The only chance to succeed:take Dong Khé
On Saturday, September 30, "Bayard" set off under the orders of Lepage. At 1 p.m., the goumiers left That Khé on foot:Dong Khé objective, which must be
taken. The operation, baptized "Tiznit", will not be easy, because it is obvious that the Viets, who used formidable means to annihilate the defenders of Dong Khé two weeks earlier, not only firmly hold the post and the village, but especially the surrounding peaks.
On October 1, Lepage occupied the Na Pa post that the Viets had abandoned. Further on, the platoon of 1st B.E.P. commanded by Lieutenant Faulques, goes ahead of Bayard to approach the Dong Khé basin.
There could be no better choice for this mission. This platoon is the spearhead of a unit, the 1" B.E.P., which can be classified among the best of the French Expeditionary Force. For two years, its paratroopers have proven their effectiveness in combat.
It is nearly 4 pm, Dong Khé is less than a kilometer away as the crow flies.Below, at the bottom of a vast basin, the village spreads out, surrounded by rice fields. The successive assaults have left traces:the post is in ruins. Everything seems calm. Suddenly, Faulques and his men are attacked by an enemy patrol. Result:three rebels killed. The survivors scamper off. The alert will be given .
Faulques immediately warns the rest of the battalion. The bulk of the Viet forces will soon learn of the presence of the French. We must act quickly. Captain Jean-pierre, second in command of the battalion , orders Faulques to charge Dong Khé with his platoon. The rest of the B.E.P. will follow. Hopefully, thinks Jean-pierre, the Viets locked up in the citadel are not numerous. The surprise will play.
Faulques takes off. Dong Khé is not as close as he thinks. The lieutenant must rush several hundred meters, tumble into the basin by taking the R.C.4.
The Viets are in no hurry. They are waiting, preparing. Faulques and his men emerge into the basin. A violent fire of mortars and machine guns fell on them. The Viets fire from everywhere:from the mountain, from the southern post, from the blockhouse of the little pagoda. It's 5 p.m. Neither Faulques and his platoon, nor the rest of the 1st B.E.P. which had joined them, could move. The heaviest fire came from the mountains. In Dong Khé itself, there were few people. commander Segrétain, boss of the battalion, take the town without too much difficulty if Lepage got the whole group to give in.”
The gunner Lepage hesitated, his ignorance of the terrain and the enemy betraying him. He misunderstood the situation, dithered and finally refused. He preferred to wait until the next day and mount a major operation with the support of the air force and the artillery. Without further ado, he radioed the Z.F.N.E. to parachute two guns and their crews into it.
Then, after setting up his command post in the former Na Pa post, the leader of the group lays out his resources on the ridges overlooking the basin. and Faulques receive the order to withdraw.Toll of the day:30 dead and the only chance to succeed who has just escaped them.
The end of the evening of October 1st is quite calm, on both sides. This allows, on the night of the 1st to the 2nd, the installation of a device in pincers which overflows Dong Khé by the sides:in the west, the 1st Tabor and the 8th R.T.M.; in the east, the let B.E.P. and the two goums of 11' Tabor on the Na Kheo.
At dawn on October 2, the terrible battle began. During the night, the Viets had indeed rounded up all their units.
Higher up, the 5th Goum progressed at the cost of multiple skirmishes which caused numerous victims, up to a line of ridges firmly held. Kheo was attacked furiously. The losses were enormous on both sides, the corpses and the wounded were strewn on the two slopes of the ridge. To make matters worse, the air force, which had taken advantage of a clearing to machine-gun the enemy lines, to straff on the wrong side of the ridge. The Viets, hearing the planes coming, took cover, only the goumiers remained in sight. Alas! they were wearing green uniforms which similar to that of the Viets. The airmen are mistaken and machine-gun our lines. Impossible to correct their shooting by direct radio. They make several murderous passages.
Finally the goum's communications lieutenant, Raoul Montaud, manages to find a place to place his road signs, despite the hellish fire that surrounds him without the touch.
Thanks to panels and radio relays, airmen finally understand that they have to move their interventions. As the weather clouded over again, air support had to cease. For "Bayard" it is a disaster, because the intervention of the air force could change everything by making it possible to firmly occupy the peaks which surround Dong Khé and by paralyzing the citadel occupied by the Viets.
In the middle of the jungle, on the limestone peaks, with their thousands of caves that serve as shelters for cannons, mortars and machine guns, the enemy is everywhere. The French did not know how to find him and the Viets themselves often seemed unaware of where Lepage's units were "trampling".
The paratroopers of the 1" B.E.P. discovered in the morning the officers of a regiment takes stock on a map. The officers descended with great bursts but their regiment reacts and, for more than an hour, blind fights take place in suffocating vegetation.
Aggravating circumstance, the reconnaissance Morane report the presence of large concentrations of Viets heading towards Dong Khé. The trap closes. At noon, the end of the mission, it is not completed. Dong Khé n 'has not been taken back. The lock blocking Cao Bang's road has not been broken.