Download The Battle of Dienbienphu, by Jules Roy
Be the first who are reading this The Battle Of Dienbienphu, By Jules Roy Based on some factors, reviewing this book will provide even more advantages. Even you should review it step by step, page by web page, you can finish it whenever and any place you have time. Again, this on-line book The Battle Of Dienbienphu, By Jules Roy will offer you easy of reading time as well as task. It also offers the encounter that is budget-friendly to get to as well as get considerably for far better life.
The Battle of Dienbienphu, by Jules Roy
Download The Battle of Dienbienphu, by Jules Roy
Superb The Battle Of Dienbienphu, By Jules Roy book is consistently being the most effective close friend for spending little time in your office, evening time, bus, and also all over. It will certainly be a great way to simply look, open, and also check out guide The Battle Of Dienbienphu, By Jules Roy while in that time. As understood, encounter as well as ability don't consistently featured the much cash to obtain them. Reading this book with the title The Battle Of Dienbienphu, By Jules Roy will allow you know a lot more points.
This is why we advise you to consistently see this resource when you need such book The Battle Of Dienbienphu, By Jules Roy, every book. By online, you may not go to get the book shop in your city. By this online library, you can find the book that you actually wish to check out after for very long time. This The Battle Of Dienbienphu, By Jules Roy, as one of the advised readings, tends to remain in soft documents, as all of book collections here. So, you may also not wait for few days later on to receive and read guide The Battle Of Dienbienphu, By Jules Roy.
The soft data implies that you have to visit the link for downloading and afterwards save The Battle Of Dienbienphu, By Jules Roy You have actually owned guide to review, you have actually posed this The Battle Of Dienbienphu, By Jules Roy It is simple as visiting the book stores, is it? After getting this quick description, ideally you could download and install one and start to read The Battle Of Dienbienphu, By Jules Roy This book is quite easy to review every time you have the downtime.
It's no any type of mistakes when others with their phone on their hand, as well as you're too. The distinction might last on the material to open The Battle Of Dienbienphu, By Jules Roy When others open up the phone for chatting and talking all things, you can occasionally open up as well as check out the soft data of the The Battle Of Dienbienphu, By Jules Roy Obviously, it's unless your phone is offered. You can likewise make or save it in your laptop computer or computer that eases you to read The Battle Of Dienbienphu, By Jules Roy.
Forty years ago, France's war with the anticolonial Communist-led Vietminh insurgency climaxed in the bloody battle for the valley of Dienbienphu. The Vietminh's victory put the 17 million people of North Vietnam under Communist rule and would, in two years, induce America's attempt to save South Vietnam—without heeding the French army's catastrophic defeat. That defeat, former French soldier Jules Roy explains, occurred not because of a shortage of arms or troops, but more important, less tangible reasons. Hungry for a textbook victory, the French military command occupied the valley in a plan to lure the Vietminh down from the hills to destroy them with supposedly superior artillery. Roy vividly shows how French political infighting in Paris and rivalry in the high command left a few romantic professional officers and soldiers of the French Expeditionary Corps and the Foreign Legion to be surrounded and then overwhelmed by totally dedicated and resourceful enemy forces. Roy also profiles Vietminh soldiers and commanders and how they ended over eighty years of French colonial rule in North Vietnam. 16 pages of black-and-white photographs add to a "moving and dramatic" (New York Times Book Review) account of the battle that led to America's involvement the Vietnam War.
- Sales Rank: #337680 in eBooks
- Published on: 2009-04-29
- Released on: 2009-04-29
- Format: Kindle eBook
Review
New York Times Book Review (front page)
"Roy relates the basic facts perceptively and brilliantly.... Americans concerned with ... Vietnam ... should read The Battle of Dienbienphu."
Philadelphia Inquirer
"A searing portrait of France's failure in Vietnam..."
About the Author
Wetterhahn is an accomplished journalist, widely read in Air & Space/Smithsonian, Popular Science, Leatherneck Magazine, the Bangkok Post, Soldier of Fortune, The Retired Officers Magazine, Vietnam, the U. S. Air Force Academy magazine, and Checkpoints, among other publications. He is a former U. S. Air Force fighter pilot who served combat tours during the Vietnam War with both the Air Force and the Navy, completing 180 combat missions. His combat Decorations include the Silver Star, Distinguished Flying Cross, Navy Achievement Medal, Air Force Commendation Medal, the Air Medal with eighteen oak leaf clusters, and credit for downing one MiG-21. He is fluent in Thai, has traveled to and written extensively about Vietnam, Russia, Thailand, Laos, and Cambodia.
Most helpful customer reviews
0 of 0 people found the following review helpful.
Four Stars
By Les Pitt
A very passionate account of the battle which adds to the many other books on this subject.
29 of 31 people found the following review helpful.
Giap outfoxes Navarre
By Steven Brown
This book recounts in vivid detail how Viet General Giap defeated
French General Navarre in the game of grand strategy played out in the jungles of Southeast Asia. The author contrasts the intense patriotism and self sacrifice of the Vietminh soldiers against the professionalism and devotion to honor of the French units. Maybe the book deserves 4 stars instead of the three I gave it but I thought the writers style left a little to be desired. All around though a very good book and worthy to sit in any history buffs collection. Note: I had to comment on the previous persons review who ignorantly badmouthed the French army while not even offering a review of the books merits. It takes more than watching a couple of History Channel specials to understand a nations motivations and willingness to fight. The heroism displayed by the French soldiers at Dienbienphu was just one more example of their well known devotion to duty. Ever heard of Camerone, Verdun, Birhacheim or the great victory at Austerlitz? Make sure you get your facts straight before insulting a nations military achievements.
5 of 5 people found the following review helpful.
Can one live long enough that the reading of two books on the same battle is merited?
By John P. Jones III
Fortunately the answer is "Yes!" Though there were various moments that I had my doubts. I was once in a similar situation, despite the admonitions encompassed in a famous Chinese military principle; that one should "...never fight on a battlefield that resembles an inverted turtle..." (p 364); principles that I'm sure my commanders were totally unaware of. The message was metaphorically the same, but not as literal-- the 122mm rockets that destroyed the metal runway at Polei Klang did not leave the message written by the Vietminh commandos who destroyed the runway at Dien Bien Phu, written in French and German: "Dien Bien Phu will be your grave."(p 205)
For the English-speaking world the classic account of the battle is Hell In A Very Small Place: The Siege Of Dien Bien Phu written by another Frenchman who subsequently became an American citizen, and was to die in Vietnam covering the American war, in 1967. Bernard Fall's account is excellent, so too is Roy's, whose erudition may exceed Fall's, placing the battle in a better historical context. Roy's account transcends Fall's strictly military and political account, and includes painful dollops of moral observations.
Jules Roy led a remarkable life, which is passionately described in his autobiography, Memoires Barbares (Critiques, Analyses, Biographies Et Histoire Litteraire) (French Edition) He was born a "pied-noir," an Algerian of French extraction, in Mitidja, in 1907, and was a friend of his fellow pied-noir, Albert Camus. In his autobiography, he describes his transition from Petainist to DeGaullist in the Second War World, joining the RAF as a bombardier, surviving one of the most dangerous jobs of the war, and writing an account Vallee Heureuse (La) (Romans, Nouvelles, Recits (Domaine Francais)) (French Edition) a sardonically named account of the bombing raids over Germany, including the fire-bombing of Dresden. The awakened moral sense displayed in this book carries over into his account of the battle at Dien Bien Phu. He quotes the American journalist, David Schoenbrun, who "...denounced the original sin of the colonial era: the absolute rights of France, forgetting the lesson of its Revolution, recognized Vietnamese liberty only in terms of their own interests." (p 27). More damning are Roy's own words: "...that the imperialism the most detestable in the world, which disguises its refusal to loose its markets and dividends as a crusade against communism." (p 353).
As with Fall's account, the book is essentially a detailed military history of the battle, with the particulars of the movements of the tactical units, as well as the thoughts of the battle's "big men," primarily those on the French side, de Castries, Navarre, and Cogny. As with similar debacles, hubris played a major part - the French commanders knew the Vietminh could not possible have the artillery to defeat a modern Western army - and like most debacles, there was a distinct lack of willingness to accept responsibility, which may sound a lot like the recent one on Wall Street: "... victory has a 100 fathers, and defeat is an orphan."
Roy's account of Graham Greene's visit to DBP a mere four months before the end is more incisive than Fall's, with de Castries pounding the table in "Shakespearian frenzy," silencing Piroth for raising the issue of the French defeat at Na San under similar circumstances. Roy also covers the proposed plan "Vautour," which would have involved American B-26 strikes against DBP, possibly with nuclear weapons.
Roy's erudition is broad, and is evident in his choice of epigraphs. They range from Florence Nightingale to Shakespeare and Machiavelli. His historical references range from Caesar's Gaul campaigns through Agincourt to Napoleon. Roy met the victorious General Giap in 1963, and Giap said: "...Dien Bien Phu, it is Valmy." (a reference to a raggedy band of French civilians who defeated the professionals of the Prussian Army at Valmy, in 1792, during the French Revolution). Giap knew his French history, and used it against the occupiers, a fact that Fall also relates when he tells the story of the Vietnamese singing "La Chant Partisans" which the French underground used during WWII.
Roy was a man of immense empathy, particularly for those individuals who would became soldiers, "pawns" in the game of concentrated power. He asked the Vietnamese, in 1963, for a memorial for the French fallen in the battle. His brutally frank answer to the Vietnamese question of what would the French have done to Viet dead if the tables had been reversed: "...we would have thrown them in a common grave like dogs..." earned the memorial, a small one, on the battlefield, which I was able to visit in 1995.
Even if you were not at Polei Klang, reading two books on DBP could be worthwhile, simply for the study of the continued hubris that exists today, and to reflect upon how little we know of "them," and how much they know of "us."
Note: the page numbers refer to the French edition by Albin Michel
See all 20 customer reviews...
The Battle of Dienbienphu, by Jules Roy PDF
The Battle of Dienbienphu, by Jules Roy EPub
The Battle of Dienbienphu, by Jules Roy Doc
The Battle of Dienbienphu, by Jules Roy iBooks
The Battle of Dienbienphu, by Jules Roy rtf
The Battle of Dienbienphu, by Jules Roy Mobipocket
The Battle of Dienbienphu, by Jules Roy Kindle
!! Download The Battle of Dienbienphu, by Jules Roy Doc
!! Download The Battle of Dienbienphu, by Jules Roy Doc
!! Download The Battle of Dienbienphu, by Jules Roy Doc
!! Download The Battle of Dienbienphu, by Jules Roy Doc
![, by Brandilyn Collins - Eyes of Elisha (Chelsea Adams Series #1) (Reprinted) (2001-10-16) [Paperback], by Brandilyn Collins](https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/blogger_img_proxy/AEn0k_uiNQI1LpJEDzi0jUpv5-mdwXXL_-uc3PTLM528xuREHRowdkdUgI1H0c3Cwwi2-9NtxATlaotovnf0HZ0T0RvL5nYXfHRIbIDitH9X9-nz108bj2WNOV0=s0-d ", by Brandilyn Collins - Eyes of Elisha (Chelsea Adams Series #1) (Reprinted) (2001-10-16) [Paperback], by Brandilyn Collins")
