The young soldiers of Gen. Vo Nguyen Giap’s newly formed 308th Division, freshly trained and equipped by the communist Chinese, showed off their skills in stealth operations against the French in May 1950. Four of Giap’s infantry battal-ions scaled steep limestone heights surrounding the town of Dong Khe in northeast Tonkin, the northernmost region of Vietnam, without being detected even though they were hauling five American-made 75 mm pack howitzers. At dawn on May 25, they opened fire with a devastating sustained barrage on the French defenses and the 800-man garrison, consisting mostly of Moroccan riflemen under French officers.

Giap, commander in chief of communist-led Viet Minh independence fighters at war with colonial ruler France since December1946, lifted the barrage after two days of shelling. His troops then attacked in human waves, overrunning the base and almost wiping out the remaining defenders, a few of whom escaped into the jungle. At midmorning on May 27, 48 hours after the barrage began, the Viet Minh had seized control of Dong Khe.

The French responded quickly to the May 27 attack, dropping the 3rd Colonial Parachute Battalion onto the overrun base late the same morning and surprising Viet Minh troops engaged in looting. After several hours of heavy fighting, often hand-to-hand, the Viet Minh abandoned the post and melted back into the jungle.

Giap never intended to hold the base. The general had accomplished his objective for now. The May attack was Giap’s last opportunity to season the men of the 308th Division for formidable tasks ahead. He was preparing to unleash a large-scale offensive against six French frontier posts—including Dong Khe—along Colonial Route 4 near the border with China when the monsoon rains ended in late September or early October. Months of arduous preparation lay ahead of Giap.

After the Viet Minh withdrew from Dong Khe, the French commander in chief, Gen. Marcel Carpentier, a total stranger to Indochina, could have avoided another Viet Minh onslaught by evacuating the frontier forts, which contained almost 12,000 French