[Buddy]

With all the Time and Effort the Vietminh spent moving cannon and ammo into the surrounding hills....I have always wondered what the outcome would have been had the French Abandoned DBP ....leaving the Vietminh with nothing to shoot at...and all that effort wasted

The French moving to another location

 

[Buddy]

A Very Brief rundown of the battle....

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Dien_Bien_Phu


American participation

The United States did covertly participate in the battle. Following a request for help from Henri Navarre, Radford provided two squadrons of B-26 Invader bomber aircraft to support the French. Subsequently, 37 American transport pilots flew 682 sorties over the course of the battle. Earlier, in order to succeed the pre-Dien Bien Phu Operation Castor of November 1953, General Chester McCarty made available 12 additional C-119 Flying Boxcars flown by French crews.

Two of the American pilots, James McGovern, Jr. and Wallace Buford, were killed in action during the siege of Dien Bien Phu. On 25 February 2005, the seven still living American pilots were awarded the French Legion of Honor by Jean-David Levitte, the French ambassador to the United States.The role that the American pilots played in this battle had remained little known until 2004. The "American historian Erik Kirsinger researched the case for more than a year to establish the facts." French author Jules Roy suggests Admiral Radford discussed with the French the possibility of using nuclear weapons in support of the French garrison. Moreover, John Foster Dulles reportedly mentioned the possibility of lending atomic bombs to the French for use at Dien Bien Phu,[84] and a similar source claims then British Foreign Secretary Sir Anthony Eden was aware of the possibility of the use of nuclear weapons in that region.