Saigon (43 page)

By the time Britain handed over its responsibility for southern Vietnam to France in early 1946, more than two thousand Vietnamese had been killed by British forces. In the north the Chinese army of occupation finally withdrew in March 1946 under an agreement with France that allowed a limited number of French troops to enter the north in return for France’s giving up all claims to its concession territories in China. Ho Chi Minh’s government, which had remained peacefully intact in Hanoi during that time, gave a wary welcome to the returning French forces, and Paris recognized the new Democratic Republic as a state within the French Union. Negotiations between Ho and the French leadership continued until the autumn, with France stubbornly refusing to grant the 

Vietnamese full independence, and it became obvious that both sides were preparing for open conflict. Vietnam, however, remained an unnoticed backwater in world affairs, and during this time, with the Soviet Army straddling central and eastern Europe, President Harry Truman swung the United States firmly behind France because of that country’s importance in the crucial Cold War arena of Europe. Several times Ho Chi Mirth wrote to President Truman seeking his backing, but the letters went unanswered. Support for France in fact had never wavered in the American State Department, and the intimacy that had developed between the OSS and the Viet Minh in the closing days of the war was frowned on by American diplomats. Eventually Washington formally announced its intention to respect French sovereignty in Indochina and the OSS mission was abruptly withdrawn from Hanoi in October 1945. Not until much later would American leaders wonder whether a golden opportunity had been missed to turn Ho Chi Minh into an Asian Tito, friendly to the West. During his year in power, however, Ho Chi Minh had gained an unshakable grip on the minds of his countrymen, and when full-scale war with France broke out throughout Vietnam on December 19, 1946, he retreated confidently once more to those same limestone caves in Tongking from which he had descended in triumph sixteen months earlier. During its brief period of office, his Viet Minh government had overcome the famine in the north by mobilizing the people to plant quick-growing crops on every spare inch of land, and it had also won fairly held elections in Annam and Tongking. The dominant Communists in the Viet Minh League, however, did not hesitate to employ terror tactics against those nationalists opposed to them, and they murdered most of their prominent opponents during those turbulent early days. But it was clear that the vast majority of the Vietnamese nevertheless approved of the Viet Minh, and as a result, after the war began, the French found that even with 150,000 troops in Vietnam they could control only the centers of the cities and the lines of communication between them, while the Viet Minh held sway over the rural villages, the rice paddies and the jungles. After a few early French victories, a military stalemate was reached and this lasted until October 1949, when the victory of Mao Tse-tung’s Communists in China’s civil war produced a major change in the tide of world history. Overnight China became a safe sanctuary across the northern borders of Tongking where Ho’s guerrilla forces could retreat for prolonged training under Vo Nguyen Giap. In a matter of months they were transformed into full field formations armed with modern American artillery weapons salvaged from the arsenals of the defeated Chiang Kai-shek, and a French military victory became impossible. In late 1950, forty-three of these new Viet Minh battalions burst across the Chinese border and smashed through the frail line of French defense forts to inflict the most humiliating colonial defeat on France since General Montcalm was defeated and killed at Quebec by the British in 1759. Six thousand French troops were killed, and enormous quantities of weapons and transports were captured. Openly dominated at last by its Communist leaders and allied firmly with Moscow and Peking, the Viet Minh controlled Vietnam thenceforth from the Chinese border to within a hundred miles of Saigon, with the exception of the fortified perimeter held by the French around the Red River delta and Hanoi. More importantly for the world at large, Mao Tse-tung’s victory had deepened the West’s fear of a monolithic, expansionist Communism, and this brought the Indochina war out of the obscurity under which it had, until then, been fought. China and the Soviet Union recognized Ho Chi Minh’s government in its mountain stronghold in January 1950, and this prompted the United States to recognize an alternative French-sponsored Vietnamese government headed by chief of state Bao Dai. Moscow and Peking’s blessing “removed the last illusions about the nationalist character of Ho Chi Minh’s aims and revealed him as a mortal enemy of native independence,” said American Secretary of State Dean Acheson and Washington began pouring military and economic aid into Vietnam and the other countries of Indochina to help France block further Communist gains; at a stroke, France’s colonial war had been turned into a crusade to stop Communism spreading across Asia. Western apprehensions about Indochina were intensified further in June 1950, when North Korea invaded its southern neighbor and Western forces under the United Nations flag were drawn into conflict with the 

Communist armies of North Korea and China. As a result, President Truman sent a military mission from Washington to Saigon that summer to liaise closely with the French, and this act marked the beginning of a fateful United States involvement in Vietnam. Support in the form of aid snowballed, and by 1954 three billion American dollars had been poured into France’s military coffers in Indochina. In 1953, a cease-fire in Korea allowed the Communists to concentrate all their military efforts on Indochina, and Russian and Chinese supplies to Giap’s forces increased dramatically. In response, the nineteenth government to hold office in Paris in nine crisis-wracked years made a last desperate effort to extricate France honorably from what had become a muddled, hopeless cause. It approved a plan by military leaders to lure the core of General Giap’s regular forces into a decisive set-piece confrontation behind Viet Minh lines in the remote northern valley of Dien Bien Phu, where it was thought French air superiority and greater firepower could easily destroy an enemy which possessed no aircraft, no tanks and only limited means of transport. Once before, the French had pulled off the bold stroke of dropping a fortress from the air into a narrow limestone valley behind Viet Minh lines at Na San; when General Giap attacked there without sufficient preparation, he had lost a whole battalion amidst the wires and mines of the fortifications, and the French high command hoped this success could be repeated more decisively. But instead of yielding a quick, easy victory, Dien Bien Phu in the event became the setting for one of the most fateful and historic clashes ever between East and West. 

The tangled mantle, of green-black jungle vegetation which centuries of moist heat had woven into the dragon-backed mountainsides of Tongking showed only patchily through the banks of low cloud as the French Air Force Dakota lumbered through the gray dawn of an early February morning in 1954, heading for Dien Bien Phu. Its two-hundred-mile journey from Hanoi to the remote, northwest corner of Vietnam close to the Laotian border had taken an hour and a half, and during that time Joseph Sherman had crouched uncomfortably on a tip-up metal seat amidst a cargo of coffin planks, blood plasma, tinned food and a dozen illicit crates of French beer. On his knee he held an air reconnaissance map which showed the valley of Dien Bien Phu as a tiny, isolated island of green ink amidst the unending gray sea of Tongking’s sprawling limestone massif; ten miles long and four miles wide, the valley had sheltered a score of thatched villages before French paratroopers seized it at the end of November 1953 to turn it into a fortified camp with a defense perimeter of over thirty miles. Since then its garrison had been built up to a strength of thirteen thousand men, and heavy artillery, trucks and even tanks had been dropped in by parachute. 

“Hold tight to your seat, monsieur,” said the French pilot grimly over his shoulder. “To get down into this pisspot we have to make a high approach to clear the Viet Minh antiaircraft units, then dive steeply through the clouds, using the ground radio beam.” 

Joseph tightened his seat belt a notch and smiled at the pilot’s black humor. He had used the term pot de chambre, the vulgar nickname given to the mountain-ringed basin of Dien Bien Phu by the French aircrews who for the past two months had been valiantly landing or parachuting eighty tons of supplies into the camp every day through thick mists and drizzle. In private conversation few flyers made any secret of their contempt for the strategic plans of the French army high command, and as the Dakota broke through the bottom cloud layer, the pilot let ‘Out a little snort of derision. 

“There’s your first sight, monsieur, of what our senior officers in their wisdom conceived as ‘an offensive base from which to strike against enemy rear areas.’ “He motioned sarcastically through the windshield with his head. “It may have looked good once on General Navarre’s wall map in Saigon, but from up here you can see it for what it really is — a self-made prison” 

Joseph peered down anxiously at the patchwork of yellow clay rice fields scarred with sandbagged machine gun nests and trenches; a shallow river wound across the valley bottom, its banks wreathed with endless entanglements of barbed wire, and he could see big gangs of soldiers still digging busily with their trenching tools on the slopes of the low hills that formed natural defense points within the perimeter. “You’re right,” breathed Joseph, scanning the high peaks which towered over the valley on all sides. “One of the oldest rules of war is ‘never let your enemy get up above you,’ and the peaks have all been left to the Viet Minh.” 

The pilot nodded. “Now you see why we call it Un pot de chambre? From those mountaintops the ‘yellows’ can urinate all over us. General Navarre and his staff must be living in a dream world. They think the enemy is going to rush down from the hills again like he did at Na San and impale himself obligingly on our barbed wire so that we can pulverize him with air attacks and our artillery 
— but I for one will be surprised if General Giap falls for that trick twice.” 

“It doesn’t seem possible that anyone could have been so foolish,” said Joseph incredulously. 

The pilot snorted again. “It’s all based on military classroom theory. They’ve worked it out carefully on their little sand tables at headquarters and nobody believes the ‘yellows’ can move enough weapons and supplies through three hundred miles of mountain jungle to sustain a real siege here.” He shrugged and glanced down again at the forested hillsides beneath the descending plane. “But if they’re wrong, it’ll make Custer’s Last Stand book like a picnic.” 

Joseph continued to scan the fortifications with a professional eye, and as the Dakota lost height his frown deepened. “They seem to be putting a lot of faith in those fortified hillocks inside the perimeter,” he said at last. “But if the Vietnamese get that far, there’s going to be some nasty close fighting.” 

The pilot nodded and gestured through the windshield again. ‘Those three hills at the northern end of the valley are called Gabrielle, Beatrice arid Anne-Marie. That one to the south is Isabelle, and the little group clustered round the command center in the middle are Dominique, Elaine, Francoise, Claudine and Huguette.” The pilot glanced quickly around at Joseph, his lace set in unsmiling lines. “In case you hadn’t heard, I should tell you that the officer commanding, Colonel de Castries, has a wide reputation as a lady’s man and his troops believe the hills are named after his current mistresses — but they’re not very amused by the idea.” 

Through the windshield Joseph noticed white puffs of smoke breaking out along the rim of the valley nearest to the landing strip, and above the roar of the Dakota’s engines he recognized the distinctive bark of light 75-millimeter mountain guns. “It looks like we’re going to get a warm reception from the Vietnamese People’s Army,” said Joseph, leaning close to the pilot’s ear. 

The Frenchman nodded grimly once more without turning. “They’ll mortar the runway too as we go down. It’s practically routine now. A soon as we stop rolling, you must make a dash for the headquarters jeep they’ll be sending out to meet you.” 

As the Dakota swooped in to land, Joseph watched the mortar bursts kicking up fountains of yellow earth alongside the gridded airstrip that had been laid down by the Japanese during the Second World War. Through a side window he could see a command jeep zigzagging among the exploding mortar shells, and even at a distance of a hundred yards he recognized the tall, straight-backed figure seated beside the driver, wearing camouflage battle dress and the crimson beret of the Second Battalion, Colonial Paratroops. On the ground the dull thud of the shells detonating was much louder, but unlike the jeep’s driver, the officer sitting beside him disdained to wear a helmet, and the vague pangs of remorse and guilt that had been growing in Joseph over the past two or three years were suddenly intensified by this display of calm courage, 

As soon as the Dakota halted, Joseph flung himself through the hatch and ran bent double towards the jeep. Its driver slowed the vehicle to walking pace to allow him to clamber aboard, then turned and raced back towards the fortified bunkers of the command post that had been constructed six feet below ground level. 

“I thought this valley was supposed to be an impregnable fortress,” yelled Joseph boisterously as he seized the hand of the French lieutenant-colonel in both his own, 

“It is, mon vieux, I assure you,” replied Paul Devraux, grinning hugely and shouting at the top of his voice to make himself heard above the roar of the exploding shells. “Don’t worry! The ‘Amorous American’ won’t get his precious balls shot off here — they can’t really lay down an effective barrage with those little 75- millimeter peashooters.” 

As the jeep screeched to a halt at the mouth of the sap leading down into Paul’s fortified bunker, a squadron of M-24 tanks emerged from the swirling dust and rumbled past them. “They’re off to deal with the mountain guns in those foothills over there,” said Paul, pointing towards the northeast. “It won’t take long to silence them. We can stay here and watch if you like.” 

For two or three minutes they listened to the deep boom of the tank cannons echoing across the valley, then abruptly the Viet Minh shelling of the airstrip ceased. 

“You see,” said Paul delightedly, flinging an arm affectionately around Joseph’s shoulders. “Wasn’t I right? Isn’t this the safest place in all Indochina?” 

Joseph grinned back but couldn’t prevent himself from casting an occasional dubious glance in the direction of the mountain peaks above the valley. 

“If you don’t believe me, I’ll arrange for you to talk to our artillery commander, Colonel Piroth. He’ll set your mind at rest.” The French officer laughed and motioned Joseph courteously into the bunker ahead of himself. “But most important of all, I have a bottle of good cognac to toast our reunion and welcome you to Dien Bien Phu.” He clapped the American warmly on the shoulder once more. “It’s just wonderful to see you again, Joseph, after all these years.”