Account of a Debacle
This French account of "their" Indochina war should have been a "must read" for the American planners of "our" Indochina war, were it available to them. Bodard conveys the agony of the French Expeditionary Corps committed to a vast landmass far beyond their capability to control. His account, for example, of the decision to evacuate the RC4 highway which roughly paralleled the Chinese frontier, bringing out the French garrisons along the route under constant attack from the Vietminh is just chilling. Entire battalions simply ceased to exist. For this reviewer, who will never forget the vastness of the endless forests and mountains, it brought home the feeling of how small, how insignificant, a soldier was in comparison. It could just swallow you up. Bodard conveys well how, for so many French soldiers, that is just what happened. Only our superior air power and air mobility saved us from the same fate a decade later. This is a painful, but very well-documented account.