No feckin' way. I suggest you look up Capt. John Ripley, USMC, and the Dong Ha Bridge.
Posted on 10/04/2013 11:16:02 AM PDT by the scotsman
'Vo Nguyen Giap, the Vietnamese general who masterminded victories against France and the US, has died aged 102.
His defeat of French forces at Dien Bien Phu in 1954 effectively ended French colonial rule in the region.
He was North Vietnam's defence minister at the time of the Tet Offensive against American forces in 1968, often cited as a key campaign that led to the Americans' withdrawal.
Gen Giap also published a number of works on military strategy.'
(Excerpt) Read more at bbc.co.uk ...
Respectfully, the German term, “Blitzkrieg” is from WW II, and includes a strong air power component, along with massed armor. I understand, now, your description, just differed on the term “Blitzkrieg”. Thanks for the update!
Wow. This guy was able to defeat the French? What an amazing feat! /sarc
DING DONG THE WITCH IS DEAD!
Thanks! Amazing story!
“Wow. This guy was able to defeat the French? What an amazing feat! /sarc”
The French defeat was more shameful for us than it was for them; they hadn’t wanted to fight the war, but were coerced into it by the US to “contain communism” (that certainly sounds ludicrous today in light of our relationship with Red China). We armed them to the teeth (including lending an aircraft carrier), provided advisors, and when they really needed it we wouldn’t send air power to Dien Bien Phu (which had been visited by some of those very advisors). The worst betrayal, and what sealed the doom of the French in Indochina, was the armistice in Korea (apparently France was supposed to fight while we negotiated a peace). Within months of the armistice Red Chinese heavy artillery and advisors were in the siege ring around the valley, and there was no way the French could win.
I haven't had a chance to post this for a while, always looking for a chance...but I will say this:
There wasn't much to laugh about with respect to those guys a Dien Bien Phu. They fought hard, and were left out to dry by their country.
I pity those men.
What happened to our military was a national disgrace, and more.
Leni
I agree 100%.
It is one of the prime reasons, amongst others, I detest hippies, liberalism and the Sixties counter-culture and all thing associated with it.
I was a military brat living overseas during that time, and as a kid, I hated damned hippies.
The things they were saying about my father and my friend’s fathers made me really angry.
When the time came to rotate back to the states, I didn’t want to go.
That tweet shows that twit is a Manchurian Candidate.
Sorry. I disagree with you wholeheartedly. The idea that we could “coerce” DeGaulle’s France to do any damned thing IN THE 1950’s is laughable on its face.
I presume you WERE alive then and remember what it was like.
Kearnyirish2, the French OWNED it. It was their pride and damned colonial roots that drove them to it.
It is ludicrous to pin THAT on the USA.
He finally died? Better late than never.
The current SOS was allied with the communists, and they credit his service in their cause.
Last time we heard from Mr Heinz, he was ready to report for duty in Syria, but another even crazier marxist said no.
Not a very factual argument; pure anti-French blather. After WWII the French had to re-arm surrendered Japanese troops to police the colony and deal with the Viet Minh; they had no troops or public support for the Indochina War. DeGaulle didn’t lead France in the war; he returned a decade later. French troops wore American helmets, used American weapons, and the US funded the war.
If you would read or research a bit you’d understand.
Highway 1 runs between Maine and Florida along the east coast. It's not in Nevada........./Humor
Hahahahah. Coerce the French, now that is funny.
Go educate yourself. Yours is pure anti-American blather.
Thank God for the Aussies. They haven’t stabbed us in the back like some of our “friends” over the years.
More blather without facts.
“Thank God for the Aussies. They haven’t stabbed us in the back like some of our “friends” over the years.”
The French reacted to our stab in the back by developing nuclear weapons and leaving NATO; they haven’t been attacked since.
Less than a decade after Dien Bien Phu, we did it again (albeit on a much smaller scale) at the Bay of Pigs; what’s your excuse for that?
Sure. You read some liberal revisionist history book and took it in hook line and sinker.
As proof you say they used american helmets guns and planes.
Let’s see. You have a country, with a colonial holding that they were trying to hold on to (or, gee...did they try to just hand it back to the Vietnamese?) five years removed from having their country occupied for five years where they were generating no tax revenue and the country’s industry was barely coming back and the government coffers were empty.
They wanted to hold on to their colonial holding. The people who wanted the country were communists. They had no money to raise a large army to project power.
Where on earth could they possibly get military supplies? Gee, there is this country that was massively demobilizing up to the Korean war, and had warehouses bulging with helmets, rifles and were even shoving planes over the sides of ships, they just couldn’t figure out what to do with them!
But, wait! They have a former ally who needed equipment we were going to trash, who was going to hold onto a colonial possession that was likely going to be communist if they just handed it over, and...what to do? Gee...how about we forgive all their debts going back to WWI, and give them scads of money in addition to Marshall Plan money which didn’t need to be paid back? Sounds like a great plan.
All this, of course was fed from within from the factions that were siding with DeGaulle who wanted to hold onto French possessions like Algeria and French Indochina (Degaulle, was, after all the nationalist, the one who all those people in favor of fighting the communists in French Indochina and in Algeria sided with. Politically, it WAS “DeGaulle’s France”. Otherwise, they wouldn’t have been fighting. Right?
Right?
Oh, yeah, but it was the Evil, Backstabbing Americans who betrayed the French in Indochina. We twisted their arms to fight there then stabbed them in the back.
Put a sock in it.
My country has plenty to be ashamed of with respect to our treatment of our South Vietnamese allies who trusted us, and we stabbed them in the back, to our shame.
We don’t need some other eurotrash trying to pin their own follies on us as well.
As for the Bay of Pigs, we have plenty to be ashamed of there as well. We have plenty to regret, but French stupidity and ineptitude is not one of them.
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