Him Lam Hill - Beatrice (Dien Bien Phu City)

 historic landmark  Add category

The fighting began at 5:00 PM on March 13 when the Viet Minh launched a massive surprise artillery barrage. The time and date were carefully chosen—the hour allowed the artillery to fire in daylight, and the date was chosen because it was a new moon, allowing a nighttime infantry attack. The attack concentrated on position Beatrice, defended by the 3rd battalion of the 13th Foreign Legion Demi-Brigade.

Unknown to the French, the Viet Minh had made a minutely detailed study of Beatrice, and had rehearsed assaulting it using scaled models. According to one Viet Minh major: "Every evening, we came up and took the opportunity to cut barbed wire and remove mines. Our jumping-off point was moved up to only two hundred yards from the peaks of Beatrice, and to our surprise [French] artillery didn't know where we were".

The French command on Beatrice was decimated at 6:15 PM when a shell hit the French command post, killing Legionnaire commander Major Paul Pegot and his entire staff. A few minutes later, Colonel Jules Gaucher, commander of the entire northern sector, was also killed by Viet Minh artillery.

The Viet Minh 312th division then launched a massive infantry assault, using sappers to defeat French obstacles. French resistance at Beatrice collapsed shortly after midnight following a fierce battle. Roughly 500 French legionnaires were killed. Viet Minh losses totalled 600 dead and 1,200 wounded. The French launched a counter-attack against Beatrice the following morning, but it was quickly beaten back by Viet Minh artillery. Despite their losses, the victory at Beatrice "galvanized the morale" of the Viet Minh troops.

Much to French disbelief, the Viet Minh had employed direct artillery fire, in which each gun crew does its own artillery spotting (as opposed to indirect fire, in which guns are massed farther away from the target, out of direct line of sight, and rely on a forward artillery spotter). Indirect artillery, generally held as being far superior to direct fire, requires experienced, well-trained crews and good communications which the Viet Minh lacked.[38] Navarre wrote that "Under the influence of Chinese advisers, the Viet Minh commanders had used processes quite different from the classic methods. The artillery had been dug in by single pieces... They were installed in shell-proof dugouts, and fire point-blank from portholes... This way of using artillery and AA guns was possible only with the expansive ant holes at the disposal of the Vietminh and was to make shambles of all the estimates of our own artillerymen." The French artillery commander, Colonel Charles Piroth, distraught at his inability to bring counterfire on the well-camouflaged Viet Minh batteries, went into his dugout and committed suicide with a hand grenade. He was buried there in secret to prevent loss of morale among the French troops.