XX0042 – Dien Bien Phu, 1954

Dien Bien Phu, 1954: The End of French Indochina

Dien Bien Phu was a valley in north-western Vietnam, near the Laotian border, into which the French command flew a garrison of some 13,000 men in November 1953. The intention was to draw the Viet Minh into a set-piece battle where French artillery and air power would decide the outcome. The battle took place, and decided the outcome the other way.

The Miscalculation

French planning assumed that Vo Nguyen Giap could not bring heavy artillery through 500 kilometres of jungle and mountain, and that if he did, counter-battery fire and aircraft would silence it. Both assumptions failed. Tens of thousands of porters moved guns in pieces along tracks cut by hand, reassembled them on the reverse slopes overlooking the valley and dug them into casemates that were nearly invulnerable to counter-fire. The French position, on the valley floor, was overlooked from every direction.

Fifty-Six Days

The assault began on 13 March 1954. The outlying strongpoints fell one by one, the airstrip was under fire within days and then unusable, and the garrison could be supplied only by parachute — increasingly into a shrinking perimeter, with much of the drop falling to the besiegers. Reinforcements jumped in voluntarily to a position everyone knew was lost. The position surrendered on 7 May.

What Followed

The Geneva Conference opened the following day. France withdrew from Indochina, Vietnam was partitioned at the 17th parallel, and the sequence that led to American involvement began. Dien Bien Phu is the reference case for a modern Western army defeated in open battle by a force it had classified as irregular, and it was studied as such by every colonial power still holding territory.

Giuseppe Rava’s Original Work

Giuseppe Rava reconstructs the French Union forces from the photographic record: the paratroopers of the metropolitan and Foreign Legion battalions, the North African and Vietnamese units that made up much of the garrison, the American-supplied equipment and the trench conditions of the final weeks.

This is a limited edition fine art print, hand-signed by the artist, produced in SRA3 format on fine art paper. Ships worldwide.