Acknowledgements
Introduction
Chapter 1: The Road to Dien Bien Phu
Chapter 2: People’s War – People’s Army
Chapter 3: Base Aéro-Terrestre
Chapter 4: Giap’s First Offensive
Chapter 5: The Lull
Chapter 6: Giap’s Second Offensive
Chapter 7: Grignotage
Chapter 8: Giap’s Final
Offensives
Chapter 9: Conclusion
Bibliography
Appendices
Using new material unearthed in French archives and Vietnamese-language publications, and the testimony of veterans, this book offers a new perspective on the climactic French defeat at Dien Bien Phu which took place during the First Indochina War – the conflict that set the stage for the Vietnam War.
Dr Kevin M. Boylan, PhD earned his bachelors in History
from Rutgers University and his doctorate from Temple University.
He was employed for a decade at the Pentagon as a defense analyst
for the US Defense Department – Director of Program Analysis
and Evaluation and the US Army Staff – War Plans Division
before returning to academe. He won the Society for Military
History’s Moncado Prize in both 2010 and 2015, and authored Losing
Binh Dinh: The Failure of Pacification and Vietnamization,
1969-1971 (University Press of Kansas, 2016). Dr Boylan currently
teaches at Emmanuel College in Boston, Massachusetts.
Luc Olivier earned his Masters in Geography at the CESA in
the University of Tours, and served in the French Army as a second
lieutenant and platoon commander. He also has an extensive
background in IT consulting and is presently the managing director
of a French-Hungarian IT company. He has designed a dozen
commercial wargames – including two on Dien Bien Phu – which have
been published in magazines including Vae Victis and Battles
Magazine. He also written and published many articles on historical
military topics over the last 20 years. He lives in Paris,
France.
This book is the most detailed analysis yet published of Dien Bien
Phu. The authors' research in recently available Vietnamese sources
raises our understanding of this world-changing battle to a new
level. It is underpinned by maps, orders-of-battle and statistical
material which are of unprecedented completeness for a Western
publication. Every chapter has surprises to offer which either
change our perceptions, deepen our understanding, or both.
*Martin Windrow, Author of 'The Last Valley'*
Boylan's and Olivier's new work on the siege of Dien Bien Phu is a
major contribution to scholarship which in some respects surpasses
and supersedes all previous works on this epic story of the
post-Second World War epoch. No-one interested in the First
Indochina War (1946-1954) can afford to ignore it and it should
also be read by all interested in the Second Indochina War
(1959-1975). Boylan (by courtesy of Merle Pribbenow's translations)
has made fuller use than any previous historian of Vietnamese
Communist literature on this campaign, while Olivier has dived deep
into French archival sources and interviewed an impressive array of
veterans. The result is a work which busts myths and corrects
oft-repeated errors. […] For decades Bernard Fall has been
venerated as an authority on the First Indochina War, his "Hell in
a Very Small Place" long regarded as the classic account of the
campaign. Boylan and Olivier are not intimidated by Fall's
venerable status. Fall did not have access to some of the sources
that Boylan and Olivier have used and they convincingly demonstrate
that he got some things wrong. It is to be hoped that Fall's great
work will continue to be read, but on the military events of the
campaign Boylan's and Olivier's book now sets the standard.
*Dr J. P. Harris, Senior Lecturer in the Department of War Studies
at RMA Sandhurst*
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