Battle of Muong Khoua
Battle of Muong Khoua | |
---|---|
Part of the Phongsaly Province, Laos ) | |
Result | Việt Minh victory |
supporting mortar detachment.[1][2]
The Battle of Muong Khoua took place between April 13 and May 18, 1953, in northern
Many of these garrisons were given orders by radio to dig in and fight the approaching Việt Minh forces. Following the fall of a satellite strong point at Sop-Nao, the troops at Muong Khoua under Captain Teullier resisted a Việt Minh siege force for thirty-six days while supported by air-dropped supplies and
Four soldiers—two French and two Laotian—reached another French position 50 miles (80 km) away after six days of travel through the jungle, however, no one else escaped. The resistance of the French garrison became a popular rallying cry for French troops in Indochina as well serving as a precursor to French and Việt Minh strategies at the decisive Battle of Điện Biên Phủ the following year.[1]
Prelude
Việt Minh in Laos
In early 1953, the Việt Minh under
Muong Khoua, together with its satellite outpost Sop-Nao, was under the command of Captain Teullier, with the satellite outpost being overseen by Lieutenant Grézy. Muong Khoua was situated at the confluence of the rivers Nam Pak and
Sop-Nao
Sop-Nao lay 30 miles (48 km) to the east of Muong Khoua, along the path of the Việt Minh advance, roughly 20 miles (32 km) south-west of Điện Biên Phủ and only a few miles from the Vietnam-Laos border, 75 miles (121 km) south of the
Finding themselves surrounded by the Việt Minh, the French at Sop-Nao stood for six days while in radio contact with Teullier at the main strong point. The survivors, following authorisation from the French captain, retreated during the night of April 9/10 along a round-about route following the assumption by Grézy that the Việt Minh had laid ambushes along the most direct path. The French hacked a new path through the jungle until they reached Laotian tribesmen on April 11, who warned them of Việt Minh units following them. The French attempted to turn for Phong-Saly to the north and met an allied convoy travelling down the Nam Hou in canoes. The two forces combined and sailed down the river towards Muong Khoua.[1]
On April 12, the convoy ran into a Việt Minh ambush 600 yards (550 m) from the Muong Khoua strong point. Using a barrier of floating tree trunks, the Việt Minh attacked the convoy with machine guns and mortars, destroying the first canoe. The remaining French and Laotian troops returned fire and, with the assistance of forces from Muong Khoua who had heard the firing, routed the Việt Minh troops, who left behind 13 dead and four wounded. The French themselves suffered seven missing, one dead, and one wounded. The remainder joined the French at Muong Khoua, with the canoes and the convoy's equipment incorporated into the defence. Meanwhile, the Việt Minh's 910th Battalion of the 148th Regional Regiment of the 312th Division[2] and a heavy mortar company from the 316th Division drew near.[1]
Battle
Siege
While the French troops from Sop-Nao were making their way via canoe to the mother strong point, Teullier and his forces were feeling what one chronicler referred to as l'asphyxie par le vide ("choking-off by creating a void"), the result of a Việt Minh presence in the area. The local villagers no longer spoke to the French, when they had previously been communicative, and the population began leaving; both the farms and the markets were deserted. The French viewed this as an indicator of an imminent enemy attack.[1] Furthermore, the thick jungle and steep slopes isolated the French strong points from all but river and airborne supply. The Việt Minh, on the other hand, were adequately supplied by over 200,000 porters, or coolies.[2] Referred to officially as a "relatively small" force,[4] the 300 Chasseurs Laotiens and "handful"[1] of French NCOs and two officers were equipped with three 81-mm and two 60-mm mortars and two machine guns. They were ordered on April 13 to hold for fourteen days by Colonel Boucher de Crévecoeur, who promised air support.[1]
At 23:00 hours that evening, April 13, mortar shells began landing on the slopes of position Alpha.
What was possible, however, was a small patrol through the village of Muong Khoua, which had been by now deserted. These French patrols served as an early warning system and an ambush for Việt Minh assaults during the crachin-dominated night. This pattern continued into May. Meanwhile, other French forces had liberated
A bombardment from Soviet Russian 120-mm mortars, 57-mm recoilless rifles, and phosphorus grenades began at 00:30 on May 18. Teullier instructed his radio operator, Sergeant René Novak, to request air-dropped flares and air support, while mortar fire landed on Alpha and the Mousetrap, but not Pi, where Grézy was in command. Pi continued to support the other two areas of the outpost with its own mortar fire.[5]
By 01:10 hours, the western flank of the Mousetrap had fallen to Việt Minh bombardment. By 01:30, the garrison was informed that weather conditions prevented air support, and by 02:30 the Việt Minh forces launched successive assault waves which overran Teullier and his men, including attacks which flanked the position using the nearby sandbanks.
Survivors
"Like Christ off the Cross" was an expression which became current in Indochina to describe survivors from those harrowing retreats through the jungle. And usually that is exactly what they looked like: worn down to skeletons from hunger and dysentery, sunken eyes, the typical tropical pallor ... their emaciated faces curtained by shaggy beards, and their skins covered with festering sores, from heat rash to leech bites and jungle rot.
–
On May 22, four days after the fall of the Muong Khoua garrison, three of its soldiers—the garrison radio operator Novak and two Laotians—reached the only remaining French outpost in northern Laos,
Aftermath
The Vietnamese and French media had awarded considerable attention to the conflict, and newspapers worldwide had covered the battle.
In January 1954, Muong Khoua was re-occupied by Laotian forces, which were subsequently overrun once more by the 316th Division of the Việt Minh. The Laotian commander, who lived in the village itself with his wife, was killed in his home before the attack. Battalions of the French Foreign Legion and Laotian forces suffered losses covering the retreat of garrison survivors.[11] The area of Muong Khoua later became a critical supply route across Dien Bien Phu for the Việt Minh and by 1963 was the site of a construction project for the proposed Route 19.[12]
The French would use the lessons learned at Muong Khoua and those of the 1952 Battle of Nà Sản in their defence plans at Điện Biên Phủ, while the Việt Minh in turn would employ similar tactics of encirclement and strangulation there.[13] The importance of an air bridge to maintain supply lines, strong artillery support to stave off human-wave Việt Minh attacks, and the need for isolated emplacements to mutually support each other, were also important tactics taken on board by the French from both conflicts.[5][14] The disappearance of local civilian populations previously friendly towards the French, which served as a precursor to Việt Minh attack, was also remembered by the Điện Biên Phủ troops.[5][14] For the Việt Minh, their abilities to isolated and smother individual strongpoints while maintaining hidden artillery and support weapon emplacements out of the reach of French airstrikes and artillery were honed at both battles, as were their practices of using human-wave attacks.[5][14][15]
References
Notes
- ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r Fall 1994, pp. 116–130.
- ^ a b c d e f g h i Davidson 1991, pp. 150–156.
- ^ "Mở màn Chiến dịch Thượng Lào" [Opening of Upper Laos campaign] (in Vietnamese). Việt Nam thế kỷ 20. Archived from the original on May 5, 2014. Retrieved 12 October 2020.
- ^ a b "Outpost Overrun By Viet-Minh". The Times. May 5, 1953. pp. 5, Issue 52613, col C.
- ^ a b c d e f g h i Fall 1994, pp. 122–127.
- ^ a b Fall 1994, p. 116.
- ^ Fall 1967, p. 73
- ^ "Hillmen Become Irregulars". The Times. April 23, 1953. pp. 8, Issue 52603, col A.
- ^ "More Viet-Minh Attacks In Indo-China". The Times. May 21, 1953. pp. 8, Issue 52627, col A.
- ^ Fall 1994, p. 127.
- ^ Fall, Bernard B. (October 1956). "Indochina. The Last Year of the War: The Navarre Plan" (PDF). Military Review. Command and General Staff College, Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2009-07-31. Retrieved 2009-07-30.
- ^ Langland, pp. 638–640.
- ^ Windrow 2004, p. 340.
- ^ a b c Fall 1994, pp. 129–130.
- ^ Windrow 2004, p. 109.
Further reading
- Chaliand, Gérard. (1982). Guerrilla Strategies: An Historical Anthology from the Long March to Afghanistan, Berkeley: University of California Press. ISBN 0-520-04443-6
- OCLC 4668986568
- Cogan, Charles G. (2000). "L'attitude des États-Unis à l'égard de la guerre d'Indochine" in Vaïsse, Maurice Armée française dans la guerre d'Indochine (1946–1954) Bruxelles: Complexe. pp. 51–88. ISBN 2870278101.
- Davidson, Phillip B. (1991). Vietnam At War, New York: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-506792-4.
- Dunstan, Simon. (2004). Vietnam Tracks: Armor in Battle 1945–75, Osprey Publishing. ISBN 1-84176-833-2
- ISBN 0-306-81157-X.
- Fall, Bernard B. (October 1956). "Indochina. The Last Year of the War: The Navarre Plan". Military Review. Command and General Staff College, Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. OCLC 37904438
- Fall, Bernard B. (1961). Street Without Joy. The Stackpole Company. ISBN 0-8117-3236-3.
- ISBN 0-85345-193-1
- Humphries, James. F. (1999). Through the Valley: Vietnam, 1967–1968, Lynne Rienner Publishers. ISBN 1-55587-821-0
- Langland, Stanley G. "The Laos Factor in the Vietnam Equation". International Affairs (Blackwell Publishing) Volume 45 (No. 4). OCLC 5135184459
- Paxton, Robert. O. (2001). Vichy France, Old Guard and New Order, New York: Columbia University Press. ISBN 9780231124690
- ISBN 1-57441-143-8
- Vaïsse, Maurice (editor). (2000). L'Armée française dans la guerre d'Indochine (1946–1954). Editions Complexe, Paris. ISBN 978-2-87027-810-9
- ISBN 1-85532-789-9
- Windrow, Martin. (2004). The Last Valley. Weidenfeld and Nicolson. ISBN 0-306-81386-6