How to solve the huge logistical problem in the Dien Bien Phu Campaign?

Talking about the "logistics problem" that contributed to the Dien Bien Phu Victory, Colonel, Associate Professor, Doctor Duong Hong Anh, former Deputy Director of the Institute of Military History, said that in the conditions of the rear being far from the battlefield, with difficult roads, and the enemy constantly shelling the transportation routes, our army and people had many measures to ensure enough food for the battlefield.

- Colonel Duong Hong Anh, compared to the plan of "fighting fast, solving fast", the motto of "fighting steadily, advancing steadily" requires us to mobilize hundreds of times more material. Meanwhile, from the rear to the Dien Bien Phu battlefield is very far, the roads are difficult to travel. How did we solve the "logistics problem"?

When the motto is changed from "fight fast, solve fast" to "fight firmly, advance firmly", the campaign will be prolonged. Meanwhile, the volume that must be ensured is very large. At the battle line alone, at its peak, there were more than 87,000 people, including about 54,000 soldiers and 33,000 laborers. The amount of rice needed for the battle line is 16,000 tons. To have that amount of rice, 25,000 tons must be mobilized to the campaign line.

To solve this difficult problem, the Central Military Commission proposed the motto: Actively mobilize on-site and actively transport from afar. The Supply Council mobilized local people to contribute more than 260,000 laborers with more than 18 million working days, more than 25,000 tons of rice, and nearly 2,000 tons of food.

At the same time, we stepped up road construction and repair, such as repairing 200km of Hoa Binh - Son La; 300km of Yen Bai - Son La road, building 89km of Tuan Giao - Dien Bien for cars and mobile rudimentary vehicles; breaking waterfalls on the Nam Na river for mobile rafts to improve transportation capacity to serve the campaign.

The people of the Northwest, despite their difficult lives, still contributed food to the campaign. According to calculations, the people of the Northwest alone contributed 7,360 tons of rice, accounting for nearly 50% of the rice used at the battle line. In the final stage, when the siege gradually closed, our troops actively captured enemy parachutes, collecting spoils of war to supplement the combat units in time.

- According to calculations, to bring 1kg of rice to the Dien Bien Phu battlefield, we had to spend 24kg of rice lost along the way. What transportation methods did we have to ensure sufficient and timely food for the campaign?

The Logistics sector has solutions to deal with this situation. That is to organize transportation in a bamboo shoot shape: The closer to Dien Bien, the fewer the transportation force. To make full use of the transportation capacity of all types of vehicles, we use the maximum of 628 existing transport vehicles, mobilize the maximum of the people's primitive means such as thousands of pack horses, nearly 21,000 pack bicycles, 11,800 boats to serve the transportation for the campaign instead of mobilizing laborers to carry on foot.

The units exploited their own logistics resources, some of which drove herds of cows from Thanh Hoa and Phu Tho to provide food for the campaign. They organized fishing, harvested wild vegetables, and mobilized the purchase of food from the people. At the campaign line, when the artillery was in the field, the Logistics Department requested to borrow artillery tractors to transport supplies. 50% of the artillery tractors participated in transporting logistics supplies.

- French journalist Giuyn Roa said that "It was not Chinese aid that defeated General Nava, but it was the bicycles carrying 200-300kg of goods and pushing them with human power". What is your comment on this statement?

When deciding to send troops to fight in Dien Bien Phu, Nava believed that we could not solve the logistical difficulties to ensure the large divisions in the mountainous areas far from the rear. The actual developments of the campaign showed that ensuring logistics was indeed an extremely difficult problem. And the biggest surprise for Nava was that our army and people overcame the difficulties to ensure logistics for the campaign.

To blame for the failure at Dien Bien Phu and to downplay the role of our army and people, some French politicians and generals claimed that Chinese aid was the decisive factor in the victory at Dien Bien Phu. But French journalist Giuyn Roa himself affirmed that: “It was not Chinese aid that defeated General Navarre, but the bicycles carrying 200, 300kg of goods pushed by human power - people who did not have enough to eat and slept on the ground covered with plastic sheets."

According to the summary, in the Dien Bien Phu Campaign, China's rice aid was 1,700 tons, accounting for only 6.8%. This amount is not large but is very valuable. The remaining 93% of the rice provided for the Campaign was mobilized and transported by our entire army and people with extraordinary efforts to ensure the campaign.

The image of bicycle convoys carrying goods to Dien Bien will forever be a beautiful image of the logistics work of the Dien Bien Phu Campaign. It is associated with the tradition of promoting the strength of the entire people and people's logistics in logistics work.

- Modern warfare today takes place in a short time, in a large space, and the battle lines are difficult to distinguish. How should we inherit and promote the lessons learned from the Dien Bien Phu Campaign in ensuring logistics to meet the requirements of the current task of protecting the Fatherland?

In the new conditions, to meet the requirements of war, logistics work, in addition to promoting traditional factors and experience in past wars, also needs to do a good job of preparing early and far away from when the country is not yet in danger. That is, building and perfecting the mechanism to mobilize resources in the socio-economic system. Especially dual-purpose equipment participating in logistics support.

Thus, despite modern war, despite the new context of the market economy, when the entire Party and people are in agreement, creating the strength of national unity, promoting the strength of the entire people, then mobilizing all resources among the people, ensuring the war will be easily carried out, to continue the tradition of people's war, all-people logistics, to defeat all invaders.

Thank you, Colonel!