Book Reviews

Defeat at Dien Bien Phu

Raymond Souster (Author) and Les Green (Author)
What Men Will Die For. The Battered Silicon Dispatch Box
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Reviewed by Marlene Briggs

Twentieth-century military history fascinates Raymond Souster: his distinguished career as a poet highlights his abiding interest in combat. His lyrics recall the First World War (1914-1918), notably his father's participation in the infamous battle of Passchendaele with the Royal Canadian Field Artillery. In turn, Souster served in the ground crew of the Royal Canadian Air Force (RCAF) during the Second World War (1939-1945). This formative experience inspired   his association with two books on the RCAF and its contribution to World War II, namely On Target: A Novel (1972) and, with Douglas Alcorn, From Hell to Breakfast (1980). Souster subsequently published a long poem, Jubilee of Death: The Raid on Dieppe (1984), concerning the disastrous Allied invasion of occupied France by his Canadian contemporaries. Recently, despite failing health, he completed What Men Will Die For with the assistance of neighbour Leslie Green.

What Men Will Die For: A Docu-Poem in Many Voices of the First Vietnam (French Indo-China) War concentrates on the legendary siege of Dien Bien Phu (1954) that resulted in the defeat of French Union forces by the League for the Independence of Vietnam (Viet Minh). While Canada plays a negligible role in this study of the Asian Pacific theatre during the Cold War, the battle warrants widespread attention. The victory of Communist units at Dien Bien Phu galvanized international anti-colonial struggles, only to culminate in the protracted Vietnam War (1959-1975). Souster and Green generate an absorbing chronicle of important events, diligently plotting political manoeuvres and tactical operations in Indochina based on available sources. In this wry documentary poem, empirical research and linear chronology displace formal experimentation and figurative expression. Regrettably, the book stresses factual information rather than critical interpretation, which may limit its audience to fellow military enthusiasts.

This populist work on Vietnam charts the decline of French imperialism in five parts, spanning from 1861-1954; it features four maps and a bibliography. Nearly fifty voices enrich the cast of historical actors, including commanders Vo Nguyen Giap and Henri Navarre, as well as leaders Ho Chi Minh and Dwight D. Eisenhower. Despite a dearth of accessible sources by the Viet Minh, Souster aims to dramatize both sides of the conflict. As in Jubilee of Death, he fashions colloquial first-person speeches from addresses, conversations, diaries, letters, manuals, and memoirs. He also introduces a speaker, "The Author as Amateur Historian," whose explanatory surveys of the action occasionally draw attention to dubious claims or gaps in the record. Verse lines of sixty to eighty letters facilitate narrative momentum while the juxtaposition of eyewitness accounts by civilians and combatants, superiors and subordinates, and imperialists and insurgents fosters a cumulative awareness of historical irony.

What Men Will Die For offers a compelling depiction of the desperate conditions in the doomed French garrison at Dien Bien Phu. The underground hospital, where hundreds of casualties lie exposed to the elements, subject to deadly infections and enemy assaults, is overwhelming in its squalor and suffering. Major Grauwin, M.D., sustained by cigarettes and cognac, works around the clock in his bloody apron, exemplifying heroic endurance. Geneviève de Galard, an air transport nurse and the lone female voice in the book, receives the Croix de Guerre for her tireless efforts to minister to men mutilated by aerial bombing, hand-to-hand combat, and heavy artillery. In a compassionate bid to transcend the hostilities, Dr. Grauwin and his Viet Minh counterpart plan to coordinate care of the wounded after the cease-fire. This retrospective account champions the humanism of medical officers: the urgent needs of dying men outweigh imperialist self-justifications and anti-colonial grievances.

The conclusion of the poem laments unsung voices from both camps in accord with Souster's condemnation of "the supreme uselessness and stupidity of war." Yet material concerns and precise contexts complicate this general theme of futility. Despite its conventional approach to the fortifications, operations, and weapons of war, What Men Will Die For is a powerful indictment of colonialism. The clash of armies and ideologies in Europe and Asia exposes the contradictory logic of empire: French forces mobilized colonial troops to defend their occupation while degrading the ingenuity of their Vietnamese adversaries. Moreover, the carnage at Dien Bien Phu illuminates the unresolved legacies of the World Wars. Authorities preoccupied by the humiliation of France during the Vichy regime (1940-1944) prohibited surrender under fire but paradoxically withheld vital support in Indochina. Notwithstanding summary judgments on the deplorable waste of war, Souster and Green effectively reconstruct a specific turning point in military history. In the process, they stimulate worthwhile reflection on the complex dynamics of historical trauma that shaped the battle of Dien Bien Phu and its divisive aftermath.

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This review originally appeared in Canadian Literature #202 (Autumn 2009), Joe Sacco. (pg. 132 - 133)

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