Free Giap: The General Who Defeated America in Vietnam by James A. Warren Page B

economic policies for Vietnam ranged from indifferent to hostile. Meanwhile, the Vietminh were intensely focused on cultivating the loyalty of the populace, in addressing their needs, in running literacy programs, in participating in village projects. And the cadres continually hammered away at the venality and indifference of the French.
    From Paris to Saigon to Hanoi, the lion’s share of French senior officers and colonial officials saw the Indochina war as one of low-intensity combat against resourceful bandits and insurgents. General Valluy and his officers were oblivious to the revolutionary nature of the struggle, and to the tenacity with which their adversary held on to both territory and the people’s allegiance. What documentary evidence we have makes it clear that neither the French army nor the colonial administration in Saigon took Mao’s ideas on protracted war seriously. In the eyes of the French command, Giap was only an amateur, given over to romantic notions of a Marxian utopia. The idea that he could wage a successful war against French general officers who had distinguished themselves during two world wars and sundry colonial campaigns in Africa was absurd, even preposterous. So it was that a combination of ignorance and arrogance pervaded the French command and its strategic decision making throughout the conflict.
    General Valluy appeared particularly ignorant of his adversary. He confidently predicted in September 1947 that his expeditionary force “could eliminate all organized resistance in three months.” 13 On October 7, 1947, he launched Operation Lea, the war’s first major offensive, with some twenty battalions (15,000 troops) of the FEF. Valluy ordered an elite parachute battalion to drop on Vietminh headquarters in the mountains near Bac Kan with the intention of killing or capturing the senior leaders of the Vietminh. Meanwhile, mobile armored forces as well as amphibious troops would penetrate the heart of the Viet Bac along three axes, encircle the bulk of Giap’s growing army of regular troops and his recruits in training among the limestone karsts and caves of the Viet Bac, and inflict sufficient casualties to render most of Giap’s regiments and battalions ineffective—perhaps even extinguish the resistance entirely.
    In dramatic fashion, the French paras landed directly on top of the Vietminh’s headquarters, forcing Giap and Ho to seek refuge in a covered pit for several hours before making a harrowing escape by crawling into the jungle. Ho Chi Minh’s mail was confiscated from his small field desk. Several German and Japanese army instructors, who for various reasons sought refuge with the Vietminh after the defeat of their own nations, were captured. Despite catching the Vietminh by surprise, the French force became bogged down and disorganized as they attempted to ferret out the PAVN’s larger units in the difficult terrain around Bac Kan. Soon the jungle paths of the Viet Bac were littered with the corpses of French paras who died attempting to extricate themselves from slashing ambushes or to break through the Vietminh’s prepared defensive positions. The hunters had become the hunted.
    Meanwhile, the main FEF force of ten motorized battalions prepared to launch their attack from the east, marching northwest into the heart of the Viet Bac along a narrow road in the middle of mountainous terrain. Repeatedly ambushed by Vietminh guerrillas and stalled by blown bridges, the French took six full days to reach Giap’s outer defense positions ten miles north of the town of Bac Kan. There the Vietminh main force units took heavy casualties, but they fought with resolution and bravery, gaining the respect of professional French soldiers and Legionnaires. The main task force never succeeded in rescuing the paras, many of whom stumbled out of the dense jungles in groups of three or four exhausted men.
    A French river-borne amphibious attack force attempted to partially encircle