Born October 26, 1927 in Paris. He took an active part in the battles of the Second World War and was wounded by a mine on February 4, 1945 in the Vosges.
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- Roger Vandenberghe
After the end of the conflict, he left for Indochina and very quickly found himself at the heart of the toughest fighting. He reaped a long series of injuries:to the right thigh by shrapnel - grenade on October 23, 1947 Chfêm Hoa (Tonkin); in the right thigh by bullets on February 21, 1948 in Phuang-Khang (Tonkin). Ir was appointed non-commissioned officer on April 1, 1948. Wounded again in the left thigh and right arm by the explosion of a mine on January 12, 1949 in Lang Dieu (Tonkin); in the chest by a bullet on February 18, 1949 in Day Dihn (Tonkin); in the right thigh by bullet on February 12, 1951 in Vau Cuu (Tonkin)`; in both legs by bullets on May 30, 1951 in Ninh Binh (Tonkin); in the left thigh by bullet on September 16, 1951 in Nam Huan (Tonkin).
He was finally assassinated on January 6, 1952 in Nam Dihn (Tonkin). Roger Vandenberghe held the following decorations
the Legion of Honor (February 26, 1949). military medal (December 6, 1948); war cross 1939-1945. a quote; war cross from theaters of external operations (14 citations).
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- Roger Vandenberghe and Le Maréchal de Tassigny
Phu Ly, Tonkin, May 11, 1951.
A few resolute men will frustrate a Viet Minh offensive. Taking an enemy regiment from the rear to attack the peaks of Nihn Binh, the commandos of Vandenberghe won an astonishing victory.
The man is tall, very tall. Dressed in black pajamas and a quilted jacket, his face cut sharply:like a sickle that the latanier's helmet emblazoned with the yellow star of the Viet-minh still hardens, he stands out against the officials, these colonels and commanders that de Lattre gathered at Phu Ly, at the end of Operation Medusa which cut Giap's supply lines.
Tell me, Bernard, what is this scumbag Planted on the track like a telegraph pole and staring at me? look?
— Between the Day and the Red River, everyone knows it, it's Vandenberghe.
Lieutenant Bernard de Lattre smiled. He knows his father's interest in men who are out of the ordinary. De Lattre approaches. When he comes six paces away, he sees Vandenberghe freeze and salute ECPA - What are you doing on this ground?
Simply, Vandenberghe explains. He is haggard, tired. To catch a glimpse of his commander-in-chief, he made his men perform a forced march of 20 km. Yesterday, he was in the middle of the enemy zone, in the limestones of Chi-né. He crossed the Day at dawn on bamboo rafts. He's there. - I came to see you, he said. It is an honor for a soldier to see a great leader. A real. De Lattre does not answer, but Bernard notices, with a certain glare, that his father was touched by the tribute paid.
You are a warrant officer, I was told. What are you doing in this outfit and without stripes?
General, I have just returned from the war. I never wear stripes because I only travel in the viet zone.
And do you think it pays?
Yes, I will look for them in their areas, in the caves or the forest. Sometimes I blow them up with their own grenades or with the mines that I mow down for them. This morning, I brought back an officer who knows the parking lot of the 304 assault brigade...
De Lattre smiles. He likes this man. He will say of him, a few days later:"It's a bit as if a tiger, in addition to its fangs, its claws and its trigger, received a hunting license..." Warrant officer for a few months, Vandenberghe is only twenty-three years old.
When he arrived in Indochina, at the age of nineteen, this former pupil of the Public Assistance fell in love with this country and its inhabitants. Without having learned it, he understood the type of war that was going on there and, with the first captured prisoners, he formed the embryo of a commando which, in a few months, achieved important successes. In four years of incessant fighting, he was wounded five times and cited nine times. In addition to the military medal, this young platoon leader holds the Legion of Honor.
His exploits are legendary. Always at the head of his troop, exclusively made up of former adversaries, he plunged into Viet territory for whole days, blended into the landscape and struck hard, dealing severe blows to the enemy. Dreaded by the Viêts, who put a price on his head, he gave himself up to receive the ransom, then massacred the staff of the assault regiment 46. On this morning of May 11, his destiny changed. changed.
There was a photographer to take a picture of the handshake de Lattre gave Vandenberghe. This photograph will make him a symbol, the equal of these colonels - Vanuxem, Edon, Erulin, Castries, Gambiez - who constitute the court of "King Jean", his marshals.
In charge of the Nam Dinh sector - the center of the Tonkinese delta - Colonel Gambiez questioned Tranh Kinh, the logistics officer of the 304 brigade at length. He was certain that Giap was preparing to attack in the " hole”, a fault in the French system, 80 km of void between Phat-Diem and Phu Ly. - Giap is forced to go on the offensive, explains Gambiez to de Lattre. Firstly for political reasons. After his victory over our troops, on the R.C.4 last October, he had promised Ho Chi Minh to be in Hanoi for the Tet holiday in February. It was a failure, first in Vinh Yen, then in Mao Khé in March. 11 he must win now.
And Gambiez adds - Especially since - strategic reason - his troops are on the verge of asphyxiation. He absolutely had to provide them with the rice they needed for his 1951-1952 winter campaign.
De Lattre didn't need to think long, he knew the attack was near. The next day, he rounded up his intervention units, the marine commandos and the North African Mobile Group (G.M.N.A.) of Colonel Edon.
Be up for May 30, he orders. Giap launched the assault on the 28th. He had put in place the maximum number of troops. To the south, the 304, which must invest the Catholic strongholds of PhatDiem and Bui Chu. In the center, the 320, which must break the lock of Ninh Binh and rush on Phu Ly to cut communications to Nam Dinh. In Ninh Binh, two posts, installed on two limestone snags - the South and West peaks - are the only two strong points blocking the passage. The western piton is held by a squadron of the 1st Hunters, commanded by Lieutenant Bernard de Lattre, the general's son. After annihilating Lieutenant Labbens' meager marine commando garrison, Giap turns back towards the limestone peaks. In the middle of the night, Gambiez alerts Vandenberghe
Hunters are in trouble in Ninh Binh. Take your commando and go as reinforcements. You are the only one who can pass through the middle of the Viêts. You have to climb on the pitons, hang on to the enemy and hold on until the G.M.N.A. arrives.
Vandenberghe accepts. Along the way, he learns of the death of Lieutenant de Lattre, his friend. So he hurries, he has never left without avenging the death of a comrade.
Day was breaking when he arrived at the Ky Cau landing stage, where the L.C.M. of the Navy. The only access route is indeed via the river.
We are going to have some nerve, said Vandenberghe, we will break the enemy encirclement by surprise. Let's go!
The piton. South has fallen, announces the radio. - And the other one?
Despite the death of the lieutenant, the western peak still holds.
It is 8 in the morning. At 9 a.m., the transports drop off Vandenberghe on the job. "It's a speed race," Gambiez explained to him. He does as fast as he can. On the bank, the Viâts swarm. Their final assault is preparing against the position that still resists.
There are barely 100 m to approach the cliff, but it is 100 m covered in force, with grenades, submachine guns, daggers. They are 120, attacking an assault regiment, taken from behind. And then there's Dohl, a formidable beast, half dog, half wolf, who has never accepted any other master than Vandenberghe.
The commandos progress, it takes them twenty minutes to reach the base of the piton. And the escalation begins. The men of the "Black Tiger" commando have no practice, but make up for it with their ardor to fight. They often have to let go of a hand to retaliate, down from where the Viêts shoot them, up from where the Bo doïs rain down grenades.
But they are climbing, meter by meter, getting closer to the top. As the shock groups of the 320 did last night, the commandos embedded themselves in the rocks, gaining meter by meter, inexorably. Halfway up the slope, from a crevice where he lurked, a Viet armed with a submachine gun was posted in ambush. Vandenberghe presents himself in front of the hole. A gust nails him to the ground, both legs crossed. The Viet gets up, determined to finish off the wounded man. But Dohl jumps up and the Viet, his throat torn out, doesn't even have time to scream.
Sergeants Puel and Vuu, the first, arrived on the spot and hoisted the wounded to the top of the peak where the assault groups, led by Sergeant Tran Dinh Vy, managed to gain a foothold despite the resistance of two companies of Regiment 64 .
"Mission accomplished", launches, by radio, Sergeant Chazelet, also wounded by a bullet in the shoulder. - Bravo and hold on, the reinforcements will be there at noon. The action of the Vandenberghe commando paid off:beyond the reconquest of the piton, it changed the direction of the battle. Until then, Giap's troops were carried by the dynamics of the attack. They were already on the road to Nam Dinh, blocking any possibility of intervention. The action of the commando, on their rear, forced them to stop for two hours. And these two hours were decisive, allowing the G.M.N.A. of Colonel Edon to advance, bringing his guns as close as possible.
The "Battle of the Day" will last another twenty-four days. Giap will try to break through everywhere, north and south, in Phat-Diem and Phu Ly. But he will not manage to get anywhere:the toll will be severe for him, nearly 12,000 killed, 2,000 prisoners, his three divisions (304, 308, 320) bled dry, who will drag themselves through the bush, stretching out their wounded who will die of gangrene, fever, misery...
Barely on his feet, Vandenberghe will resume his operations. He will be one of the vanguards of the reconquest of Hoa Binh, in November 1951; he will still hunt down the Viêt in his lairs of Chi-né. But what they could not obtain in battle, the Viêts will obtain by trickery and treachery. Roger Vandenberghe will be assassinated in his own post of Nam Dinh on January 6, 1952. He will die, solitary, as he had lived, a few hours from the death of the man he had admired so much and who had made him one of the symbols of our struggle in Indochina, Marshal de Lattre de Tassigny.
Of Vandenberghe, it has been written that he was an adventurer, a beast of war. It is both simpler and more glorious:he was a soldier, who wanted free the land he had chosen for his homeland. His grave is number 263 at Nam Dinh Cemetery.