Talk:Battle of Dien Bien Phu

rescue mission: operation D

is anyone fluent in french here? the ministry of defense has issued an archive video of GCMA jean sassi's emergency column to dien bien phu (jean sassi + 3 GCMA lieutenants + 15 NCO + 2000 hmong & laotian partisans, later joined by 400 partisans and a bunch of airborne commandos). even though they rescued 150 soldiers who managed to escape from dien bien phu. also an interesting article by famous author Pierre DARCOURT with a quote by Khrushchev from his memoirs: "The situation in Vietnam is desperate [...] if we do not get a cease-fire, the Vietnamese have decided to retreat to the Chinese border"... :| Cliché Online (talk) 22:05, 26 March 2010 (UTC)

well i guess there's no much cajun here anyway, here's the english subtitled version. Navarre was the best commander ever. Cliché Online (talk) 13:16, 28 March 2010 (UTC)

belligerents

"A belligerent is an individual, group, country or other entity which acts in a hostile manner, such as engaging in combat." as such the chinese who operated katyushas on may 7 and the us pilots who "SERVICED IN INDOCHINA" are belligerents and MUST be included in the infobox list. there's no way to hide the US participation just because its is US and its is defeat. source is official, a press release from the ambassy and cant be ignored. Cliché Online (talk) 16:45, 30 March 2010 (UTC)

order of battle

how is there no order of battle in the article (said "quality" article) despite all unit names being known ? a simple check at the official dien bien phu battle website is enough to establish the order of battle. the french OOB shows the french expeditionary corps(s non-french units incl morroco (which is not france but a protectorate), senegal (again which is not france but a colony called AEF), lao troops (laos was then an independent country with its own army), cambodia (same as laos) and thai (troops from an area the french called "Pays Thai", lit. the land of the Thai). algerian troops were there but were french nationals (even though with "locals") because algeria was fully part of france since 1848 (a bit like corsica today). voilà. Cliché Online (talk) 16:45, 30 March 2010 (UTC)

CIA & Arlington cemetary admit US involvement

better late than later...

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Cliché Online (talk) 08:41, 23 April 2010 (UTC)

does khe san really belong?

The idea that, fourteen years later, the battle of Khe San copied tactically from Dien Bien Phu seems very near entirely irrelevant.

I think I'd like to convert the Khe San section from a section to a single graf pointing at the other article.

--GeePawHill (talk) 21:13, 28 April 2010 (UTC)

Its not irrelevant, Giap was the overall commander of both battles. He either actually intended to try to repeat DBP at Khe Sanh or try to convince the Americans that that was his intention. He certainly managed to convince Westmoreland and Johnson to focus their attention on Khe Sanh while he then launched the Tet Offensive. Mztourist (talk) 12:28, 3 February 2011 (UTC)

Anti-Viet bias

I'm not particuarly au fait with wikipedia rules but the sources used to justify, for example, the assertion that prisoners "...were starved, beaten, and heaped with abuse...", seem to me extremely biased and unreliable. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.155.242.192 (talk) 19:26, 29 August 2010 (UTC)

"Biased and unreliable'?? It is well documented that the Viet Mihn and eventually the Viet Cong used torture and psychological tactics, that to most Western beliefs constitute torture. It is almost common knowledge. The Viet Mihn did not sign (or qualify to sign at the time) the Geneva or Hague Treaties which forbids torture. There is no way to sugar coat the way the author wrote that and the statement "...were starved, beaten, and heaped with abuse...", is about as nice as it can be written. A quick 5 sec search brought me this article http://www.hawaii.edu/powerkills/SOD.CHAP6.HTM

109.70.68.114 (talk) 13:59, 14 October 2010 (UTC)

Before you pretend to defend neocolonialism, please learn to spell correctly. There's a reason why it's spelled "Viet Minh" with the "n" before the "h", and not after. It's not arbitrary. Le Anh-Huy (talk) 06:40, 2 February 2011 (UTC)

The starvation, maltreatment and indoctrination are well-documented in both Fall and Windrow's books. Mztourist (talk) 12:32, 3 February 2011 (UTC)

Both Fall and Windrow's books only describe what happened for French soldiers after the battle, but mentioned nothing about the fate of Vietminh's personel or others resistance group in the past which France smited down without mercy. Try to search : Ba Dinh Rebellion, Bai Say Rebellion, Chi Hoa Prison, Con Dao Prison, or even At Dau Famine (which France's colonial gorvement taxes, along with Japanese movement started it) ect... And after that, could anyone give me a reason that why does an army that dominated and pillaged a country over 80 years, commited various crimes (well maybe those crimes was "legally" back then ) now expect their opponent to be merciful to them?

And people's forgot that in Fall's and many other's veterans books mentioned that by the time Vietminh forces took over Dienbienphu, it was not before long till the start of the raining season which come along with choleria, malaria, etc... kind of diseases that would took down an European easily. Also there is some sources mentioned about the "volunteers", which could be thousand of them (this was on the book, not my predict) that was airdropped into the valley shortly before the fall, which described as "foor trained people who only got to know how to open their parachute". These volunteers, along with the mass number of wounded soldiers could become easy prey to tropical diseases. Also there's nothing mentioned about the Vietminh's medical and food supplies, which has always been scacre since the beginning of the war, and a 55-day-long with 55.000 active troops would exhausted their's very own supply. And the coming rain season would also hindered their ability to acquired supply from China and Soviet Union.

About the fate of over 3.000 Vietnamese prisoner, technically they was member of the army of State of Vietnam, not the French Army. So maybe they was not exchanged to the French, but still released after Geneva Agreement. A notable example was ARVN general Pham Van Phu, a Dienbienphu veteran, which fate after the battle could be like many of his Vietnamese mates.

And another fact: Soon after Dienbienphu, some of France's colonies would revold, as Algeria and Morocco, which having key members as veterans of Dienbienphu battle. And after the revolution, the new gorvement would given some memorial like the Hochiminh Avenue in Angola, Burkina Faso and Mozambique, and other's from of remembrance. Would there be any person would do that to someone who "starved, beaten, and heaped with abuse" them?

My point here is not to remove the section, but not to focus entirely on French sources, but also has to mentioned some Vietnamese sources as well. And it was not fair to, purposely or not, for an encylopedia to giving reader's ideas that an army was good (like the picture of a French doctor treating a Vietminh soldier in the First Indochina War article), and their enemy is...this. It wouldn't fair, for either sides. Zeraful ([User talk:Zeraful|talk]) 00:21, 3 October 2011 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 123.16.194.147 (talk)

Casualties and losses

I see that you list French dead at 2,293 and wounded at 5,195, but you do not include a confirming note. In my book, Crucible Vietnam, I refer to Bernard B. Fall as my source to support the following statement:

“During the Battle of Dien Bien Phu, French Union Forces were decisively defeated by the Vietminh on the 7th of May 1954, thus ended the 56-day battle into which the French had poured more than 16,000 troops, while suffering 1,293 killed, 5,234 wounded.”

Source: A. T. Lawrence, author of Crucible Vietnam: Memoir of an Infantry Lieutenant (2009 ed.). McFarland. ISBN 0786445173, p. 17. [Footnoted source: Bernard B. Fall, Hell In A Very Small Place: The Siege of Dien Bien Phu. (Cambridge, Mass: Da Capo Press, 2002), p. 483] —Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.197.57.247 (talk) 01:34, 6 September 2010 (UTC)

French View?

Should the introduction section rewrited since it has written mainly about French view? --223.206.180.43 (talk) 12:22, 31 October 2010 (UTC)

I think the whole article seems to be a view from French, doesn't it? --223.206.180.43 (talk) 13:11, 31 October 2010 (UTC)

Whether it was written from the French view or not, that is highly irrelevant. The Viet Minh won the battle, and nothing could change that now.Canpark (talk) 14:53, 30 July 2011 (UTC)

Reverting changes of names made in August from "Dien Bien Phu" to "Điện Biên Phủ"

I am reverting this series of consecutive edits by user:CopperSquare the last revision was at 08:29, 11 August 2011 and all were done under the misleading edit summary of "m (minor cleanup)". The edits changed names such as "Dien Bien Phu" to "Điện Biên Phủ", CopperSquare you should be ashamed of yourself using substitute to push through such a change. Our usage here should follow the majority usage in the English language secondary sources. -- PBS (talk) 05:02, 27 November 2011 (UTC)