page_title: Battle of Dien Bien Phu
section_title: Establishment of air operations
hierarchical_section_title: Battle of Dien Bien Phu / Prelude / Establishment of air operations
caption_attribution_description: General Staff in Battle of Dien Bien Phu. From left: Pham Van Dong, Ho Chi Minh, Truong Chinh, Vo Nguyen Giap
context_page_description: The Battle of Dien Bien Phu was a climactic confrontation of the First Indochina War that took place between 13 March and 7 May 1954. It was fought between the French Union's French Far East Expeditionary Corps and Viet Minh communist revolutionaries.
  It was, from the French view before the event, a set piece battle to draw out the Vietnamese and destroy them with superior firepower. As a result of blunders in French decision-making, however, the French began an operation to insert, then support, their soldiers at Điện Biên Phủ, deep in the hills of northwestern Vietnam. The operation's purpose was to cut off Viet Minh supply lines into the neighboring Kingdom of Laos, and draw the Viet Minh into a major confrontation in order to cripple them. The plan was to resupply the French position by air, and was based on the belief that the Viet Minh had no anti-aircraft capability. The Viet Minh, however, under General Võ Nguyên Giáp, surrounded and besieged the French. They brought in vast amounts of heavy artillery and managed to move these bulky weapons through difficult terrain up the rear slopes of the mountains.
context_section_description: Operations at Điện Biên Phủ began at 10:35 on 20 November 1953. In Operation Castor, the French dropped or flew 9,000 troops into the area over three days, as well as a bulldozer to prepare the airstrip. They were landed at three drop zones: "Natasha" (northwest of Điện Biên Phủ), "Octavie" (to the southwest), and "Simone" (to the southeast). The Viet Minh elite 148th Independent Infantry Regiment, headquartered at Điện Biên Phủ, reacted "instantly and effectively". Three of its four battalions, however, were absent.
  Initial operations proceeded well for the French. By the end of November, six parachute battalions had been landed, and the French Army consolidated its positions. One 2018 book refers to aerial supply that the French needed to fly in 36000 tonnes of equipment – they managed 4000 tonnes.
  It was at this time that Giáp began his countermoves. He had expected an attack, but had not foreseen when or where it would occur. Giáp realized that, if pressed, the French would abandon Lai Châu Province and fight a pitched battle at Điện Biên Phủ. On 24 November, Giáp ordered the 148th Infantry Regiment and the 316th Division to attack Lai Chau, while the 308th, 312th, and 351st divisions assaulted Điện Biên Phủ from Việt Bắc.
  Starting in December, the French, under the command of Colonel Christian de Castries, began transforming their anchoring point into a fortress by setting up seven satellite positions. (Each was said to be named after a former mistress of de Castries, although the allegation is probably unfounded, as the eight names begin with letters from the first nine of the alphabet, excluding F.) The fortified headquarters was centrally located, with positions Huguette to the west, Claudine to the south, and Dominique to the northeast. The other positions were Anne-Marie to the northwest, Beatrice to the northeast, Gabrielle to the north, and Isabelle 6 km (3.7 mi) to the south, covering the reserve airstrip.
  The choice of de Castries as the local commander at Điện Biên Phủ was, in retrospect, a bad one. Navarre chose de Castries, a cavalryman in the 18th-century tradition, because Navarre envisioned Điện Biên Phủ as a mobile battle. But Điện Biên Phủ would require a commander adept at World War I-style trench warfare, something for which de Castries was not suited.
  The arrival of the 316th Viet Minh Division prompted Cogny to order the evacuation of the Lai Chau garrison to Điện Biên Phủ, exactly as Giáp had anticipated. En route, they were virtually annihilated by the Viet Minh. "Of the 2,100 men who left Lai Chau on 9 December, only 185 made it to Điện Biên Phủ on 22 December. The rest had been killed, captured, or deserted". The Viet Minh troops converged on Điện Biên Phủ.
  French military forces had committed 10,800 troops, together with yet more reinforcements, totalling nearly 16,000 men, to the defense of a monsoon-affected valley surrounded by heavily-wooded hills and high ground that had not been secured. Artillery as well as ten US M24 Chaffee light tanks (each broken down into 180 individual parts, flown into the base, and then re-assembled) and numerous aircraft (attack and supply types) were committed to the garrison. A number of quadruple 0.50 calibre machine guns were present and used in the ground role.This included France's regular troops (notably elite paratrooper units, plus those of the artillery), French Foreign Legionnaires, Algerian and Moroccan tirailleurs (colonial troops from North Africa) and locally-recruited Indochinese (Laotian, Vietnamese and Cambodian) infantry.
  In comparison, altogether the Viet Minh had moved up to 50,000 regular troops into the hills surrounding the French-held valley, totalling five divisions, including the 351st Heavy Division, which was an artillery formation equipped with medium artillery, such as the US M101 105mm howitzer, supplied by the neighbouring People's Republic of China (PRC) from captured stocks obtained from defeated Nationalist China as well as US forces in Korea, together with some heavier field-guns as well as anti-aircraft artillery. Variou
caption: General Vo Nguyen Giap presents his plan to Party and State leaders including Ho Chi Minh (second left)