HILL A1 (ELIANE 2)

On the left bank of the Nâm Rôm (Nam Youn), opposite the Victory Museum, Hill A1 (Eliane 2) is renowned for the bitter fighting it witnessed. It is the most fortified of the 49 French positions. In the words of Jules Roy, author of La bataille de Diên Biên Phu (1963), "the earth (there) is still red with the blood that flowed, and the microscope would probably reveal that human organic waste mingles there, confused at last in the fraternity of enemies reconciled in nothingness". Long before the battle, the hill was home to the French residence that administered this strategic area for the control of Laos. The building had been destroyed, with the exception of the cellars, which formed one of the few hard-built casemate networks in the French defensive system. To the east, the hill played an essential role, forming a sort of rampart for the central sector of the entrenched camp, including General de Castries' command post.

For General Giap's troops, conquering the position was one of the most difficult tests of the battle. They spent 39 of the 56 days and nights of the Diên Biên Phu campaign on this hill, sacrificing more than 2,000 soldiers in the process. The position was taken thanks to Vietminh sappers who dug a tunnel where they placed a ton of explosives to blow up the position commander's casemate:"25 soldiers were given the task of digging the tunnel. The further they went, the more they suffocated from lack of oxygen. The next soldier had to fan the previous one. The excavated earth was bagged and taken outside to fortify the trenches. After 15 days, the soldiers completed the 47-meter tunnel. On May 6, 1954, at 8.30pm, they received the order to dynamite the tunnel. The explosion shook the hill, killing an enemy company and shocking all those still entrenched in the casemates. Seizing the opportunity, our troops seized the hill. In all, they wiped out 850 enemy soldiers, excluding 4 well-trained French battalions from the fight" [Source: Thu Hoa. "A1, Eliane 2 et le combat d'autrefois", April 23, 2014]. On the hill, a gigantic crater bears witness to this episode. Today, the site has been converted into a sort of open-air museum, featuring the Eliane 2 command post, the Bazeille tank and 10 of the 37 blockhouses manned by the French army, all enclosed in a 4,000 m network of trenches.