Operation Camargue

For other uses, see Camargue (disambiguation).

Operation Camargue
Part of the First Indochina War

Thừa Thiên-Huế Province
Date28 July – 10 August 1953
(1 week and 6 days)
Location
French Indochina
Result

Indecisive

  • French withdrawal
Belligerents

France French Union

North Vietnam Viet Minh
Commanders and leaders
Georges Leblanc [fr] Trần Quý Hai[1]
Strength
~10,000[2] One infantry regiment[3]
Casualties and losses
17 dead,
100 wounded[4][5]		 French est.: 600 killed or wounded, 900 captured
Bernard Fall records: 182 killed and 387 prisoners
The Times est.: 200 killed, 1,350 wounded or captured[2][4][5]

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 1.

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.[6] Reinforced by paratroopers, 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 Giáp could pit his forces, culminating in Operation Castor and the Battle of Dien Bien Phu.[7]

With the French forces withdrawn from the operation by the late summer of 1953, Viet Minh Regiment 95 re-infiltrated Route 1 and resumed ambushes of French convoys, retrieving weapons caches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.[8]

  1. ^ Windrow (2004), 150.
  2. ^ a b Cite error: The named reference times1 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  3. ^ Fall, 145.
  4. ^ a b Fall, 171.
  5. ^ a b Cite error: The named reference times2 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  6. ^ Fall, 151.
  7. ^ Fall, 171–173.
  8. ^ Cite error: The named reference fall172 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).