The bodies of legionnaires who had been shot lay scattered in the water-soaked trenches. The counterattack was repelled. The 308th and 312th Divisions had dug trenches to cut the runway in half. The central Muong Thanh airport was completely captured.
On the enemy side: To retake base 206 and make room for the parachute, De Castries sent the 2nd Foreign Legion Battalion - the last reserve force and 5 tanks to counterattack. The counterattack was extremely fierce. The enemy air force dropped 600 bombs on this area, hoping to destroy our forces and support the infantry and tanks to counterattack. The battle lasted all day on the 24th.
Muong Thanh Airport was shelled by our army during the Dien Bien Phu Campaign. Photo: VNA
On the same day, Admiral Radford met with British Foreign Secretary Eden in Paris on the sidelines of the North Atlantic Council (OTAN) meeting. Radford again tried to convince Eden that Britain would at least give the United States a symbolic statement of support. But Eden told his American interlocutors directly that a policy based on an air strike would lead the Americans to intervene with ground forces as in Korea, which would lead the Americans to urge their allies to undertake a “coalition action,” meaning to bring their troops into the war. The British would do everything for the success of the Geneva Conference.
On our side: When the enemy broke into the position of Company 213, Battalion Commander Nguyen Quoc Tri ordered his troops to temporarily retreat and requested 105mm howitzers to fire directly at the enemy's position. The bodies of legionnaires hit by bullets lay scattered in the water-soaked trenches. The counterattack was repelled. The 308th and 312th Divisions had dug trenches to cut the runway in half. The central Muong Thanh airport was completely captured by us. After losing the strongholds 105, 206 and Muong Thanh airport, the central position of the stronghold group was now only a narrow piece of land with an area of about 1km2 .
French prisoners captured by our army during the second attack on the Dien Bien Phu stronghold. Photo: VNA
In the East, units of the 316th Division made great efforts in the task of consolidating and maintaining newly captured positions and in the task of building battlegrounds to attack strongholds C2 and A1.
Summarizing the small operation at Hong Cum during this time, the 304th Division captured 600 105mm artillery shells, 3,000 120mm and 81mm mortar shells, tons of other caliber ammunition, dozens of tons of food and medicine, and killed more than 200 enemies. At Hong Cum, only one of our regiments surrounded, neutralized, weakened, and ended the fate of 2,000 enemy troops, most of whom were European and African soldiers.
If in the recent big battle on the eastern hills, our troops had revealed weaknesses in investigation work, in combined arms combat, and in fighting the enemy in solid fortifications, then when switching to small-scale tactics, our soldiers had shown excellent qualities. This time, a new surprise awaited the enemy on the Muong Thanh field.
THANH VINH/qdnd.vn
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