Five French people tell their memories of the French defeat in Indochina. Pierre Latanne was an officer in the 3rd BPC (colonial parachute battalion) He jumped for the first time on Diên Bien Phu as part of Operation Castor.
“We lost dozens of men, some burned alive in the elephant grass,” he says. His battalion was dissolved to be reborn under the name of 5th BPVN (Vietnamese parachute battalion), also called 5th Bawouan. “It was shooting everywhere, with heavy DCA’, he recalls of the day of the attack, on March 13, 1953, when the 5thBPC jumped on Dièn Biens Phu, at 3 p.m. on the afternoon of March 13. The 5thBPVN is now part of the 4th BPC, which carries out operations from the Annam center to the Plain of Jars in Laos.