Battle of Dien Bien Phu
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| Battle of Điện Biên Phủ | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Part of the First Indochina War | |||||||
 French Union paratroopers dropping from a “Flying Boxcar”. | |||||||
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| Belligerents | |||||||
 French Union
|  Việt Minh | ||||||
| Commanders and leaders | |||||||
| Christian de Castries (POW) Pierre Langlais (POW) | Võ Nguyên Giáp Hoàng Văn Thái | ||||||
| Strength | |||||||
| As of March 13: 10,800[3] | As of March 13: 48,000 combat personnel 15,000 logistical support personnel[4] | ||||||
| Casualties and losses | |||||||
| 1,571[5]-2,293 dead 5,195-6,650[6] wounded 1,729 missing [7] 11,721 captured[8] 8,290 POW dead after battle[9] American casualties 2 dead (James B. McGovern and Wallace A. Buford) declassified in 2004[1] | Vietnamese figures 4,020 dead 9,118 wounded 792 missing[10] French estimates 23,000[11] | ||||||
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The Battle of Điện Biên Phủ (French: Bataille de Diên Biên Phu; Vietnamese: Chiến dịch Điện Biên Phủ) was the climactic confrontation of the First Indochina War between the French Union’s French Far East Expeditionary Corps and Việt Minhcommunist revolutionaries. The battle occurred between March and May 1954 and culminated in a comprehensive French defeat that influenced negotiations over the future of Indochina at Geneva. Military historian Martin Windrow wrote that Điện Biên Phủ was “the first time that a non-European colonial independence movement had evolved through all the stages from guerrilla bandsto a conventionally organized and equipped army able to defeat a modern Western occupier in pitched battle.”[12]
