Dien Bien Phu

[Jackal1]

JUst to shad a little light on a recent statement made here on the BBS.

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French parachutists being airlifted to the war zone by a U.S. Air Force aircraft from the Oroly airfield in Paris.

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"The valley of Dien Bien Phu was fairly large but completely surrounded by high mountains. Our troops are already grouped around the valley. The enemy could no longer pull out without incurring major losses. They were entirely isolated as far as roads and airborne communications and supplies were concerned," wrote Gen. Giap in a book on the war published this year. Two U.S. airmen helping in the re-supply effort for the French were killed by anti-aircraft fire. They became the first Americans killed in combat in Vietnam. Washington had shouldered around 80 per cent of the cost of the French military effort in Indo-China.

[bj229r]

I heard or read somewhere recently that earlier on, French troops were quite successful against NVA troops, and that a goodly part of French forces were former Waffen SS...(that is, until the French public found out about it)...anyone know if this is true?

[Russian]

Originally posted by bj229r
I heard or read somewhere recently that earlier on, French troops were quite successful against NVA troops, and that a goodly part of French forces were former Waffen SS...(that is, until the French public found out about it)...anyone know if this is true?

They were successful when fighting vs. unequipped peasants. Once that changed, thanks to China, NVA relatively did well.

[bj229r]

Originally posted by Russian
They were successful when fighting vs. unequipped peasants. Once that changed, thanks to China, NVA relatively did well.

Ahhh..makes sense--after all..they STILL would have been taking orders from French generals (MAN...THAT must have been hard for those guys to do)

[Russian]

Not directly related, but here's a good documentary on french foreign Legion (IIRC they lost over 40K in Num)

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-1708454250945282730&q=france+legion&hl=en

[GtoRA2]

Originally posted by bj229r
I heard or read somewhere recently that earlier on, French troops were quite successful against NVA troops, and that a goodly part of French forces were former Waffen SS...(that is, until the French public found out about it)...anyone know if this is true?

There was no NVA, the country was split into north and south Vietnam after the french defeat.


If you want to read about the "supposed" french forieng legion unit made up of Waffen SS lead by an SS partisan fighter, the try and find a book called the  The Devil's Guard


They claim its true, its very pricey now but a good read. As is the second book on the same subject.

[Wolfala]

Good god - some of those sell for $450 per copy. And I actually want to take a look at it.

[FUNKED1]

There were German veterans in the LE units at Dien Bien Phu but not in any great numbers.

[Bruno]

Funked is right. Immediately after the war many (more then a few..?) Wehrmacht regulars and Waffen SS joined the FFL. Most just did the five year requirement and left. There were still some (less then many..?) still in the FFL at the time in question.

I have an article some where around here about a waffen SS vet being 'encouraged' to join the FFL in order to get out of a French internment camp. German troops after surrender were held for sometime by the various allied powers in camps and forced to work. If I can find the article I will scan it and post it.

The were even LW pilots that joined the FFL immediately after the war.