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A review by mburnamfink
Hell in a Very Small Place: The Siege of Dien Bien Phu by Bernard Fall
3.0
The next time someone accuses the French of being cheese eating surrender monkeys, I will be forced to slap them. Dien Bien Phu is one of those battles that has shaped the course of history. In 55 days of brutal siege warfare, the Viet Minh under General Giap defeated a French garrison, ending French involvement in Vietnam, and setting the stage for America's bloody war. Published in 1966, this book was required reading in Wasington policy circles, and drove Lyndon Johnson’s obsession that the battle of Khe Sahn not be another 'din bin foo'.
Bernard Fall was an old Indochina hand, and this book mixes a day by day account of the battle with portraits of colorful French Foreign Legion officers and analysis of the mood and thought in Hanoi, Paris, and Washington. At times, the endless descriptions of desperate counter-attacks and airdrops under fire wears on, but a few scenes rise above prosaic reporting to describe the suffering endured by the French, trapped in hastily built trenches, starving, soaked to the bone, and under continual Viet Minh bombardment. The strategic analysis of Eisenhower's decision not to intervene is fairly accurate, especially considering how closely this book was published to the events. Notably, even in 1966 Vietnam experts were obsessed with counter-factuals and might-have-beens.
Ultimately, the French were defeated, but only after days without rations, reinforcement, or resupply. Dien Bien Phu fell only after every bullet was fired, and the last defensive positions overrun. Both sides were ferocious and skilled fighters, but what decided the battle was logistics. The French arrogantly assumed that the base could be supplied by airlift, and that it was impossible to move large numbers of men and supplies through the jungle. Communist flak, and the endurance of coolie porters carrying 200 kg loads on modified bicycles hundreds of miles through the jungle proved them wrong.
Dien Bien Phu was an atypical set-piece of battle, not characteristic of the war as a whole. Long and detailed, Hell in a Very Small Place is too much for a general audience, but vital reading for anybody interested in the origins of the war, or the French colonial forces.
Bernard Fall was an old Indochina hand, and this book mixes a day by day account of the battle with portraits of colorful French Foreign Legion officers and analysis of the mood and thought in Hanoi, Paris, and Washington. At times, the endless descriptions of desperate counter-attacks and airdrops under fire wears on, but a few scenes rise above prosaic reporting to describe the suffering endured by the French, trapped in hastily built trenches, starving, soaked to the bone, and under continual Viet Minh bombardment. The strategic analysis of Eisenhower's decision not to intervene is fairly accurate, especially considering how closely this book was published to the events. Notably, even in 1966 Vietnam experts were obsessed with counter-factuals and might-have-beens.
Ultimately, the French were defeated, but only after days without rations, reinforcement, or resupply. Dien Bien Phu fell only after every bullet was fired, and the last defensive positions overrun. Both sides were ferocious and skilled fighters, but what decided the battle was logistics. The French arrogantly assumed that the base could be supplied by airlift, and that it was impossible to move large numbers of men and supplies through the jungle. Communist flak, and the endurance of coolie porters carrying 200 kg loads on modified bicycles hundreds of miles through the jungle proved them wrong.
Dien Bien Phu was an atypical set-piece of battle, not characteristic of the war as a whole. Long and detailed, Hell in a Very Small Place is too much for a general audience, but vital reading for anybody interested in the origins of the war, or the French colonial forces.