Last Stands: Dien Bien Phu! Trivia Quiz

Answer: Operation Castor

The objective of Castor was to create a strong threat to the VietMinh rearguard by sending offensive incursions from Dien Bien Phu, thus forcing the Viets to fight in a set-piece decisive battle. Like the Japanese at Midway, they only forced their own decisive defeat.
Camargue and Hirondelle were succesful offensive operations launched by the French before Dien Bien Phu. Atlante was another counter-insurgency operation done concurrently with the battle involving twice as many French forces, causing that only a small number of reserves were available to reinforce Dien Bien Phu.

Answer: Vo Nguyen Giap

General Giap is commonly regarded as a master of strategy. Many analysts disagree, but it must be taken into account that Giap played a key role in the only war the U.S. has failed to win.

Ho Chi Minh was the political leader of the VietMinh and Giap's only boss.

Ngo Dinh Diem, a Catholic, was elected president of South Vietnam once the French were gone, and was deposed and murdered in 1963.

Van Tien Dung was Giap's succesor and led the final assault of the North Vietnamese Army on Saigon, which ended the war in 1975.

Answer: Claudine

In the last days of the battle a new "Junon" post was hastily created south of the airstrip and the command post moved there.

Answer: Grumman F8F Bearcat

Only three of the Bearcats managed to evacuate the base, the others being destroyed on the ground. The airstrip was damaged but remained operational for a further week, but after that it had to be closed for the remaining days of the campaign. Air power proved the key to the victory, and as VietMinh AA fire prevented accurate airdropped resupply and reinforcements, the entrenched camp was doomed.

Answer: Bir Hacheim

The 3/13 DBLE was nearly destroyed at Beatrice (some 300 of its 500 men were killed, including lieutenant-colonel Jules Gaucher, the overall commander of the Demi-Brigade). Only 64 survivors managed to find a way back to the French lines. The unit had fought against Rommel in WWII, but now roughly half of its soldiers at Dien Bien Phu were Germans, including many that had lost their "jobs" in the SS. Morale among the surviving Legionaires was severely crippled after the Beatrice combat.

Answer: commited suicide

Colonel Piroth had refused to receive more guns prior to the battle, for he believed he had more than enough to counter the VietMinh threat. When it became obvious he was heavily outgunned and air assets could did nothing to help him, he went into his bunker, primed a grenade and hold it against his chest with his single arm.

Answer: Langlais & Bigeard

Quite surprisingly, de Castries accepted without questions the new leadership, and closely colaborated with Pierre Langlais and Marcel "Bruno" Bigeard who kept him as the nominal commander of the camp. Their relationship continued to be very good even after the battle was over.

Answer: M24 Chaffee

The ten tanks (The French called them "Bisons") belonged to the Premier Regiment de Chasseurs a Cheval (First Light Cavalry Regiment), and had been sent in airborne and assembled in the camp. The tanks were among the most valuable assets the French had deployed in the valley.

Answer: The gunners fired the howitzers point-blank at the VietMinh and managed to repel them

The gunners were Senegal men from the 40e Regiment d'Artillerie Coloniale, supported by the 2e Compagnie de Mortiers Mixtes de la Legion Etrangere (2nd Foreign Legion Mixed Mortars Company). Their valour astonished everyone on both sides, probably even they themselves were surprised!)

Answer: Yes

Eliane did not fall again to the VietMinh until the end of the battle. De Castries, Langlais and Bigeard were promoted respectively to General, Colonel, and Lieutenant-Colonel for this achievement. However, the French didn't know that Giap decided to accept this only because he had reverted to siege tactics to stop the heavy losses of his own infantry.

Answer: Deserters from the defenders' own ranks

There were over 2,000 "Rats", mainly Thai and North-African defectors. Unable to exit the perimeter, they sought shelter in caves near the river. They lived upon the paradropped supplies, causing a severe drain to the defenders' resources.
VietMinh sappers preceded the human waves and were called "Volunteers of Death" due to their near-kamikaze tactics. Their home-made Bangalore torpedoes were lenghts of bamboo stuffed with high explosives.

Answer: The French simply ceased fire and announced it to the enemy by radio

The French had been trying to buy some time to mount a relief operation or to force a cease-fire in the Geneva negotiations table. On May 6th, Giap launched a full-scale attack against Claudine, Eliane and Huguette, backed by recently-arrived Soviet rocket launchers. De Castries saw the hopelessness of the situation, and asked his better commanders to mount a breakout attempt, but even the aggressive Bigeard agreed that it would only lead to a pointless slaughter.

They considered a formal surrender too humiliating, so they told Giap by radio that they would cease fire at 17:30 on May 7th. Colonel Lalande, the commander of the Isabelle garrison, which had been isolated to the south of the main base during the battle, decided to attempt the breakout that night, but only a mere hundred of his 1,500 men or so succeeded, the rest being captured or forced to surrender.

Answer: 3,290 men (30%)

It is not known how many of the rest died, for many Vietnamese and Thai were not returned but simply released. But undoubtely conditions in the prisoner camps were appalling, as more men died there than in the battle itself.
The VietMinh losses for the battle are estimated at between 8,000-12,000 KIA and 15,000-30,000 WIA.

Answer: No

Navarre was held responsible of the defeat by many French people, the military among them. It is suspected that they were the ones that sent the "gift" to Navarre. He tried to justify himself later in his book "L'Agonie de l'Indochine".

Answer: Khe Sanh

Even today it is not clear if Giap really meant to take Khe Sanh or if he only wanted to draw away US resources to the zone, thus creating a diversion for the Tet offensive. The Marines' base was never in real danger due to the huge assets that were deployed there, and the Tet offensive was defeated and Giap suffered enormous losses.

However, this forced general Westmoreland to ask for more and more resources to try to end the war, and a political crisis was provoked in the US. Thereafter, America only tried to find a way to disengage of the war with honour. Giap's determination to win at any price had paid off again.