After two days of fighting, the 141st Regiment repelled many attacks from the enemy, killing 63, wounding 48, and capturing two enemies, joining with other units to tighten the siege of the enemy troops in the centre of Dien Bien Phu.
At 7:30 am on the same day, several legionnaires of the 13th Semi-Brigade escaped and returned to Muong Thanh to report that Huguette 1 had fallen. De Castries suggested the need to counterattack to regain the lost position. Langlais and Bigeard both disagreed, saying that the counterattack would lead to the sacrifice of the last combat forces of the fortress group. Even in the case of a successful counterattack, the enemy would no longer have the force to maintain Huguette 1 while new attacks would continue. Bigeard was assigned the task of organising the counterattack, using the remaining reserve forces of nearly 400 soldiers along with 12 fighter-bombers and four B.26 bombers to attack the trench system in front of Huguette 1 fortress and several targets.
From noon to afternoon on April 23, 1954, the enemy launched many large counterattacks, mobilising the last unit of the First Legion Parachute Battalion along with the remaining troops of the 6th Parachute Battalion as the collection forces of internal bases. The enemy used dozens of planes to drop bombs on Vietnamese troops’ battlefields many times, while they shot continuously towards the Vietnamese side. For three hours, soldiers from the 88th Regiment and the 308th Division worked closely with the Brave Front’s artillery to defeat all four enemy attacks and maintain the battlefield. Finally, a fierce counterattack by the 23rd and 29th Battalions forced the enemy to retreat to Muong Thanh.
