Home > Vietnam > Tourist Attractions in Dien Bien > Command Bunker of De Castries |
Command Bunker of De Castries
Location: The Command bunker of De Castries
lies at the heart of the entrenched camp of Dien Bien Phu in the middle of the
Muong Thanh Field.
Characteristics: The original shape and size, structure and arrangement
of the bunker are kept intact.
Fifty years ago, one could see the top of the bunker from a high hill. To reach
there, however, Vietnamese troops had to fight heroically during 55 days and
nights, amidst numerous hardships and difficulties. Around the bunker were
situated dense systems of defense lines, including many layers of barbed wires
and four tanks. The bunker is 20m long and 8m wide. It consists of 4
compartments, which serves as both working offices and resident places. One now
can still find the iron vaults and sandbags atop the bunker. There used to be a
roofed trench connecting the bunker of De Castries with the blockhouse at Cay Da
in Hill A1. French troops piled up wooden planks and sandbags to make trenches.
They took the wooden planks from the houses of the Vietnamese ethnic minority
groups. Inside this bunker, De Castries received such high-ranking officers as
French Prime Minister Joseph Laniel, US President Dwight Eisenhower, British
Prime Minister Winston Churchill, as well as well-known journalists. At 5h30pm
on May 7th, 1954, Ta Quoc Luat, head of Company 360, Regiment 209, Division 312
captured alive General De Castries who was sitting at his desk in the corner of
the bunker.
The tunnel had four compartments as follows:
Compartment 1
This is the office of Lieutenant Colonel Charles Piroth, who was in charge of
French artillery in Dien Bien Phu. Prior to his departure to Indochina, Piroth
submitted a tactical plan to Henri Navarre, in which he affirmed that no
artillery gun of Viet Minh could fire three times without being destroyed in
Dien Bien Phu. However, after experiencing the fierce attacks of Vietnamese
artillery, Piroth committed suicide with a grenade in a tunnel at the end of
Muong Thanh Bridge on March 15th, 1954. De Castries worried that his troops
would lose their morale if they knew this so he had Piroth buried in the one end
of Muong Thanh Bridge. Then he cabled to inform Navarre that Piroth had
disappeared together with his jeep.
Compartment 2
This is the office of Seguin who was in charge of the French air force in Dien
Bien Phu. He was tasked with the protection of the Muong Thanh and Hong Cum
airfields. He himself faced shameful defeat. Before attack of Vietnamese troops,
the French troops carried out around 100-150 sorties each day, transporting some
100-300 tons of goods to Dien Bien Phu. After assaults of Vietnamese troops,
especially when the runways of Muong Thanh Airfield were cut off, French troops
had to parachute goods to Dien Bien Phu, many of which came to hands of
Vietnamese troops.
Compartment 3
This is the office of De Castries's secretary. Upon being promoted to the
Commander of the Dien Bien Phu entrenched camp, he required to have this
secretary, who was both a nurse and a journalist. When the Vietnamese troops
attacked Dien Bien Phu on March 13th, 1954, De Castries asked her to come back
to Hanoi by airway.
Compartment 4
This is the information and radio transmission center of the French troops in
Dien Bien Phu.
When the Dien Bien Phu campaign ended, Vietnamese troops captured only one
female French nurse, De Galard. She was among one of the first to be released
under Vietnam's policy.
Source: VNAT |
High Quality Tour Service:
Roy, Spain
Fransesca, Netherlands
A member of Vietnam Travel Promotion Group (VTP Group)
Address: Room 509, 15T2 Building, 18 Tam Trinh Str., Hai Ba Trung District, Hanoi, Vietnam (See map)
Tel: +84.24.62768866 / mail[at]tuanlinhtravel.com
Visited: 1967