Post by Legion Etrangere on Jun 23, 2009 18:37:17 GMT -5
Of 10,863 survivors held as prisoners, only 3,290 were repatriated four months later. The fate of 3,013 prisoners of Indochinese origin is unknown.
-Fall, Hell in a Very Small Place[/center]
Of the 16,500 French soldiers who fought at Dien Bien Phu only 3,000 survived. 3,000 men were killed in action, but 10,000 died in the hands of the Viet Minh on death marches to distant POW camps, and in those camps in the last three months of the war.
-Colin F. Jones, Ph.D.
I've been meaning to get up a thread on French POW / MIA from the war to illicit discussion:
National Alliance of Families:
From Professor R. J. Rummell's site:
The following taken from:
With the exception of the civil community VINH, who remained captive for much of the war in Indochina the most complete indifference of the French Government, until disaster CAO BANG, few were French prisoners. Very few of those who were
captured before that time survived the treatment they were inflicted. The massacres of prisoners, among 1946 and 1950, the mutilated bodies are shredded and then part of a range of ways to serve the strategy of the day to undermine the morale of the French. This method is organized murder perpetrated beyond
For the Vietnamese in 1950 that Viet Minh considered
harmful to his cause.
In North Vietnam, from October 1950, the Viet Minh,
suddenly placed at the head of a contingent of three
thousand prisoners, organizes a system of camps
grouped according to their grades, their nationalities and the interest he intends to draw in terms of propaganda short, medium or long term. Meanwhile, the staff Viet Minh honed with the help of communist parties brothers to develop their techniques use.
In South Viet Nam, the military and civilian hostages were few. They were scattered sandstone operations guerrilla in the administrative areas of Nambo Viets with no real consolidation has never been done before.
Cambodia and Laos, the case of capture of civilians or French soldiers were rare and the problem accordingly, was not treated.
Are generally seen as the figure of 40,000 prisoners Vietminh to the Indochina conflict, which lasted from 1945 to 1954. At the end of hostilities, two papers on the number of prisoners of war Corps Expeditionary French Far East in the camps of Viet Minh
1945 to 1954 were established: one is a report of physician Martin October 1954 the other is a footnote 1929/EM CEC / MDL 8 July 1955.
These figures on the number of prisoners and at the prison, which differ only a few units are reliable and were included in the thesis for the Doctorat d'Université supported by Colonel (er) Robert BONNAFOUS to the center 'Military History and Study of National Defense.
No official report has been prepared concerning civilian prisoners. They would have been 2894 to 3021. Including indigenous people, this figure is probably well below reality. How many were released?
Probably very little.
In the early months of the year 1950, the French Communist Party, became a real base of the Vietminh, was released against the war in Indochina. One of its leaders, FIGUERES Leo, a member of the Central Committee and Secretary General of the Union of Republican Youth of France, arrived in Viet Bac. He met the leaders of the appointment (Democratic Republic of Viet Nam). HO CHI MINH, about the plight of civilians and prisoners of war interned in its territory, said: "We do everything we can to improve their living conditions. They are better fed than us. I received a lot of them thanks for it. "This response is published in the newspaper" L'Humanité Sunday on 22 October 1950. The same HO CHI MINH suggest that the exchange of prisoners should be the occasion of contacts that would pave the way for political talks. On site, Leo FIGUERES obtains the release of 52 French hostages, including elderly and children taken to HONGAY, against the expansion of hundreds of prisoners Vietminh.
Thus do we see the dawning Vietminh strategy vis-à-vis the French prisoners: for the purpose of propaganda, from left, after indoctrination, small contingents wearing pompous names such as "fighters for peace".
Meanwhile, after October 1950, executives of the French army camp together in the No. 1 are required, following several months of a subtle brainwashing on body weakened, to sign a manifesto denouncing the "dirty war Indochina.
For the French Communist Party who had clearly chosen its camp, the Vietminh, the residence of FIGUERES leads the broadcast, on demand Viets, two French defenders to represent the PCF with the appointment: a delegation in a way. The two cooperating Camarades "arrived in Indochina in January 1951. Their mission will be to advise the Viet Minh on the subject of propaganda to develop at prisoners of war Cefeo. They will be assisted by advisers of other national Communist parties as Europe, the Foreign Legion, and all countries of the French Empire in Indochina fighting.
The Viet Minh prisoners become propaganda materials, should, according to places, times and circumstances, serve or die. This system cleverly set up results in a terrible carnage. Some figures in their horror at the brutality that had been reached. The average mortality in the camps Vietminh from 1946 to 1954 was over 60%. When we go into detail, the findings are sometimes mind-boggling. Of the one thousand nine hundred prisoners camps 2, 4 and 5 were captured on the RC 4 between September and October 1950, only thirty-two survivors returned to Camp No. 1 in August 1952. The mortality rate was therefore over 90%. It is therefore here quick extermination.
A little over ten thousand men were captured at Dien Bien Phu. After very heavy fighting, the commander Vietminh organization for them a "death march" to return to the camps. In four months of captivity, the mortality rate was over 70%. Let us not forget that this disregard for human life led to the end of World War II the Japanese officers responsible for the death march of the Philippines to the conviction for war crimes and hanged.
Throughout the war in Indochina, the Red Cross never received permission to visit the camps and the prisoners were doctors, except in very rare exceptions, prohibited the practice, divided the camp officers.
Released prisoners returning exhausted, in a skeletal state. Most had to be hospitalized and their vision mentioned that the return of concentration camps.
Over 35 years elapsed between the liberation of the camps and the passing of the Act 89-1013 of 31 December 1989. Many former prisoners have died during this long period and the vast majority of survivors, if not all, have requested the status of prisoner of Vietminh (PVM) created by this law.
The National Commission for awarding the title of PVM, chaired by the Director of Statutes, pensions and social reintegration of Veterans Affairs has awarded, from 17 December 1990 to date 2975 maps the status of prisoner of the Vietminh.
Among the beneficiaries of these, 600 members of the ANAPI died. In ignorance of the number of beneficiaries are not members of our association who were also eliminated from the allocation of their card, we can estimate that the maximum number of survivors of this tragedy does not go beyond 2000 to date.
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