French pilot Michel Marszalek fought in the battle of Dien Bien Phu half a century ago, but until this week had never set foot in the Vietnamese city which has come to epitomise the end of French rule in Indochina.
The 73-year-old veteran, who flew 115 missions over Dien Bien Phu in a C-47 Dakota, was in the mountain-ringed city to remember his own fallen comrades as it celebrated the 50th anniversary of the epic victory over the French on Friday.
"I don't recognise this place," Marszalek told reporters, referring to the hotels, restaurants, shops and Internet cafes in the city of 60,000 people.
PHOTO: AFP
All he recalled from his sorties half a century ago were glimpses of paddy fields and rustic wooden houses from the air.
Undeterred by unrelenting rain, some 15,000 people crowded Dien Bien Phu's main stadium yesterday to watch military parades, variety shows and listen to rousing speeches.
"We are sharing the joy and victory with the people of France and the peace-loving people of the world," Defense Minister Pham Van Tra told an enthusiastic crowd of mostly Vietnamese.
General Vo Nguyen Giap, whose guerrilla tactics were made famous by the Dien Bien Phu rout, sees broader significance in the event.
"It was a victory for colonized countries all over the world," the 93-year-old four star general said in March.
It was on May 7, 1954 that a rag-tag group of Viet Minh accepted the surrender from the better equipped forces led by General Christian de Castries after a bloody 56-day siege. The victory marked France's withdrawal from Indochina.
Giap estimated French forces -- who included a multinational French legion comprised of Germans, Italians, North Africans, Thai and even Vietnamese -- suffered 16,000 casualties.
The Viet Minh, a coalition of communists and nationalists, lost around 10,000.
The actual tallies will probably never be known. Other accounts, including The Last Valley by Martin Windrow published this year, note about 9,000 French forces were marched away as prisoners, and perhaps half died or disappeared.
The French have taken a low-key approach to the 50-year anniversary, with President Jacques Chirac and Ambassador Antoine Pouillieute attending a ceremony in Paris yesterday to honor the fallen.
At a seminar about the legendary battle, one of many events that Vietnam has hosted since March for the anniversary, Pouillieute focused on the lessons learned rather than the defeat.
"The profound relations between Vietnam and France have often been happy, sometimes cruel, but never mediocre," the envoy said at the seminar last month.
Two embassy officials will lay a wreath at the French monument in Dien Bien Phu, a white obelisk within a courtyard of trees that lies along a small road surrounded by houses. It was the former location of the French military hospital.
Marszalek will also lay his own wreath at the monument and is taking back soil from A1 Hill (Eliane 2) where France made its last major stand. The French gave women's names to a number of hills where they were entrenched.
While recounting stories of the battle with tears, Marszalek, accompanied by his wife who had lost her fiance at Dien Bien Phu, also paid tribute to his former enemy.
"The bravery that these people showed to defend their country is incredible," he said.
UNDER DURESS? Russia lost more than 1,200 troops a day last month, and is detaining and forcing some Africans on work visas to decide between deportation or fighting The Kremlin has forced thousands of migrants and foreign students to fight alongside Russian troops in its war against Ukraine, adding extra personnel for its offensive in the Kharkiv Oblast, according to assessments from European officials. Using tactics first deployed by the Wagner mercenary group, Russian officials have with increasing frequency been threatening not to extend the visas of African students and young workers unless they agree to join the military, officials familiar with the matter said. Moscow has also been enlisting convicts from its prisons, while some Africans in Russia on work visas have been detained and forced to decide between
The Philippines said it would continue to maintain and supply its South China Sea outposts without seeking permission from any other nation, dismissing Beijing’s demand to do so as “absurd, nonsense and unacceptable.” “Our operations are conducted within our own territorial waters and EEZ,” Philippine National Security Adviser Eduardo Ano said in a statement late Saturday, referring to the nation’s exclusive economic zone. “We will not be deterred by foreign interference or intimidation,” he said. Ano was responding to Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokeswoman Mao Ning’s (毛寧) comment on Friday that the Philippines should notify Beijing in advance if it wants
Mothers in crimson dresses and fathers clutching umbrellas huddled together in drizzly Beijing after sending their children into an exam hall yesterday, the first day of China’s biggest gaokao (高考) tests that will shape the futures of millions of high-school children. The number of students taking this year’s multisubject gaokao series is set to be a record high, with the Chinese Ministry of Education saying that 13.42 million candidates have registered for the high-stakes tests. “People say that this is the start of a life,” 50-year-old mother Zhi Haihong said. “So one cannot slack off.” Zhi donned a traditional qipao to take her
CIVIL WAR: Only one of 20 residents from the area contacted was willing to speak, while some said they would not talk due to their concerns about the safety of loved ones A spokesperson for Myanmar’s military government denied accusations that army troops and their local allies killed 76 people when they entered a village last week in the western state of Rakhine, state-controlled media reported on Wednesday. Rakhine has become a focal point for Myanmar’s nationwide civil war, in which pro-democracy guerrillas and ethnic minority armed forces battle the country’s military rulers, who took power in 2021 after the army ousted the elected government of former Burmese state councilor Aung San Suu Kyi. The fighting there has also raised fears of a revival of organized violence against members of the Muslim Rohingya minority,