Battle of Dien Bien Phu 50th anniversary

issued in 2004

7/5/1954 – more on Wikipedia

The Battle of Dien Bien Phu (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 Viet Minhcommunist–nationalist revolutionaries. It was, from the French view before the event, a set piece battle to draw out the Vietnamese and destroy them with superior firepower. The battle occurred between March and May 1954 and culminated in a comprehensive French defeat that influenced negotiations over the future of Indochina atGeneva. Military historian Martin Windrow wrote that Dien Bien Phu 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.”