Like Gettysburg, Stalingrad, Midway, and Tet, the battle at Dien Bien Phu-a strategic attack launched by France against the Vietnamese in 1954 after eight long years of war-marked a historic turning point. By the end of the fifty-six-day siege, a determined Viet Minh guerrilla force had destroyed a large, tactical French colonial army in the heart of Southeast Asia. The Vietnamese victory would not only end French occupation of Indochina and offer a sobering premonition of the U.S.'s future military defeat in the region, but would also provide a new model of modern warfare in which size and sophistication didn't always dictate victory. Before his death in Vietnam in 1967, Bernard Fall, a critically acclaimed scholar and reporter, drew upon declassified documents from the French Defense Ministry and interviews with thousands of surviving French and Vietnamese soldiers to weave a compelling account of the key battle of Dien Bien Phu. With Fall's thorough and insightful analysis, Hell in a Very Small Place has become one of the benchmarks in war reportage.
Journalist Bernard B. Fall describes the brutality and frustrations of the Indochina War, the savage eight-year conflict in which French forces suffered a staggering defeat at the hands of Communist-led Vietnamese nationalists.
In this classic account of the French war in Indochina, Bernard B. Fall vividly captures the sights, sounds, and smells of the savage eight-year conflict in the jungles and mountains of Southeast Asia from 1946 to 1954. The French fought well to the last, but even with the lethal advantages of airpower, they could not stave off the Communist-led Vietnamese nationalists, who countered with a hit-and-run campaign of ambushes, booby traps, and nighttime raids. Defeat came at Dien Bien Phu in 1954, setting the stage for American involvement and opening another tragic chapter in Vietnam's history.
