After five days of fighting, our army's second offensive in the Dien Bien Phu Campaign achieved many important victories. In the East, we captured four dangerous hills.
On the enemy side, as the French generals later commented, they suffered "very high losses". In the book History of the Indochina War, the part about "the battle on the five hills" author Y.Gras said: "The French command of the battle was dominated by the concern of how to limit irreparable losses. A legionnaire battalion and paratroopers in the center had only 300 men left. The artillery only had enough ammunition for one night of fighting... A pause became necessary and the French again had hope of saving Dien Bien Phu...".
According to their subjective assessment, the French side believed that they had grounds to hope to avoid the destruction of the stronghold. After being reinforced by two more battalions, the enemy still had over ten thousand troops in thirty positions on the field. They tried to hold the remaining key defensive area, including A1 and part of C1 after counterattacking and retaking part of this stronghold. After being resupplied, their artillery fire was still quite strong and was operating vigorously. The enemy still maintained absolute superiority in the air force. Although we tried to limit the reinforcement by aircraft, forcing the enemy to drop parachutes at high altitudes.
On our side: In the North, the 312th Division used the 165th Regiment to start attacking stronghold 105 on the afternoon of April 3. The battle lasted until morning, we captured two-thirds of the stronghold and only destroyed a part of the enemy. When it was light, De Castries sent a battalion with 5 tanks to counterattack and capture the entire stronghold 105.
After five days of fighting, our army's second offensive achieved many important victories. In the East, we captured four dangerous hills, but the enemy still held the A1 high point. In the West, we captured the 106 high point. The enemy's occupation area was thus greatly reduced and their forces suffered heavy losses, including the destruction of three more of their elite battalions. However, we had not yet completed all of our objectives, especially the capture of the A1 stronghold.
Realizing that the battle at A1 base was facing difficulties, the Campaign Command discussed ideas and decided to send another unit to replace them, continuing to carry out the determination to destroy this base.
Through technical information, we know that the enemy at A1 suffered very heavy losses. They always called for urgent help from the commanders at Muong Thanh, always asking for reinforcements. They were still able to hold their position because they relied on a very powerful firing point on the top of the hill, an underground bunker that we had never known about before during the entire process of capturing the enemy and preparing for battle.
After replacing Regiment 174, Regiment Commander 102 Hung Sinh went into the fort to grasp the situation and command the troops. Our army still had no way to destroy the fire point in the enemy's underground bunker.
Our army successfully applied the tactic of "sneaking in", digging trenches, secretly approaching deep into the enemy's fort. Photo: VNA
Later we learned that this was a large underground bunker built by the enemy before and reinforced after they occupied Dien Bien Phu. When preparing for the battle, we did not know the situation of this bunker. Therefore, we concentrated quite a lot of firepower but still did not have effective measures to destroy the enemy's underground bunker.
After hours of prolonged tension due to loss of contact, in the afternoon of the same day, comrade Hung Sinh reported: The enemy is trying to hold position A1. Our troops cannot develop because they have not yet extinguished the fire point in the underground bunker. After several days of continuous fighting, repelling many enemy counterattacks with tank support, the troops still hold the occupied part of the fort but are starting to show signs of fatigue. The regiment requested reinforcements to continue attacking and destroying the enemy's entrenched underground bunker.
On the afternoon of April 3, Front Chief of Staff Hoang Van Thai summarized the situation of four days and nights of continuous fighting on Hill A1 and reported it to the Party Committee and Command. After discussing with the leadership, General Vo Nguyen Giap, on behalf of the Commander and Party Committee Secretary, ordered the units to "Temporarily stop fighting from April 4. Maintain the positions already occupied on Hill A1 to continue the attack when ordered."
Coordinate with Dien Bien Phu battlefield:
- In the Northern Delta, on Highway 5, we again destroyed a military train full of enemy soldiers and weapons.
- At Inter-zone 5, we ambushed and destroyed 6 enemy vehicles and a number of soldiers.
- In Lower Laos, the Lao-Vietnamese coalition ambushed and attacked an enemy battalion at km59 of Route 13, destroying 1 enemy company, 30 vehicles and 4 105mm cannons.
THANH VINH/qdnd.vn
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