Embers of War: The Fall of an Empire and the Making of America's Vietnam

by Fredrik Logevall

AT 6:45 IN THE MORNING OF MAY 25, 1950, A VIOLENT FUSILLADE suddenly rained down on the small French garrison (eight hundred men, mostly Moroccan) at Dong Khe, a post situated between Cao Bang and That Khe along the RC4. The post was a bastion in the French military system where convoys could stop to rest in the shelter of the French flag. Giap’s aim: to take and hold Dong Khe, thereby isolating Cao Bang from its links with That Khe. In the days prior, four Viet Minh infantry battalions succeeded in hoisting five 75mm cannons onto the heights surrounding the town without being detected by the garrison, and then proceeded to unleash barrage after barrage on the post. It was a preview of the technique they would use at Dien Bien Phu. For forty-eight hours the shelling continued, whereupon the Viet Minh overran Dong Khe in a human-wave assault.