Capture of Hanoi in the 1870s.
Just as the Cold War was starting, a young man by the name of Bernard de Lattre arrived in Indochina in 1949. He was a lieutenant in the French Army and a decorated Second World War hero. Bernard was a graduate of the École Militaire Interarmes and, like many of his generation, had volunteered to fight the new menace to world peace – communism. Such a decision was not universally popular at home and France had banned conscripts from shedding their blood in this distant land. His presence was to spark tragedy for him, his family and his country.
Bernard epitomized France’s young officer class. He believed in leadership by example and from the front. At 16, he had been wounded fighting the Germans on 8 September 1944 at Atun, for which he was awarded a medal for gallantry. Five years later, still eager for combat, he had volunteered to go to Tonkin in northern Indochina. There, in the face of a burgeoning Vietnamese guerrilla war, he despaired at the lax and uninspired military leadership around him. He urged his father, a famous general in the French army, to come and help, the troops needed him. Then on 30 May 1951, Bernard found himself sharing a sand-bagged dugout, protected by barbed wire, overlooking Ninh Binh on the Day River. Victory was at hand, or so it seemed.
Capture of Hanoi in the 1870s.