Book in French
"The military authorities [thought] that the communist troops would be incapable of taking Dien Bien Phu. Giap's soldiers arrived, and it was horrific, with a tragic end under shelling and torrential rain. The men waded through mud, blood, urine, excrement, rats, and foul odors. The wounded were operated on in the middle of this mass grave, without the slightest protection. Many fell from exhaustion or were placed in trenches on the ground, sometimes buried alive, as during the First World War. On May 7, at 5 p.m., without having raised the white flag, as he had promised his superiors, General de Castries ordered the fighting to cease."
Jacques de Saint-Victor, in Le Figaro
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Following the 70th anniversary of the end of the Indochina War, the author brings to life, through previously unpublished stories, three actors who experienced the fall of the fortified camp of Dien Bien Phu, after 56 days of siege by Viet Minh troops. A tactical and strategic defeat if ever there was one, this historic event is above all an opportunity to highlight the incredible heroism and boundless resilience of these brothers in arms who never wanted to give in.