Operation Lea

Operation Léa
Part of First Indochina War
Date 7 October - 22 December 1947 Location Northern Vietnam Result French seizure of Lang Son but strategic failure
Belligerents
French Union	Viet Minh
Commanders and leaders
Jean-Etienne Valluy	Vo Nguyen Giap
Strength
15,000	40,000
Casualties and losses
6,000 killed and wounded (Viet Minh Claim)	9,000 killed and wounded (French Claim)

Operation Léa was French Union military operation between 7 October and 22 December 1947 during the First Indochina War. It was an attempt by the French General Valluy to crush the Viet Minh. An airborne force would capture the Viet Minh leadership and three French columns would strike into the Viet Minh heartland.

The parachute assault surprised the Viet Minh, but they're soon recovered and began ambushing and counterattacking the three French columns.

The operation was soon called off and the French forces withdrew to the lowlands. It was claim to be a tactical success, inflicting severe casualties on the Viet Minh. However, the operation failed to capture the Viet Minh leadership or seriously cripple its military forces, which remain to be active over the Red River Delta .

Background

After the declaration of war on 19 December 1946, the French Union forces had made significant progress by capturing the major cities Haiphong, Hanoi, Lang Son, Cao Bang as well as nearly the western and southern region of Tonkin, which was the stronghold of the Viet Minh movement. The reasons for the fast advance were due to the superior firepower, naval and air support, also by then, the Vietnamese army has exhausted their resources trying to recapture major cities before French reinforcements could arrive. The major forces of the Viet Minh were dug in the eastern part of Tonkin, which know as Việt Bắc, or "An toàn khu" (Safe Base). There remained only a greater gap between the towns Cao Bang in the north and Yên Bái in the south. During April 1947 Ho Chi Minh made a last attempt to achieve a ceasefire and to continue the negotiations with the French government about Vietnamese independence from 1946. But the French only demanded his surrender, because the position of the Vietnamese forces seemed to be desperate. But on April 26, he refused the French, offering: "In the French Union is no place for cowards. I would be one, if I would accept." During the rest of the spring and the summer, the French made assaults to the bases of the Viet Minh troops in Tonkin but could not force them to a conventional battle. Instead the Viet Minh returned when the French moved on.

The French supreme command in Indochina under General Jean-Etienne Valluy realized that the recent tactics of minor assaults to locate the headquarters of the Viet Minh would not lead to an end of the war. From their intelligence department, they received some information that the location of the headquarters of the Viet Minh was in the city Bac Can. They planned to capture Ho Chi Minh and the rest of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam government in order to gain a complete victory over the Vietnamese independence movement.

Operation Léa

The French military operation Léa in autumn 1947

The operation started on 7 October with the airborne landing of 1,100 paratroopers at the city of Bac Can. The paratroopers took over the control of the city swiftly, but could not capture Ho Chi Minh or any other of the Vietnamese leaders.

At the same time, other French forces (est. 15,000 men) started moving from the city Cao Bang in the north of Tonkin to Yên Bái to the south. The primary target of this action was to cut off the Vietnamese forces from any supplies which could probably reach them from China. The second objective was to surround the Vietnamese forces completely and destroy them during a battle. Despite the French reaching the designated town of Yên Bái, they were not able to find or destroy any forces of the Viet Minh, only to be ambushed and fired upon with heavy weapons. The 40,000 Vietnamese army by then launching counterattacks against French Union forces in Cho Moi, Cho Don, Cho Ra, Ngan Son, Bach Thong, forced the French to withdraw from Cho Don, Cho Ra in late November. Due to Vietminh's heavy resistance, the French ground forces could not regroup with the paratroopers, therefore unable to completely surrounded Viet Bac.

On November 8, the operation was called off. At the end of operation Lea, French officals claimed the Vietnamese forces had suffered a loss of 9,000 men.

Aftermath

After the failure of Operation Léa, the French supreme command changed tactics again. Because of financial and economic reasons, France was not able to send more troops to Indochina. The foreign legion began to establish outposts on every important road (Route Coloniale 4, Route Coloniale 3) to hold up the surrounding of the Viet Minh in the eastern part of Tonkin. However, this blockade was removed by Vietnamese forces in late 1950, therefore enable them to pass though the border and reinforce themselves from supplies which came from the Chinese or from their own manufacturing. This led to the turnaround of the war from the now established stalemate into the first Vietnamese victories in 1949/1950.

References

• Summer Jr., Harry. Historical atlas of the Vietnam war. Houghton Mifflin Co. ISBN 0-395-72223-3. 
• Herring, George C.; Fall, Bernard B. (2005). Street Without Joy: The French Debacle In Indochina (Stackpole Military History Series). Mechanicsburg, PA: Stackpole Books. ISBN 0-8117-3236-3.