At the conference, representatives of the units reported their achievements and limitations.
Concluding the conference, the campaign’s commander summarised that the Vietnamese army destroyed four bases in the east, destroyed and forced the surrender of two bases in the west, and narrowed the occupation of the enemy. The victory was attributed to the sound policy, and accurate operation plan.
In addition to the achievements, participants at the preliminary conference on reviewing the second stage of the Dien Bien Phu Campaign also pointed out several limitations and serious shortcomings regarding tactics and soldiers’ compliance, as there were comrades who left their missions.
Some officers showed a lack of responsibility and did not comply with the principles and tactics in grasping the enemy’s situation, thus mobilising insufficient firepower during attacks to fortifications, and were not aware of ammunition conservation.
The main reasons were that soldiers did not strictly follow orders, and showed lack of responsibility, lack of determination, and unstable stance.
The fact that Vietnamese soldiers could not destroy the enemy at hill A1 base was partly due to the lack of meticulous reconnaissance behind hill A1, thus they were unable to detect that the enemy built a trench running from the central area to the A1 hill base to ensure safety for their units.
On the enemy side, Dien Bien Phu Base Group inventoried that artillery ammunition reserves had only 418 155mm shells, 616 105mm shells and 1,422 120mm mortar shells; flare shells for 60mm mortars of front-line infantry units as well as for 81mm mortars were depleted.
An C119 squadron of the enemy dropped 18 tons of 105mm ammunition, two 75mm cannons and medicine near Co My Village, which had been set up as our battlefield.
