INDOCHINA
A deep stillness lay across the wasteland of Dienbienphu. A shroud of gunsmoke lifted from the dips and hollows where the French Union garrison had died. In the stillness, there was only a muffled tramp! tramp! tramp! as the worn-out prisoners moved north, or a sudden, shuddering thump as an ammunition dump went off, or a dull buzz in the sky where the French C475 were keeping their death watch. It was a graveyard world down there, the French pilots reported, a tornup world of broken stones and cluttered bunkers, while around it the jungle would soon regain its ancient inscrutability. For 56 nights and days the battle had gone on, down there in the wasteland. This was how it ended.
The Last Days. In the final 72 hours, a tropical rainstorm lashed the doomed 10,000-man garrison. Trenches sagged and crumbled in the blinding rain. Latrines filled and festered. The water supply turned foul. French Commanding General Christian de Castries checked his three surviving strongpoints—Claudine in the west, Eliane in the east, isolated Isabelle three miles to the south. All was quiet, save for the rain, and the occasional crack of a Communist rifle way off somewhere in the hills. That night, De Castries summoned his staff to Junon, his command post, for one last chivalric rite of battle: he decorated Lieut. Geneviéve de Galard Terraube, the only woman nurse in the fortress, with the Legion of Honor and the Croix de Guerre. That night too, less than 500 yards from Junon, the Communist infantrymen burrowed close in through the mire. "Everywhere they are in close contact," Dienbienphu radioed GHQ. "Everywhere they are within grenade range. When they attack, the fortress will be ready."
At 1700 hours next day, Red General Giap laid down heavy 105-mm. and 75-mm. gunfire against the main perimeter. His gunners could not miss: the perimeter was less than 1,000 yards wide. For the first time in the battle, Giap brought up Russian rocket launchers ("Stalin Organs") and struck at Dienbienphu's sodden battlements—eight rockets per burst. De Castries checked the damage, then told GHQ: "This may finish us."
At 2000, French lookouts spied Red concentrations in the flarelight, headed for Claudine and Eliane. At 2200, bugles shrilled through the damp night air, and four Red regiments attacked. By dawn, they had four outposts in Eliane. Then they overran Bald Head Hill, which commanded the center from the east.
This was the crisis, and old Cavalryman de Castries knew it. At 0700, he gathered his last reserves and hurled in three desperate counterattacks. But Giap mostly held his gains, then sent in his Red reserves to clinch the battle. De Castries had only one remaining 105-mm. howitzer, one 155-mm. field gun. His tanks were wrecked or embedded in the mud. His ammunition was all but gone. One outpost commander phoned De Castries: "We can keep on fighting for only ten more minutes. Should we surrender?" De Castries snapped back: "Keep on fighting for ten more minutes."