Giap's strategy
At 2:30 p.m., “the sky fell on Lepage's head”. He learns from a message dropped on his P.C. what he should always have known:his column must reach out to the garrison of Cag Bang, the Charton column, which is about to leave the city. The order, dated September 29, defines the different points of the "Thérèse" operation:"To bring the Bayard group to Nam Nang, which it must reach on October 3 to liaise there with the Charton group and open the way to its elements. »
Only, since September 29, the situation has changed! There is no longer any question of going through the R.C.4 and holding Dong Khé. We have to find something else. Lepage decides to take an old track, barely passable, west of Dong Khé. He thus thinks to reach the height of the Charton column in Nam Nang. To cover himself, he chose to leave the 1st B.E.P. and the 11th Tabor south of Dong Khé in order to secure the bulk of the enemy forces. He ordered them to be besieged for as long as necessary. Colonel Lepage is indeed convinced that the Viets will not attempt anything as long as a threat hangs over the post of Dong Khé.
Lepage's plan seems rational but the rebels are four times more numerous than the French:reserves, weapons, supplies, perfect knowledge of the terrain, they have everything, facing a column cut in two, far from its bases and without artillery support.
Lepage, the R.T.M. and the 1st Tabor headed west to meet the Charton column.
First misunderstanding:the staff of "Bayard" believed that Charton had movement-
Giap's strategy
At 2:30 p.m., “the sky fell on Lepage's head”. He learns from a message dropped on his P.C. what he should always have known:his column must reach out to the garrison of Cag Bang, the Charton column, which is about to leave the city. The order, dated
ment at midnight; he estimates that by dawn on October 3, Cao Bang's troops had traveled 15 to 20 kilometers and must therefore be near Nam Nang. However, the Charton column did not start until 6 am.
Second misunderstanding:Lepage is convinced that Charton is arriving at a forced march, but for a well-trained troop, twenty kilometers of tracks without exaggerated difficulties it is nothing. But Charton is slowed down by his trucks which require incessant road repairs; it is slowed down by its two guns, by its civilians and its impedimenta.
At the end of the afternoon, Monday, October 2 at 5:30 p.m., the Viets attacked in force, in N'Gaum, a company of the 8' R.T.M. which is decimated. Captain Feuillet and 80 skirmishers were killed.
Around 9 p.m. a deluge of fire fell on the Na Kheo occupied by the 5th Goum and the Tabor command and support group . The bludgeoning of cannon and mortar shells prepares an assault by the Viet soldiers who follow close to the shrapnel. They rush in shouting:“Tien Yen! (“Forward”), “Doc Lap! ("Independence!") as their bugles urge them on.
"We should have been scared, scared in our guts, wanted to drop everything rather than die in a corner rocks and rotten jungle, writes Montaud. Nope ! We were... beyond fear (it only returned, insidious, during the darkness). New assault... we come to hand-to-hand combat, sergeants Dal Magro and Marty and their goumiers repel the Viets with grenades taken from the dead Viets who pile up, sometimes in several layers. »
The Viets paid a high price. Whole waves came to get chopped. But the French losses, too, are terrible. “We evacuate the most affected, says Montaud. The other wounded descend as best they can towards Na Pa, while fighting continues into the night.
We are terrified by the courage, the mad fighting spirit of the Viet soldiers. They have been given a mission to take Na Kheo, they must take it whatever the cost. We feel before a frightening force reminiscent of the millions who died in the battles of Russia. Human life, that of soldiers, does not have the same value for their leaders as for ours. »
On the other side of Dong Khe it is not brilliant either. After the fierce fighting, the 1st Tabor managed to approach the airfield, but had to retreat before a swarm of Viets, surging everywhere, supported by the artillery which seemed to know its aims perfectly. The shells fall exactly where the French units are, whether they are advancing or retreating. We can feel the carefully studied positions, the prepared sightings, a real strategy. The intervention of Chinese specialists is not in doubt.
In the fury of the fighting, the strategy of Giap, the commander-in-chief of the Viet-minh armies, then appeared clearly to all the officers present on the ground:it was no longer a question of to attack the posts that the Expeditionary Force is evacuating but to crush the Lepage column and then turn against the Charton column. It is a question of annihilating some of the finest units of the French army. This is no longer guerrilla warfare but a real pitched battle, with m militaristic but above all political.
In these jungle fights - most often night fights, moreover - the mess is immeasurable. Radio devices have only limited ranges, further reduced by the terrain and vegetation.
"War is a simple art, all of execution", said Napoleon. It is still necessary to be able to transmit the orders. During the whole operation, the command will often ignore what is happening at five hundred meters - and at two hundred meters at night, when it is not at twenty, as evidenced by the following anecdote reported by a combatant.
"A crazy story happened to us while climbing a peak at night:in almost total darkness, the moon often hiding, we climb in single file, the along a slippery path that climbs in a spiral towards the summit that we must occupy. One or two alerts threw us into the embankment and, without our realizing it, cut through the column. At one point, a watchword passes, to be transmitted silently by word of mouth, to the one who follows.
Towards the middle of the column, a goumier turns to his next to pass the word on to him. He lets him approach and realizes that he is a Viet fighter. It is the first of an enemy column which, climbing towards this same summit, slipped without noticing it into our file. Immediately unleash
all weapons. But who is shooting who? »
The repeated attacks of the Viets split the Lepage column little by little into small groups. These have all the difficulties to find their company, their battalion. Some do not succeed and continue alone.
On October 3, the L’B.E.P. counterattack and repel three enemy assault waves. The air force, which came to bomb Dong Khé, did not change the situation; the men are killed, the wounded pile up. Commander Segrétain and Commander Delcros ask Colonel Lepage for permission to withdraw. After several refusals, Lepage accepts. Segrétain and Delcros, by mutual agreement, decide to go through the Lung Phaï pass in order to drop off the wounded. The unhooking takes place at night, in conditions that make it even harder to stretcher the wounded.
Barely engaged on the road, the detachment fell into an ambush. The Tabors of Commander Delcros, carrying the wounded, are attacked. It's the panic. The survivors flow back to the B.E.P. The wounded are very often finished off. Commander Delcros himself is missing.
Commander Segrétain believes he is facing strong enemy forces. He gives up his march on Lung Phaï and rushes to hill 765. To facilitate the progression, he has his two cannons destroyed and the mules shot down.