Battle of Dien Bien Phu

Battle of Dien Bien Phu
Part of the First Indochina War
Viet Minh troops planting their flag over the captured French headquarters at Dien Bien Phu
Date 13 March – 7 May 1954 (1 month, 3 weeks and 3 days) Location Vicinity of Điện Biên Phủ, French Indochina (present day Vietnam) 21°23′13″N 103°0′56″E / 21.38694°N 103.01556°E / 21.38694; 103.01556 Result Việt Minh-led Democratic Republic of Vietnam victory[1][2]
Belligerents
French Union  France State of Vietnam  United States	Democratic Republic of Vietnam Viet Minh
Commanders and leaders
Henri Eugène Navarre Christian de Castries  André Trancart  Jules Gaucher † Pierre Langlais  André Lalande  Charles Piroth †	Hồ Chí Minh Võ Nguyên Giáp Hoàng Văn Thái Lê Liêm Đặng Kim Giang Lê Trọng Tấn Vương Thừa Vũ Hoàng Minh Thảo Lê Quảng Ba
Strength
13 March: ~10,800;[3] ~9,000 combat personnel ~1,800 logistics and support personnel 10 tanks 7 May: ~14,000; ~12,000 combat personnel ~2,000 logistics and support personnel 37 transport aircraft[4] ~600 aircraft	13 March: ~49,500 combat personnel ~15,000 logistics and support personnel[5] 7 May: ~80,000 men including logistics and support personnel
Casualties and losses
1,571[6]–2,293[7] dead 1,729 missing[8] 11,721 captured[9](including 4,436 wounded)[10] 62 aircraft[11] and 10 tanks lost 167 aircraft damaged[12] 2 dead[4]	Western historians estimate: 8,000 dead 15,000 wounded[13] Vietnamese figures: 13,930 casualties[14] Asian historians estimate: 23,000[15]–25,000[16]
class=notpageimage| Location within Vietnam

The Battle of Điện Biên Phủ was a climactic confrontation of the First Indochina War that took place between 13 March and 7 May 1954. It was fought between the French Union's colonial Far East Expeditionary Corps and Viet Minh communist revolutionaries.

The French began an operation to insert, and support, their soldiers at Điện Biên Phủ, deep in the autonomous Tai Federation in northwest Tonkin. The operation's purpose was to cut off enemy supply lines into the neighboring Kingdom of Laos (a French ally) and draw the Viet Minh into a major confrontation in order to cripple them. The French based their forces in an isolated but well-fortified camp that would be resupplied by air, a strategy adopted based on the belief that the Viet Minh had no anti-aircraft capability.

The Viet Minh, however, under General Võ Nguyên Giáp, surrounded and besieged the French. They brought in vast amounts of heavy artillery (including anti-aircraft guns) and managed to move these bulky weapons through difficult terrain up the rear slopes of the mountains. They dug tunnels and arranged the guns to target the French positions. The tunnels featured a front terrace, onto which the Viet Minh would pull their cannons from out of the tunnels, fire a few shots, to then pull them back into protective cover. In 54 days of gun battle, no Viet Minh cannon was destroyed.

In March, the Viet Minh began a massive artillery bombardment of the French defenses. The strategic positioning of their artillery made it nearly impervious to French counter-battery fire. Tenacious fighting on the ground ensued, reminiscent of the trench warfare of World War I. At times, the French repulsed Viet Minh assaults on their positions while supplies and reinforcements were delivered by air. As key positions were overrun, the perimeter contracted, and the air resupply on which the French had placed their hopes became impossible as aircraft were shot down and runways were destroyed.

The garrison was overrun in May after a two-month siege, and most of the French forces surrendered. A few men escaped to Laos. Among the 11,721 French troops captured, 858 of the most seriously wounded were evacuated via the Red Cross mediation in May 1954. Only 3,290 were returned four months later.^[10] The French government in Paris resigned. The new prime minister, the left-of-centre Pierre Mendès France, supported French withdrawal from Indochina.

The Battle of Điện Biên Phủ was decisive. The war ended shortly afterward and the 1954 Geneva Accords were signed. France agreed to withdraw its forces from all its colonies in French Indochina, while stipulating that Vietnam would be temporarily divided at the 17th parallel, with control of the north given to the Viet Minh as the Democratic Republic of Vietnam under Ho Chi Minh. With huge support by the U.S., the south became the State of Vietnam, nominally under Emperor Bảo Đại, preventing Ho Chi Minh from gaining control of the entire country.^[17]