Operation Castor was a plan of the French high command in Hanoi to draw the Vietnamese guerrillas—then called the Viet Minh—into a set piece division-sized battle along European lines in which, they were confident, they could defeat and destroy the Viet Minh guerrillas who had no experience in maneuvering large formations. To this end, the French flew in or parachuted in late 1953 more than 26,000 French, Foreign Legion and colonial troops, plus tanks and artillery, into the remote valley of Dien Bien Phu and, in effect, dared the Viet Minh to “come and get us.”

The Viet Minh obliged. But because they had no trucks, transport planes or helicopters, they used thousands of bicycles to haul up tons and tons of supplies, equipment and munitions—including disassembled US-made 105mm artillery pieces captured by Mao Zedung's guerrillas from the Chiang Kaishek's Kuomintang Nationalist army—into the mountains surrounding Dien Bien Phu valley.

What the lowly bicycle can do! By the time the battle began in March, Viet Minh artillery outnumbered French artillery four-to-one. In addition, they occupied the high ground, while the French were sitting ducks in the valley. Napoleon would never have allowed himself to fall into such a hole. In shame and despair, the French artillery commander, Col. Piroth, blew himself up with a grenade.

The French overall commander, Col. (later Gen.) Christian de Castries, was a flamboyant aristocrat and womanizer who named all his outposts after his many girlfriends: Luli, Gabrielle, Beatrice, Isabelle, Anne-Marie, etc. During the battle, other Viet Minh units simultaneously attacked other towns and cities in Indo-China (a precursor of Tet) to tie down French reinforcements, while the French perimeter in Dien Bien Phu gradually shrank as one outpost after another was overrun by the Viet Minh.

On May 7, 1954, the Vietnamese penetrated the French command bunker. The French did not resist. They were drinking wine to celebrate their defeat.

As defeat loomed, the French appealed to the USA where Vice-President Nixon and Air Force General Le May planned to drop atomic bombs on the Vietnamese supply dumps. It fell to Winston Churchill to block the use of atomic weapons in Vietnam: President Eisenhower would not employ them without his consent. What followed became a Stalingrad in the jungle: the French were worn down and destroyed. The French withdrew from Vietnam but the country was divided at US insistence, creating the short-lived 'Republic of South Vietnam' for which 55,000 US servicemen would die over the next 20 years. The French colonial army regrouped in Algeria where a new war began, one it was so determined to win that its officers would ultimately attempt a coup d'etat. Dien Bien Phu is a true landmark battle. Its political consequences were profound.

In 1963, as Washington was deepening its commitment in Vietnam, Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev made a telling remark to a U.S. official. "If you want to, go ahead and fight in the jungles of Vietnam, the French fought there for seven years and still had to quit in the end. Perhaps the Americans will be able to stick it out for a little longer, but eventually they will have to quit, too."

The battle begins ...