
War dog
Dogs in warfare have a long history starting in ancient times. From 'war dogs' trained in combat to their use as scouts, sentries and trackers, their uses have been varied and some continue to exist in modern military usage.-History:...
teams. Men of military age were arrested and screened by intelligence officer
Intelligence officer
An intelligence officer is a person employed by an organization to collect, compile and/or analyze information which is of use to that organization...
s. This process was time-consuming, and by 11:00 Group B had traveled 7 kilometres (4.3 mi) through the network of villages with no results or resistance. At this time, the 6th Moroccan Spahis entered the village of Dong-Qué with their M-24 tanks and the support of the 1st Battalion of the Moroccan Rifles and the artillery of Colonel Piroth (later commander of the artillery at the battle of Dien Bien Phu) and his 69th African Artillery Regiment.
Bazooka
Bazooka is the common name for a man-portable recoilless rocket antitank weapon, widely fielded by the U.S. Army. Also referred to as the "Stovepipe", the innovative bazooka was amongst the first-generation of rocket propelled anti-tank weapons used in infantry combat...
s of the Viet Minh missed the French tanks. The French commander called in Piroth's artillery and Dong-Qué "disintegrated under the impact of their high-angle fire", particularly when a French shell found the Viet Minh ammunition depot. As the French tanks approached, the Viet Minh drove the civilians out to clog up the entrance to the village, however as the Viet Minh retreated they were spotted through the civilians by the Moroccan infantry and killed by 13:00. During this battle, however, most of the Regiment 95 personnel who had been elsewhere managed to escape towards the southern end of the French encirclement. Leblanc had realized the intentions of Regiment 95's commander, and had requested one of the two reserve paratroop units to be deployed at the border between the network of temples and the dune-filled area in front of where Group D had originally landed. This paratroop unit, 2nd Battalion of the 1st Colonial Parachute Regiment, began to advance towards the canal at 10:45, 15 minutes before Group B entered Dong-Qué.
Group C's 9th Tabor had also, like the M-24's of Group B, struggled through the marshes during the first phase of the operation, and were late in arriving at the jumping-off point for phase two, the canal. At 08:45, Moroccan units of Group C were investigating the village of Phu-An on the opposite side of the lagoon from Group D's landing area, when they came under heavy fire. Despite being nearer to Group D, the engaged units radioed their immediate commanders back in Group C, who were by now some distance away, further inland. This delay, coupled with the failure of many of the units SCR300 radios, meant that these advance elements of Group C failed to get through until 09:10. At 09:40, the commander of Group C called up various reinforcements from Hué including two companies of Vietnamese trainee NCOs
Non-commissioned officer
A non-commissioned officer , called a sub-officer in some countries, is a military officer who has not been given a commission...
and five infantry companies, two of which came via landing craft and did not reach the beleaguered elements of Group C until 18:00, half an hour after the Moroccans had finally counter-attacked and occupied Phu-An. The 2nd Battalion of the Parachute Chasseurs Regiment had been requested to drop at 14:00 to support the advanced elements of Group C but did not jump until 16:50 and thus failed to assemble before the Moroccans themselves occupied Phu-An. With the final capture of Phu-An, the extreme southern tip of the encirclement, the pincer movement was complete.
Escape of Regiment 95
On the morning of 29 July 1953, the French forces continued to advance into the remaining 23 square kilometres (9 sq mi) pocket, encountering neither Viet Minh nor civilian. Groups A, B and D reached the edge of the canal opposite Group C by 13:00, having retrieved a small number of suspected Viet Minh and a "few weapons". At this time, however, a Morane
Morane
Morane may refer to:* Morane, an uninhabited atoll in French Polynesia* Morane-Borel, a French aircraft manufacturer* Morane-Saulnier, a French aircraft manufacturer* Bob Morane, a fictitious character of novelist Henri Vernes...
aircraft detected the movement of elements of Regiment 95 towards An-Hoi on the extreme northern corner of the operational area, outside of the pocket. The French carried out a raid on An-Hoi by commando groups and elements of Group A, which took place at 15:00 and returned with suspected Viet Minh by 18:00. The French then undertook a methodical house-to-house search of the entire area, sweeping each village, and the surrounding paddy fields and jungle, risking encounter with Viet Minh caltrops. Meanwhile, 2nd and 3rd Amphibious used their Crabs and Alligators to herd prisoners towards Trung-An for interrogation. By the end of 29 July, with resistance to the French forces having ceased, a general withdrawal of paratroopers, amphibious groups and marines began.
Rebuilding and reaction
After the departure of all but regular French infantry, efforts to make the area suitable for permanent occupation by French forces and French-friendly civilians began. This involved the rebuilding of road and rail links (a rail line ran alongside Route One), the repairing of infrastructure, demining, the installation of new Vietnamese government administrators, and the provision of "everything from rice to anti-malaria tablets". Over 24 villages were placed under the authority of the Vietnamese government, and Regiment 95 had been driven from the area. In comparison to Fall, South Vietnamese general Lam Quang ThiLam Quang Thi
General Lâm Quang Thi was a senior military officer in the Army of the Republic of Vietnam during the Vietnam War.-Early life and family:...
states in his memoirs that Operation Camargue was "one of the most successful French military operations during the Indochina war" in the area of Route One.
Newspapers stated that the operation had been a "total success, demonstrating once more the new aggressiveness and mobility" of the French forces. However, in the days following the end of the fighting, press reports on the French failure to capture the anticipated large numbers of Viet Minh began to appear though the British newspaper, The Times, did publish claimed casualty figures of 1,550 for the Viet Minh, 200 of which killed. This estimate was altered by the French the next day to 600 killed or wounded and 900 captured, and it was suggested that the operation did "not appear to have been successful". In contrast to these figures, Bernard Fall records 182 Viet Minh casualties and 387 prisoners. He also notes that "51 rifles, eight sub-machine guns, two mortars, and five BARs" were captured. Of the prisoners, however, it is not recorded how many were confirmed to be members of Regiment 95. Both Fall and the newspapers published in the days following the official termination of the operation on 10 August 1953, give French casualties as 17 dead and 100 wounded. Giap wrote "it was announced we suffered heavy losses although in fact our losses were insignificant ... their troops had to withdraw with heavy losses".
Fall goes on to record that the "major defect" of Operation Camargue was that the French had nothing like the numerical superiority to encircle a force in the terrain around Road One, 15:1 as opposed to the 20:1 or 25:1 that he believed required. He states that the slow French progress (around 1,500 yards an hour) and the large distances each unit had to guard from Viet Minh infiltration meant that the Viet Minh could easily escape the net. He also states that Viet Minh intelligence were always aware of French movements, as the size of French units and the complex technology involved in the operation gave its presence and intentions away almost immediately, whereas in contrast the simpler Viet Minh operations were far more difficult to detect.