Word: viet
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...forts were to cut off Ho Chi Minh's Viet Minh rebel Communist army from the Chinese Communists. The French plan was to isolate the rebels in the wild hilly country which lies between the frontier and the Red River to the west. By holding the frontier and the good rice lands of the Red River delta the French hoped to starve out the Communists. For a while it looked as if the plan might work. Ho's radio exhorted his supporters to save rice, "every grain as precious as a drop of blood...
With the monsoon season waning, Communist-led Viet Minh rebels began to apply rising pressure against scattered French outposts along IndoChina's rugged, 550-mile border with Red China. Four Communist battalions attacked the isolated clay fort at Dongkhe (100 miles north of Hanoi), overpowered its 200 French Foreign Legion defenders in a hand-to-hand fight. They also shelled Thatkhe, ten miles south of Dongkha, while other Communist forces massed near the French-Chinese frontier...
French authorities chalked up the attacks to "muscle-flexing" by some 20,000 Viet Minh troops trained and equipped in Red China during the summer. Said French Commander in Chief General Marcel Carpentier: "It is probable that Viet Minh will launch new attacks in the near future, but for the moment Viet Minh is not capable of seizing important French military positions...
...French, however, were disturbed by two factors: Viet Minh troops appeared better trained than before, and somehow had stepped up their fire power...
...week's end, the French disturbed the Communists, capturing Viet Minh's stronghold of Thai Nguyen (40 miles north of Hanoi) in what French authorities described as "the most important French operation undertaken since spring...