Pierre Fauroux was born in 1921. He graduated from the French Military Academy at St. Cyr in 1942, when France’s Vichy government was dominated by Germany. In 1943 he escaped from France via Spain and joined the Free French movement based in Britain. Trained by the British in special operations, he parachuted into France in June 1944 during the D-Day invasion. At the end of 1944 the restored French government sent Fauroux to Indochina to prepare for the return of French forces at the end of the war. He participated in many clandestine reconnaissance missions until he returned to France in late 1946. Fauroux returned to Indochina in 1952 as the executive officer of a parachute battalion and fought at Dien Bien Phu, a French defeat that set in motion a series of political and military decisions in the United States that would send U.S. ground combat troops to Vietnam in March 1965. Fauroux was captured by the Viet Minh, a Communist-controlled organization fighting for independence from colonial rule. He was repatriated in September 1954 and later served in Algeria. During his military career Fauroux was awarded the French Legion of Honor and the American Silver Star. Fauroux died in 2010. His memoir written six years earlier includes the following account of the Battle of Dien Bien Phu, translated by retired U.S. Army Colonel Stephen Smith.
In 1952 I received orders to report to Quimper, in France’s Brittany region, where paratroop battalions were trained, on May 2 before heading back to Indochina. Major Marcel Bigeard was at Saint-Brieuc [a town in Brittany] in command of the 6th Battalion of Colonial Paratroops. My battalion was the 10th Colonial Paratroops, commanded by Major Jean Bréchignac. In November 1952 we went to Marseilles to embark for Saigon. While in Marseilles we received orders reflagging us as the 2nd Battalion, 1st Regiment of Paratroop Chasseurs.
Shortly after our arrival in Hanoi around Christmas 1952, we were transported to Na San in Tai territory [a section of northern Vietnam inhabited by people of the Tai culture], where an important strongpoint had been organized over the previous several months. Two Viet Minh divisions had knocked themselves out trying to attack it. The French Foreign Legion paratroops distinguished themselves there. Na San was without question a French victory that cost the Viet Minh very dearly. By the time we arrived, the worst of the fighting was over. We assumed responsibility for conducting all the patrols within a 30-kilometer radius around Na San. The objective was to make contact with the Viets there, who at that time refused to fight us.
