BATTLE OF INDO-CHINA: Dikes Against a Flood

BATTLE OF INDOCHINA

Communist Ho Chi Minh’s army, after seven weeks of success, has the French forces in northern Indo-China bottled up around the cities of Hanoi and Haiphong. A full-scale attack is expected. Are the French strong enough to hold out? Seeking an answer to this and related questions, TIME’S London Bureau Chief Eric Gibbs flew into Hanoi last fortnight.

The French forces are outnumbered 2 to 1 in the crucial northern theater. Against Ho Chi Minh’s 70,000 Communists the French have less than 40,000 men. The rest of the French army of 166,000 are garrisoning southern IndoChina or are in supply services. In fire power, unit for unit, French and Communist forces are evenly matched. Ho now has heavy artillery, no air force. But the Communists are building airfields on both sides of the Chinese border. A French airman has reported seeing six or seven enemy armored cars or tanks at Caobang. French armor is old and in bad repair.

The danger of a French defeat is serious. The French have not yet completed their retreat into the Red River delta. Under the guise of “regrouping operations,” they will soon abandon Moncay. Already, Moncay’s French and pro-French civil population has been evacuated by sea, the Moncay airfield destroyed. The terrain held by the French is complex—a network of dikes, soggy paddy fields and island-like villages fringed with bamboo and banana trees. Inside this area (slightly larger than the Pusan beachhead held by the U.S. in Korea last August) are hidden pockets of Communist troops, in some places at battalion strength (600 to 700 men). For the moment they confine themselves to road sabotage, raids on isolated French forts, night visits to villages for rice.

French Backbone. Last week I drove into the delta country. The spine of the new defense is a road, railway and power line running straight from Hanoi to Haiphong. Small crossroads, sticking out like ribs, are nodal points at which the French concentrate their mobile reserves ready to put out to any threatened place on the delta’s edge. The lowest echelon in this setup is what the French call autodéfence, i.e., self-defense by a kind of village home guard, armed with ten to 100 rifles. The home guard’s function is to repel light attack and inform the French of enemy movements.

I met a man in black peasant garb. He was blond, blue-eyed, wore the beard often seen among French troops. He saluted, told me that he was a French noncommissioned officer in charge of a small detachment of Vietnamese militia. Theoretically they are uniformed troops, but so far the uniform doesn’t go much beyond a floppy bush hat and an armband. At another place I saw men building one of those Beau Geste forts which dot the delta. They were using salvaged bricks, mortared with mud. When the lookout tower is high enough they will face it with a thin layer of cement that will keep out water, but not much else. Said a French officer sadly: “It won’t stop a bazooka.” (Last week Communists using a bazooka breached one of these forts.)

Outward Traffic. Considering their difficulties, the morale of the French officers is remarkably high. But in Hanoi (pop. 177,000), civilians are jittery. So far there is nothing like an official evacuation. But while planes into Hanoi are only half full these days, every seat on outgoing planes is taken and people of means are quietly making their arrangements to pull out.

It is known that members of Ho’s army come in dressed as civilians. Said a Frenchman: “I wouldn’t be surprised if Ho Chi Minh himself were in Hanoi.” The latest Communist propaganda boast is that Ho will celebrate tet (New Year’s Day, which falls in February according to the lunar calendar) in Hanoi.

There are at least two good reasons to believe the Communists will delay their attack: 1) present clear weather gives an advantage to the French air force; 2) Ho is waiting for more arms from China. Said General Marcel Carpentier, commander of all the French forces in Indo-China: “If they attack in ten days I wouldn’t be surprised, but I think it will be later.” The forecast of all the military experts, from General Carpentier down, is that Ho’s first move will be to strike from the north & south to cut the Hanoi-Haiphong link, thus besiege Hanoi.

The Fifth Column. If the Communists get into a position to take Hanoi, the rising of the Hanoi people in sympathy with Ho cannot be ruled out. In the thinking of many natives, Ho’s forces are not regarded as Communists, but as the most active fighters for independence, a word almost every Vietnamese will utter passionately in the first few minutes of conversation with a foreigner. To achieve ultimate victory against Ho many things may be needed, including independence for Indo-China, but at this critical moment no amount of political advance can be persuasive. The immediate need is for more troops and equipment.

The early arrival of another French division recently recommended by visiting General Alphonse Juin may change the balance of power in the delta; it will not alter the general situation in north Indo-China. Said General Carpentier: “No matter how many reinforcements we get, we will never win so long as the Chinese border is open.” He added: “Understand this, the problem is now international. We are no longer fighting to defend outdated privileges. If France suffers a severe setback here let there be no mistake about the consequences. The British will be swept from Singapore, India will sink under the Communist flood. Nehru will have to take refuge in Portugal with the rest of the exiles. The Communist tide will spread right to the Middle East.”