# Dien Bien Phu



## Gunz (Apr 4, 2016)

62 years after Navarre made his great error...and after many brave French soldiers died as a result. The writer visited DBP last month.

Vietnam's Agincourt

And a collection of images

60 Years Since The End Of The Battle Of Dien Bien Phu | Getty Images


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## metalmom (Apr 4, 2016)

Very interested in DBP . Great article-just read the 1st article so far.Very surprised about the CIA contractor pilots. Had no clue about that.

I think that would be a worthy subject for another thread.

Great post.


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## AWP (Apr 4, 2016)

Go buy this book and thank me later.

The Last Valley: Dien Bien Phu and the French Defeat in Vietnam: Martin Windrow: 9780306814433: Amazon.com: Books


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## Devildoc (Apr 5, 2016)

Freefalling said:


> Go buy this book and thank me later.
> 
> The Last Valley: Dien Bien Phu and the French Defeat in Vietnam: Martin Windrow: 9780306814433: Amazon.com: Books



I have it along side of_ Hell in a Very Small Place_ by Bernard Fall.


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## Devildoc (Apr 5, 2016)

metalmom said:


> Very interested in DBP . Great article-just read the 1st article so far.Very surprised about the CIA contractor pilots. Had no clue about that.
> 
> I think that would be a worthy subject for another thread.
> 
> Great post.



The OSS (which morphed into the CIA) trained Giap and Ho Chi Minh during WWII.  Its presence really never left Vietnam.  I went to a campus lecture a long time ago....late 80s?...in which there was a panel discussion of the CIA in VN; the panelists included a couple former CIA employees that essentially lived in VN from 1948-1972.


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## Devildoc (Apr 5, 2016)

Freefalling said:


> double tap....


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## AWP (Apr 5, 2016)

Devildoc said:


> I have it along side of_ Hell in a Very Small Place_ by Bernard Fall.



You could read the book in my link and Street Without Joy and call it a day on the French experience in Vietnam. Seriously. The sad thing is this knowledge was available to our policy makers and they committed us to that place. We had a roadmap to failure and basically followed it to a T.


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## Devildoc (Apr 5, 2016)

A lot of American politicians and policy-makers did not appreciate Fall's writings.  They felt he was too sympathetic to the North Vietnamese and anti-American.  He was, however, one of the most prolific writers about both the French and American wars in VN.  If I was a fancy-pants academic and could teach a class on the Vietnam war, his books would be on the reading list.


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## Gunz (Apr 6, 2016)

We thought our money and firepower would make a difference.


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