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French Counter-Espionage Action Service : Mixed Airborne Commando Group (GCMA)
Xiangkhouang and Xam Neua provinces (Laos)
July 1953 - March 1955
Narrator : Colonel Jean Sassi (1917-2009)
It is April 1954.
Since weeks the battle rages on at Dien Bien Phu (Vietnam)
and I feel more and more concerned and threatened.
In early April, despite the optimism of the General-in-Chief (H. Navarre)
there is no hope for Dien Bien Phu according to my intelligence.
On April 6, Touby Lyfoung tells me that the Meo (Hmong)
would accept to go with me upnorth in order
to relieve the bessieged garrison.
By message I inform Colonel Roger Trinquier and request him
to obtain Indo-China Supreme Commander General Henri Navarre's
authorization to create an emergency column and
the dispatch of a paratrooper unit in order
to better command my guerrillas and to allow them
to act in small teams against the Viet Minh rearguard,
as well as to mark withdrawal routes and also to serve as
guides in case of a possible evacuation of the garrison.
But I get no answer. So I try to plead my cause by myself at
the Saigon HQ (Vietnam) but it is a vain attempt. Back in Khang Khay
(Laos) on April 21, I warn my assistants that it is time
to move on with their troops anyway.
I eventually receive the authorities go ahead on April 28.
My mission is to bring as much as possible of my
guerrillas (partisans) and GCMA commandos from the
Xiangkhouang and Xam Neua provinces to the outskirts of Dien Bien Phu.
Colonel Trinquier himself will drop with an airborne
battalion and will command the whole force (Sassi was then a Captain).
April 28 1954, Operation D (D is for "desperado") starts for real.
2 000 Meo and Lao, barefoot for the most part and wearing
their traditional black suit, but armed to the teeth,
converge at forced march accross this country's
inhospitable mountains toward the goal
that we are both determined to achieve.
The only staff under my command is
3 lieutenants (incl. Vang Pao), 15 French non-commissioned officers
for 2,000 partisans.
Each time we go through villages we give some
food and medics to the inhabitants as usual
and we entrust them with our casualties.
They often receive us with the welcoming ceremony,
called "baci" and the traditional jar alcohol.
The relentless march continues to reach the drop zone (DZ)
located northern Muong Peu then join the 1st Shock Airborne Battalion
(1er Bataillon Parachutiste de Choc, 1er BPC) Special Services
paratroopers. On May 4 we reach Phou Vieng,
On May 5 we cross the Nam Khan river using dugout canoes (pirogue).
On May 7 we reach Ban Pitou, later Ban Na Poung.
On May 8 the vanguard reaches Ban Houei Kine and links up
with the first guerrillas from the Servan groups under
Lieutenant Brehier who came from Pa Thi, Pa Kha,
Nong Khang and Houei Tao.
As we march on we join Sergeant-Chief Marcellin's
group as well as village chief Xienfong
and his 400 guerrillas.
Eventually, through ten different routes
the secret army of the mountains is
present at the Ban Na Pung rendez-vous point.
We continue our march until May 11
which is the day I receive the formal order
to return to our bases
as soon as possible.
Nevertheless, we recover on-site
the rare Dien Bien Phu escapees,
approximatively 150, and as we walk down
we "clear" the crossed areas.
Following the 1954 cease-fire (Geneva Accords)
our Hmong brothers in arms and partisans
of all kinds continued the fight
all alone... for their survival
even today some of them still resist,
others have emigrated.
Hence this tragic nostalgia
that we informally call between ourselves
"the Yellow sickness"... ("le Mal jaune")