a Dien Bien Phu Diary

[greatza1]

Two days and 55 years ago the last stronghold from Diên Biên Phu , fort Isabelle ceased the fire. Of about 11000 french prisoners only about 3000 returned home .
RIP all .

 

[Zardo]

Good Morning!
I saw a lot of amazing pictures of the Airborne Ops. in the Indochina War. In some (few) pictures are helicopters, often "the cow" H19/S55. Did the French AF or the ALAT conducted heliborne ops in any moment of the War, not only for Medevac?

 

[psychopigeon]

Do we know much about what happened to the PoWs? I know some were bought back through back channels either by family or government. The rest sent to Russia and China do you think?

I remember reading a story from a U.S special ops guy. While on an ambush in the jungle on the Laos border they witnessed a French guy walking through the jungle, alone, and talking to himself. Kind of haunting really, knowing some were kept back for decades. Same with U.S PoWs who never came back.

 

[John777]

Do we know much about what happened to the PoWs? I know some were bought back through back channels either by family or government. The rest sent to Russia and China do you think?

I remember reading a story from a U.S special ops guy. While on an ambush in the jungle on the Laos border they witnessed a French guy walking through the jungle, alone, and talking to himself. Kind of haunting really, knowing some were kept back for decades. Same with U.S PoWs who never came back.

I am not going to google the name of the camp now as it is late, but they were marched to a prisoner of war camp, many died on the march, where they joined other prisoners of war, who had been there for many years. They were kept there for a couple of years and they were all released after the completion of peace talks. That is the jist of it, but I must brush up on this history.

 

[Rapace]

Do we know much about what happened to the PoWs?

Except for the most seriously wounded who were evacuated to Luang Prabang in Laos by air (about 850), all other PoWs, including those 'slightly' wounded, were marched 700 km up North to the prisoner's camp. It turned to be a 'death march', like the Japanese did with allied PoWs during WW2. The conditions of living in the camps were so terrible that an estimated 60 to 70% of the PoWs didn't come back and died either along the roads or in the camps. Like for the US, it is rumoured that some PoWs were not released after the Geneva agreements in 1954 (end of the "French" Indochina war) and were used as 'slaves' doing all sorts of hard work, but this has never been proved.

 

[SeanG]

Alex Solomon's father in law was taken prisoner , he was slightly wounded, do not know the whole story maybe Alex might say. All I know he was in the Legion and fought in Indochina.
Hope you do not mind me mentioning this Alex ???

 

[Alex Solomon]

Alex Solomon's father in law was taken prisoner , he was slightly wounded, do not know the whole story maybe Alex might say. All I know he was in the Legion and fought in Indochina.
Hope you do not mind me mentioning this Alex ???

Yes this is quite true but it is not for me to say.

 

[SeanG]

Désolé, frère.
J'espère que je n'ai bouleversé personne ? ?

 

[veteranlouisianne]

you guys have a great heritage.

 

[marinefather]

There were a couple French Foreign Legion guys that fought in Indochina that were in the US Army that I met, maybe around 1963. Lodge-Philbin Act fellows from red territories.

 

[Crowar]

Is there any recent link or anyone willing to upload it again?

I'm very interested in reading it but I can't seem to open any of those links.

Thank you in advance.

 

[Rapace]

There was a copy of this diary on Denny's site, but it's no longer active. Try Joe's (Voltigeur) site.

 

[Madmonk 7.5]

Yep, I just saw it on Volt's web site. http://voltigeur.net

 

[ronnie smith]

Tomislav, if you have not already read, the book Dien Bien Phu, The Epic Battle America Forgot. AUTHOR HOWARD R SIMPSON. it worth a read, it can be got from Amazon. Ronnie Smith.