Breakout

BATTLE OF INDOCHINA

Pinned down in the Red River delta, General de Lattre de Tassigny dreamed of the day when he would launch a smash-out offensive against Viet Minh Communists. Last Saturday was the day.

In the tiny village of Tri Thon, a company of Communist soldiers, sleepily cooking their breakfast rice, suddenly found themselves surrounded by French commandos. In hand-to-hand fighting, knives flashing, 60 Communists were killed, the rest routed. In 80 other Viet Minh villages along a 14-mile front, the French surprise attack was equally effective.

De Lattre's target was Communist stronghold Choben, lying in a gap between rugged, razorback mountain ranges 30 miles southwest of Hanoi, through which runs Route Coloniale No. 21. Slow-flying Junkers transports, trailing hooks, tore up Communist telephone lines, so that aid could not be summoned. Heavy artillery, brought up under cover of night to the base of the mountains, began hammering enemy strongpoints. Now, with roads and all vital bridges on the approaches to Choben in Commando hands, the French field commander, Three-Star General Gonzales de Linares, sent in tanks and infantry.

Down from the north came Task Force i, commanded by the crack French horseman, Colonel Christian de la Croix de Castries. While the armor kept to the road, Moroccans, Foreign Legionnaires and Chasseurs flushed out the valley heights, routing one Communist headquarters. Up from the south came Task Force 2, commanded by handsome, music-loving Colonel Claude Clement. A regiment of Mungs (little mountain people from Hoa Binh country) and tough Vietnamese soldiers, wading neck-deep through rice paddies, cleaned up the river villages. Wherever organized opposition was encountered, spotter planes called in B-26s and Hellcats, directing their fire bombs. Meanwhile, Foreign Legion paratroopers, back in harness after dreary months of bunker building, chuted down into the hills south of Choben.

It was all over in 6 1/2 hours. De Lattre had 1) cut the main Communist north-south communication line; 2) added 80 square miles to French Union control, including 30,000 acres of rice land; 3) plugged a hole through which rice had been leaking out of the delta into Viet Minh country. More important than the strategic gain was the fillip to Vietnamese morale and French pride in showing what they could do with the right weapons. There were still vast areas to be retaken from the well-organized Communist guerrillas, but De Lattre could exult: "From now on, the initiative is mine."

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