BATTLE OF INDO-CHINA: Sky Raid

BATTLE OF INDOCHINA

For the first time since the death of Marshal de Lattre de Tassigny early in 1952, the French carried the Indo-China war to the enemy.

Shortly after dawn one day last week, 3,000 French and Vietnamese paratroopers dropped out of U.S. -made transport planes and floated down on the ancient gateway town of Langson (pop. 7,400), only eleven miles south of the China border. Quickly the soldiers slipped out of their chute harness, jogged through town, and headed for the deep limestone caves where the rebel armies of Ho Chi Minh had cached war materiel. Taken by surprise, the Viet Minh garrison fled. Systematically, the French set to work destroying enough Communist supplies to equip two Red divisions. In twelve busy hours, paratroopers burned 20,000 liters of gasoline, set off 5,000 tons of ammunition and explosives. They seized 200 machine guns and automatic rifles, 1,000 light machine guns, six Molotov trucks, engines, machinery and a stock of penicillin. They demolished the Ky Cung River bridges, across which flows the bulk of the 3,000 tons a month of supplies which Red China sends to Ho Chi Minh.

It was a fine opportunity, and the French made the most of it. Red General Vo Nguyen Giap had become overconfident, counting on French reluctance to leave the safety of their forts. He reckoned without France’s offensive-minded new commander in Indo-China, General Henri Eugene Navarre. The attack at Langson cost the Reds two months’ supplies, and gave notice that from now on Giap would have to think of his supply line before rampaging around the countryside.

Their work done, the French paratroopers hurried down Route Coloniale No. 4 towards the sea, accompanied by 200 Langson civilians fleeing the Communists. Their routes led through Communist-held jungles, but Navarre had allowed for that, too. A strong French mobile group of infantry with tanks and artillery pushed halfway up Route 4 to meet them. Total French casualties: two dead, 20 wounded.