Dawn will rise on the airfields of Gia-Lâm and Bac-Mai, in the immediate vicinity of Hanoi, in Tonkin. More than 1,800 French and Vietnamese are ready, fully equipped, nerves tense, waiting to go into battle. With them, their three chiefs, Majors Bigeard, Bréchignac and Souquet. All three are seasoned veterans of the Indochina War.
On the departure area, 67 C47 Dakotas are lined up, their crews ready to take off. It is November 20, 1953. About three hundred kilometers away, in a light rain, another Dakota turns above a valley shrouded in mist. Three generals are on board:Bodet, Décheaux and Gilles. They will soon give the order of departure to the three battalions of paratroopers who are waiting to be dropped on a small village held by the Vietminh. This village is called Dien Bien Phu. Suddenly, at 7 o'clock, the sky clears up. The order to board comes to the airborne troops. This is the start of Operation “Castor”. Soon, above Dien Bien Phu, the swarm of Dakotas fills the air with roars and thousands of Thai peasants look up in astonishment. Planes drop their load of men and hundreds of white parachutes bloom into the blue sky. Viet-minh soldiers rush to their combat positions. On the D.Z. (drop zone) "Natasha", a Vietnamese company at the exercise immediately hooked the men of the 6th battalion of colonial parachutists from Bigeard. The D.Z. is very vast and the only recovery of the tons of dropped material becomes difficult there. Machine guns, 81mm mortars and radio devices are scattered on the ground. Many of the latter did not withstand the shock of the landing. Worse still, a number of mortars cannot be found.
Further south, on the D.Z. "Simone", the men of Commander Bréchignac, of the 2nd battalion of the parachute hunter regiment, were launched in delicate conditions and are having difficulty gathering together to act as formed units. Without waiting for his reinforcements, Bigeard left his D.Z. to attack, with three of its four companies, the village of Dien Bien Phu that the regular Vietminh troops are fiercely defending.
3 p.m., Commander Souquet’s 1st battalion of colonial parachutists, which had jumped as reinforcements from Bigeard, arrived to take part in the clean-up action. The 148th Viet Minh Regiment retreated in good order and the inhabitants of the village fled into the mountains. French losses amounted to only 13 dead and 40 wounded, confirming the effectiveness of surprise attacks launched by well-trained airborne units.
On the second day, November 21, a second contingent of paratroopers jumped into the basin of Dien Bien Phu. They are the legionnaires of the 1st Foreign Parachute Battalion and the men of the 8th Vietnamese Parachute Battalion, with their leaders:Lieutenant-Colonel Langlais — who broke his leg when he hit the ground — and General Gilles, who commanded the whole operation.
Important material supplies are now dropped on the D.Z. "Octavie", but one of the bulldozers sent dislocates on hitting the ground. On November 22, after the arrival of a battalion of fresh Vietnamese troops, the French garrison had 4,560 men. This is the time to start organizing the work of defending the position.