Operation Camargue

The First Indochina War had raged, as guerrilla warfare, since 19 December 1946. From 1949, it evolved into conventional warfare, due largely to aid from the communists of the People's Republic of China ("PRC") to the north. Subsequently, the French strategy of occupying small, poorly defended outposts throughout Indochina, particularly along the Vietnamese-Chinese border, started failing. Thanks to the terrain, popular support for August Revolution and support for decolonization from bordering China and the U.S.S.R., the Viet Minh had succeeded in turning a "clandestine guerrilla movement into a powerful conventional army", following asymmetric warfare theory laid by Mao Tse Tung, something which previously had never been encountered by the western colonial powers. In October 1952, fighting around the Red River Delta spread into the Thai Highlands, resulting in the Battle of Nà Sản, at which the Viet Minh were defeated. The French used the lessons learned at Nà Sản – strong ground bases, versatile air support, and a model based on the British Burma Campaign – as the basis for their new strategy. The Viet Minh, however, remained unbeatable in the highland regions of Vietnam, and the French "could not offset the fundamental disadvantages of a roadbound army facing a hill and forest army in a country which had few roads but a great many hills and forests". In May 1953, General Henri Navarre arrived to take command of the French forces, replacing General Raoul Salan. Navarre spoke of a new offensive spirit in Indochina – based on strong, fast-moving forces The common border meant that "China became a 'sanctuary' where the Viet Minh could be trained and refitted". In the spring of 1953, the Viet Minh launched campaigns in Laos and succeeded in linking up Laotian territorial gains with their bases in north-western Vietnam. Meanwhile, the winding down of the Korean War meant that China was able "to give much more attention to its southern neighbour". Similarly, the US "released from its heavy burden in the Korean conflict ... dramatically increased its military and financial support" to the French. By June 1953, the US "had sent: 1,224 tanks and combat vehicles; 120,792 rifles and machine guns; more than 200 million rifle and machine gun cartridges; more than five million artillery projectiles; 302 boats and 304 aircraft" (by end of the war, total US aid amounted to nearly four billion dollars). ==Prelude to the battle==

's Street Without Joy, 1961 Route One, also known as Route Coloniale One (or RC1), had been the main north–south artery along the coastline of Vietnam since the outbreak of violence in 1949. Communications and convoys along these lines suffered from regular attacks by Viet Minh irregulars, despite efforts by the French during 1952 in Operation Sauterelle. The Viet Minh paramilitary forces around Route One originated mainly from a region of fortified villages dispersed along sand dunes and salt marshes between Hué to the south, French forces had suffered from Viet Minh ambushes, an attack that the latter had become very proficient at throughout the war, most notably in the annihilation of Group Mobile 42 in 1950 and of GM 100 in 1954. The roads in Vietnam were almost all closed during the night and "abandoned to the enemy". Typically, the Viet Minh ambushed convoys by obstructing the road with a fallen tree or pile of boulders, and then destroying the first and last vehicles of the halted convoy with remote mines. Caltrops, mines and the steep cliff faces naturally found at the road side aided in funneling the target convoy into a small area, where machine guns, mortars and recoilless rifles were trained. Viet Minh Regiment 95 repeatedly deployed these tactics, inflicting severe losses on the French forces passing along Route One, which led to its French nickname of la rue sans joie ("the Street Without Joy"). This network of villages and hedgerows made both ground and air surveillance difficult. Across from Route One the villages continued amid an area of quicksand, swamps and bogs, which would stop all but a few of the vehicles at the disposal of the French. Although there were roads, most were mined or damaged. Throughout the area, the civilian population remained and provided a further complication for the French high command. French order of battle The French divided their forces into four groupement mobiles ("mobile groups"): A through D. Group A consisted of Mobile Group 14, which contained 3rd Amphibious Group, 2nd Marine Commando, 2nd Battalion 1st Colonial Parachute Regiment, and 3rd Vietnamese Parachute Battalion. Operation Camargue was to be one of the final proving grounds for the use of French armour during the war. It was to land on the beach in line with the center of Route One. Meanwhile, Group B was to advance over land from the west of the north-east facing beach. This group consisted of Mobile Group Central Vietnam's 6th Moroccan Spahis, 2nd Amphibious Group, a tank platoon from 1st Foreign Cavalry Regiment, and two infantry companies from the Quang-Tri military base. Group C was to advance from the south-west into the back of Van Trinh through the swamps, and consisted of the 9th Moroccan Tabor, 27th Vietnamese Infantry Battalion, 2nd Battalion of the 4th Moroccan Rifle Regiment, 1 Commando, a tank platoon of the Moroccan Colonials, an armoured patrol boat platoon, and an LCM platoon. Group D consisted of 3rd Battalion of the 3rd Algerian Rifles, the 7th Amphibious Group, and a commando group, and was to land at the south-east end of the beach, below Group A. These forces in total formed "two amphibious forces, three land-borne groupments and one airborne force" all of which was commanded by General Leblanc. ==Securing Route One==

French landing to the beaches of Iwo Jima. On 27 July 1953, the French landing craft departed from their assembly points, and by 04:00 on the following had begun disembarking 160 amphibious landing craft belonging to Group A's 3rd Amphibious opposite the coastline. By 06:00, these vehicles had landed on the beach and proceeded to occupy sand ridges overlooking the dunes beyond. Proceeding into the dunes, the vehicles of 3rd Amphibious became stuck in the sand; in the meantime, other regular infantry elements of Group A were experiencing more difficulties in the sea, taking two extra hours to reach the beach. Thus unsupported, elements of 3rd Amphibious that either disembarked floundering vehicles or were pushed, managed to escape the dunes and advance between Tân An and Mỹ Thủy. The French amphibious vehicles were the World War II-era 29-C cargo carriers, nicknamed the "crab" or "crabe" and LVT 4 or 4As, known as "alligators". While the alligators were sufficiently armoured and well suited to the water, they struggled on land. In contrast, the crab had difficulty in water and its large size presented too great a target on land; however, it was lighter and more maneuverable, except in paddy fields where its suspension became clogged with vegetation. While Group A's forward elements were breaching the dune barrier unopposed, two of Group B's battalions crossed the Van Trịnh Cănal. By 07:45, when they made visual contact with the crabs and alligators of Group A, they had succeeded in sealing off the northern escape route of Simultaneously, had advanced into the center of the area of operation, and executed "the most complicated maneuver of the operation". This involved crossing Route One and sealing off the land side of the operational area, and was completed by 08:30. The Moroccan infantry took the lead, and the French commanders sealed themselves in their tank turrets and advanced behind. Viet Minh forces, which were waiting in ambush, fired almost the same instant as the lead Moroccan units who noticed their presence. The Moroccan forces spread out into the surrounding rice paddies, and the bazookas of the Viet Minh missed the French tanks. The French commander called in Piroth's artillery and Dong-Qué "disintegrated under the impact of their high-angle fire", particularly when a French shell found the Viet Minh ammunition depot. As the French tanks approached, the Viet Minh drove the civilians out to clog up the entrance to the village, however as the Viet Minh retreated they were spotted through the civilians by the Moroccan infantry and killed by 13:00. During this battle, however, most of the Regiment 95 personnel who had been elsewhere managed to escape towards the southern end of the French encirclement. The 2nd Battalion of the Parachute Chasseurs Regiment had been requested to drop at 14:00 to support the advanced elements of Group C but did not jump until 16:50 and thus failed to assemble before the Moroccans themselves occupied Phu-An. With the final capture of Phu-An, the extreme southern tip of the encirclement, the pincer movement was complete. Escape of Regiment 95 By 17:30, with Phu-An captured, all French reserves now committed, and one half of the pocket fully swept by groups B and A at the northern end of the battlefield, the French appeared to have gained the upper hand. By now, the expected windfall of arms caches and prisoners should have taken place. On the morning of 29 July 1953, the French forces continued to advance into the remaining pocket, encountering neither Viet Minh nor civilian. Groups A, B and D reached the edge of the canal opposite Group C by 13:00, having retrieved a small number of suspected Viet Minh and a "few weapons". At this time, however, a Morane aircraft detected the movement of elements of Regiment 95 towards An-Hoi on the extreme northern corner of the operational area, outside of the pocket. The French carried out a raid on An-Hoi by commando groups and elements of Group A, which took place at 15:00 and returned with suspected Viet Minh by 18:00. ==Aftermath==

Rebuilding and reaction After the departure of all but regular French infantry, efforts to make the area suitable for permanent occupation by French forces and French-friendly civilians began. This involved the rebuilding of road and rail links (Vietnam's North–South railway ran alongside Route One), Over 24 villages were placed under the authority of the Vietnamese government, and Regiment 95 had been driven from the area. In comparison to Fall, South Vietnamese general Lâm Quang Thi states in his memoirs that Operation Camargue was "one of the most successful French military operations during the Indochina war" in the area of Route One. Newspapers stated that the operation had been a "total success, demonstrating once more the new aggressiveness and mobility" of the French forces. In contrast to these figures, Bernard Fall records 182 Viet Minh dead and 387 prisoners. He also notes that "51 rifles, eight sub-machine guns, two mortars, and five BARs" were captured. Of the prisoners, however, it is not recorded how many were confirmed to be members of Regiment 95. Both Fall and the newspapers published in the days following the official termination of the operation on 10 August 1953, give French casualties as 17 dead and 100 wounded. Fall goes on to record that the "major defect" of Operation Camargue was that the French had nothing like the numerical superiority to encircle a force in the terrain around Road One, 15:1 as opposed to the 20:1 or 25:1 that he believed required. He states that the slow French progress (around 1,500 yards an hour) Route One and Regiment 95 Regiment 95 survived Operation Camargue and resumed ambushes in 1954, as well as assaulting a Vietnamese garrison near Hué. The regiment remained in the area, taking part in General Giáp's 1954 campaign season, until Vietnam was split into North and South Vietnam by the cease-fire, whereupon it infiltrated back to the north along Route One during broad daylight, leaving small cells of guerillas in the area. The regiment returned to resume ambushes of the South Vietnamese Army in 1962. ==Notes==