HISTORY- THE BATTLE OF DIEN BIEN PHU

HISTORY- THE BATTLE OF DIEN BIEN PHU

France owned the colony of Vietnam. There was pressure from the United States, to retain it, as a bulwark, to stem the tide of Communism in the East.

It was hill area, difficult to operate for conventional army. The Viet Cong, guerrilla wing of the Party, was well trained and nothing could stop their march to the South, as they were receiving arms and ammunition from China. So the French troops were concentrated in the valley of Dien Bien Phu. When ready, the Viet Cong attacked the French, from all sides. The whole army surrendered. The name of Ho Chi Min rose sky high.

He was very simple and lived among the common people, even when he became the president of the whole of Vietnam.

After the fall of Dien Bien Phu, the Americans took up the fight against the Viet Cong and the war went on for years. They destroyed the whole forest by bombardment. But the Viet Cong built a network if tunnels and shot down a number of airplanes and captured thousands of Americans, causing anguish among common Americans, who could not understand why their sons got killed in a war, far away in Asia, to defend the USA. When Macnamara was defence Secretary, he calculated the cost of  the war. He pointed out that, for each communist  killed, they spent lakhs of dollars. Weary of war, the USA called off the war