The valley of Dien Bien Phu
was 18 kilometers long and 6-8
kilometers wide when the Dien Bien Phu campaign began. To date, the valley spreads over 20
kilometers long. On
20 November 1953, French paratroopers
occupied the valley and built 49
strongholds in three sub-sections. After
the victorious battle of Dien Bien Phu
in 1954, almost all historical sites of
this battle lying to the east of the
Muong Thanh field, have been preserved
in tact. Among these sites include
artillery emplacements, remains of
airplanes, the Muong Thanh bridge, the
command bunker of De Castries, Hill A1,
and the cemetery. Some 35 kilometers
from the center of DienBien City, in
Muong Phang Commune lies the Command
Post of General Vo Nguyen Giap.
Place to see
DIEN BIEN PHU MUSEUM
The Museum of Dien Bien Phu
victorious battle: The museum houses a
great deal of documents and objects
relating to the 55-day arduous battle of
Vietnamese soldiers and people to make
the glorious victory of the whole nation
in spring 1954. The museum exhibits its
objects both indoors and outdoors.
2. The cemeteries in Hill A1 (644 tombs) and Doc Lap hill
(2432 tombs): This is the resting place
of Vietnamese soldiers who sacrificed
heroically in the Dien Bien campaign. In
A1 hill lie the tombs of heroic martyrs
such as To Vinh Dien, Be Van Dan, Phan
Dinh Giot, and Tran
Can.
3. Hill A1: This height stands block the way to the northeast
sub-section. It has a significant role,
controlling the whole battle of
Dien Bien Phu. During 36 nights and
days, the fierce battle claimed the
lives of 2516 Vietnamese soldiers. Only
until the night of 6 May 1954 did
Vietnamese soldiers win this decisive
battle.
4. Muong Thanh airfield:
This was the
stronghold 206 and the central airport
of the entrenched camp of
Dien Bien Phu. Currently, this airport
is renamed Dien Bien and becomes one of
the destinations in the flight system of
the Viet Nam Civil Aviation.
5. The Command bunker of the
Dien Bien Phu entrenched camp: De
Castries worked inside the bunker. The
original shape and size, structure and
arrangement of the bunker are kept
intact.
6. Him Lam Hill: On
13 March 1954, Vietnamese troops fought
the first battle in Him Lam hill, which
is situated to the northwest of the
valley.
7. Doc Lap Hill: Vietnamese troops liberated the hill on
15 March 1954.
8. Hills C, D and E are well preserved. From afar, one can
easily recognize the name of these
hills. Atop D1 hill stands the
newly-erected Statue of Dien Bien Phu
Victory.
9. The Command post of the Vietnamese soldiers from January
21 to May 8, 1954: It is situated in a primitive forest in Muong Phang
Commune. Here one will find the hut
where General Vo Nguyen Giap worked and
other huts for information and military
operation discussion.
These are the historical sites of the 55-day fierce battle of
Vietnamese troops and people, which
results in our glorious victory of
Dien Bien Phu.
The Command post of the Dien Bien campaign
Major General, Deputy Chief of Staff Hoang Van Thai, deputy
head of the Chinese consultants’ group
and chief of staff Mei Jiasheng and
other officers left Viet Bac for Tay Bac
on
6 December 1953 to make preparations for
the Tay Bac campaign in winter-spring
1953-1954.
On 5 January 1954, General Vo Nguyen Giap, Commander-in-Chief
of the Dien Bien campaign and head of
the Chinese consultants’ group Wei
Quojing left for Tay Bac. The General’s
first stop was at Tham Pua cave (Km 15,
Tuan Giao-Dien Bien Phu road). This
command post had been set up as early as
7 December 1953. In this cave, on 14
January 1954, General Vo Nguyen Giap
assigned the tactical tasks for
different divisions, following the
guideline of “sweep attack, sweep
victory” under which the battle would
last 2 days and three nights with the
D-Day set on 20 January 1954. On 17 January 1954, the Command post was moved to the area beside Huoi He
stream in Na Tau commune (Km 56+200,
Tuan Giao-Dien Bien Phu road). Due to
some reasons, the D-Day was changed to
the 25th then the 26th of January 1954.
At 11:00 hours in the morning of
26 January 1954, General Vo Nguyen Giap
decided to swift from the strategy to
“strike swiftly, win swiftly” to “strike
surely, win surely”. This military order
was sent to all units in Dien Bien. The
Command post was situated in Na Tau from
18 January 1954 to 30 January 1954.
At night of the 30th and early of the 31st day of January
1954, the Command post was moved again
to Muong Phang commune. It stayed there
until 15 May 1954. This was the third and the last command post of the
Dien Bien Phu campaign. This Command
post was about 35 kilometers, 10
kilometers as the crow flies, from the
central part of Dien Bien Phu. Atop the
Phu Ca mountain, General Vo Nguyen Giap
had a watchtower built to get a
panoramic view of the Muong Thanh field
through binoculars. In this Command post
one can visit:
- Sentry box No. 1
-
Information Center
- Hut of Reconnaissance Operation
- Hut of General Vo Nguyen Giap, Commander-in-Chief of the
Dien Bien Phu campaign
- The 96-meter tunnel through the mountain, connecting
General Giap’s hut with that of Chief of
Staff Hoang Van Thai
- Area for Chinese consultants
- Hut of Chief of Staff Hoang Van Thai
- Meeting hall
- Political sector
As we all know, the Muong Phang Command
post successfully bore the historical
task of liberating Dien Bien entrusted
by the Party Central Committee and Uncle
Ho
Hill A1
Hill A1 was the strongest post of all the 49 strongholds in
Dien Bien Phu fortified entrenched camp.
It had three defense lines. The first
one, stretching from the Cay Da
blockhouse, protected the way to the
hilltop. Currently, this is the main
road leading to the top of Hill A1. The
second line was for counter-offensive
assaults and the last one was a kind of
underground bunker atop the hill. There
were trenches connecting these three
lines.
Unaware of the underground bunker atop the hill, our troops
assaulted from the dried stream. To
occupy one third of the hill, we lost
2516 troops. Thanks to enemy flares, we
discovered the bunker. Tactical method
was changed. Despite numerous
difficulties, our troops dug a tunnel to
destroy the bunker with explosive. When
the tunnel was 47 long, our troops found
a brick foundation, which was left from
some construction built by French troops
in 1940. Considering that was the bunker
wall, our troops brought 970 kilograms
of explosive there and detonated them at
20:30 hours in the evening of 6 May
1954. The pressure of the explosion made
the ears of the French captain in charge
of the bunker bleed. He thought that was
a new kind of weapon used by Vietnamese
troops and surrendered.
The explosion left an enormous hole like a crater, which is
rather afar from the top of Hill A1.
This hole now serves as a tourist
attraction.
Command bunker of General De Castries
The Command bunker of De Castries lies
at the heart of the entrenched camp of
Dien Bien Phu in the middle of the Muong
Thanh field. Fifty years ago, one could
see the top of the bunker from a high
hill. To reach there, however,Vietnamese
troops had to fight heroically during 55
days and nights, amidst numerous
hardships and difficulties. Around the
bunker were situated dense systems of
defense lines, including many layers of
barbed wires and four tanks. The bunker
is 20 meters long and 8 meters wide. It
consists of 4 compartments, which serves
as both working offices and resident
places. One now can still find the iron
vaults and sandbags atop the bunker.
There used to be a roofed trench
connecting the bunker of De Castries
with the blockhouse at Cay Da in Hill
A1. French troops piled up wooden planks
and sandbags to make trenches. They took
the wooden planks from the houses of the
Vietnamese ethnic minority groups.Inside
this bunker, De Castries received such
high-ranking officers as French Prime
Minister Joseph Laniel, US President
Dwight Eisenhower, British Prime
Minister Winston Churchill, as well as
well-known journalists. At 17:30 hours
on 7 May 1954, Ta Quoc Luat, head of
Company 360, Regiment 209, Division 312
captured alive General De Castries, who
was sitting at his desk in the corner of
the bunker
The tunnel had four compartments as
follows:
Compartment 1: This is the office of Lieutenant Colonel
Charles Piroth, who was in charge of
French artillery in
Dien Bien Phu. Prior to his departure to
Indochina, Piroth submitted a tactical
plan to Henri Navarre, in which he
affirmed that “no artillery gun of Viet
Minh could fire three times without
being destroyed” in Dien Bien Phu.
However, after experiencing the fierce
attacks of our artillery, Piroth
committed suicide with a grenade in a
tunnel at the end of Muong Thanh bridge
on 15 March 1954. De Castries worried
that his troops would lose their morale
if they knew this so he had Piroth
buried in the one end of Muong Thanh
bridge. Then he cabled to inform Navarre
that Piroth had disappeared together
with his jeep.
Compartment 2: This is the office of
Seguin, who was in charge of the French
air force in Dien Bien Phu. He was
tasked with the protection of the Muong
Thanh and Hong Cum airfields. He himself
faced shameful defeat. Before our
attack, the French troops carried out
around 100-150 sorties each day,
transporting some 100-300 tons of goods
to Dien Bien Phu. After our assaults,
especially when the runways of Muong
Thanh airfield were cut off, French
troops had to parachute goods to Dien Bien Phu, many of which came to our hands.
Compartment 3: This is the office of De Castries’s secretary.
Upon being promoted to the Commander of
the
Dien Bien Phu entrenched camp, he
required to have this secretary, who was
both a nurse and a journalist. When the
Vietnamese troops attacked Dien Bien Phu on 13
March 1954, De Castries asked her to
come back to Ha Noi by airway.
Compartment 4: This is the information and radio transmission
center of the French troops in
Dien Bien Phu.
When the Dien Bien Phu campaign ended, Vietnamese troops captured only one
female French nurse, De Galard. She was
among one of the first to be released
under our State policy.
Statue of Dien Bien Phu victory
The statue of Dien Bien Phu victory represents the images of three Dien Bien
soldiers, standing atop De Castries’s
bunker, looking at three directions. One
of them holds a rifle, one a flag and
one holding a child with a bunch of
flower. This is the design of Nguyen Hai.
At first, the design did not feature the
words “Resolutely fight to win”. After
that, at the suggestion of General Vo
Nguyen Giap, these words are put in the
flag of the final design.
The statue is made out of bronze by the Doan Ket Bronze
Casting Company (Y Yen district,
Nam Dinh Province). Nguyen Trong Hanh is
the direct supervisor. The casting
process of the 12 parts of the statue
lasted 153 days until 19 February 2004.
The statue is 12.6 meters high
(excluding the concrete pedestal, which
is 3.6 meters high, 8 meters wide and 10
meters long). Its biggest part weighs 40
tons, the lightest 6 tons. The flag
itself weighs 12 tons. The weight of
bronze is 180 tons, which is equivalent
to 220 tons of raw bronze material. All
together, the statue weighs 360 tons. In
the morning of 23 February 2004, the
convoy including 12 trucks of the
Transport Service Company No. 2, the
Heroic Unit of the Ministry of
Transport, took the statue to Dien Bien
city. The transport faced numerous
difficulties through the 600-km road
from Nam Dinh to Dien Bien. At noon of
12 March 2004, the statue safely reached
Dien Bien. In the afternoon of 12 April
2004, the staff of the Central Fine Arts
Company finished the installation of the
statue, after 45 days of hard working.
The statue of Dien Bien Phu victory is
situated atop Hill D1, a historical site
of the Dien Bien campaign in spring
1954. It is inaugurated in commemoration
of the 50th anniversary of Dien Bien Phu
victory (7 May 1954 - 7–May 2004).
Museum of Dien Bien Phu victory
The museum of Dien Bien Phu
victory lies opposite the cemetery of
Vietnamese martyrs in Hill A1, which is
now in the center of Dien Bien Phu city.
The museum was built in 1984 in
celebration of the 30th anniversary of
Dien Bien Phu victory. By the end of
2003, the museum was upgraded and its
exhibition sections reorganized. To
date, the museum has five exhibition
sections, featuring 274 items and 122
pictures, many of which are newly added,
about the 8-year resistance against the
French colonialists. The five sections
have the following contents:
- The strategic location of
Dien Bien Phu
- The enemy’s scheme at
Dien Bien Phu
- The Party’s guideline regarding preparations for the
Dien Bien Phu campaign.
- Impacts of Dien Bien Phu domestically and internationally
- Present-day Dien Bien Phu
The museum opens for tourists inside and outside
Viet Nam. The outdoor sections of the
museum are going to be finished in
service of the Year for Tourism in Dien
Bien – 2004.
