by Eric Meyer
Avril stood frozen, numbed by the furious firefight, and amazed to still be alive. The sergeant came up to him. Avril reached out and shook his hand.
“Thank you, Sergeant. You saved our lives, without question. We were finished.”
“You’re welcome, Lieutenant. Very welcome.”
“Corporal,” he shouted to one of his legionnaires. “Do we have any wounded? No? Good, but get some help for the paras. Some of them look hurt.”
Avril looked again and then blinked. The Sergeant wore a death’s head enamel badge pinned to his uniform. The Lieutenant looked around, and most of the other legionnaires also wore similar death’s head insignia on their uniforms. Then he remembered the battle shouts, ‘Deutschland’, so what was that all about?
“You’re Germans, yes? That badge. You’re Nazis!”
“Sieg Heil,” the Sergeant replied, smiling broadly. “Ex-Nazis, actually, my friend. We’re all on the same side now, and not all of us are German. We have some Vietnamese, Montagnards, hill fighters and several North Africans, Muslims. Even men from the Ukraine and Russia, and some of them are Orthodox Christians. But our biggest group by far is German.”
“Wherever you’re from, thank God you came,” Avril replied.
He looked around at the legionnaires, and they looked exceptionally tough, a group of hard, competent veterans. Their uniforms were a collection of official Legion issue and personal items. Their equipment was similarly a mix of standard and non-standard. Most were festooned with bandoliers, hand grenades and each carried a submachine gun, mostly the German MP40. They all looked hard, savage, but with an air of calm assurance. These were men who’d done this many, many times before. Savagely fallen on a foe many times their number and wiped them out through sheer force of hard precision soldiering, delivered with a vicious savagery that seemed calculated and confident. This savagery terrifying an enemy without allowing their own emotions to impair their almost robotic, production line killing.
“Lieutenant, the monkeys will reform before long, and then they’ll be back. They may even have mortars, so we need to get off this hill.”
“How did you find us?” Avril asked him.
“We were ordered to Mao Khe. General de Lattre has got wind of a big Viet force in the area. Our friend Giap is stirring up lots of trouble for us, it seems. We were heading for the town when we heard the shooting, so we detoured to take a look.”
“Lucky for us you did. It’s the first time I’ve been happy to meet a German with a machine gun,” Avril smiled.
“I’m Lieutenant Avril, Andre Avril, 6th Colonial Parachute Battalion.”
“And I’m Sergeant Jurgen Hoffman, Sir. A Company, 2nd Battalion, 13th Half Brigade, Foreign Legion.”
“And before the Foreign Legion, Sergeant?”
Hoffman stared at him. Then he grinned.
“Waffen-SS, Das Reich, Panzer Infantry. My rank was SS-Sturmbannführer. Is that a problem for you, Lieutenant?”
“Not at all, Sergeant, what’s done is done. We’re all damn grateful to you and your men. What next, do you think?”
They were interrupted by a whistling sound, and a mortar shell arced high in the sky, descending towards them.
“Down!” shouted Hoffman.
He grabbed Avril and flung him to the ground. The shell exploded just past the crest of the hill, showering them with dirt and foliage, but there were no casualties.
Hoffman leapt to his feet and began shouting orders, “Grab your equipment, and check your weapons, men. Point men, we’re going out the way we came in. Move out, go, go!”
“Lieutenant, get your men ready. I suggest you march in the middle of my unit. We’ll hand out spare ammunition on the way. Let’s go.”
Avril stood open mouthed for a moment. He was a paratrooper, a lieutenant in the elite of the French army, indeed, the elite of any army. This legionnaire sergeant was like a whirlwind rushing him along, and with no time for planning, consultation, and command decisions.
“Sergeant, should we not...”
Another mortar shell slammed into the hilltop. They managed to drop flat, but two of Avril’s men were too slow and still on their feet when it landed. The metal fragments sliced through them, leaving butchered pieces of flesh flying through the air.
“Whatever it is, Lieutenant, save it for later. We’re going. Move out!”
The point men were already halfway down the reverse side of the hill, and machine gunners were covering them against any possible ambush. Hoffman’s sharpshooters covered the Viet Minh positions, and fired when any of them dared to show his face out of the jungle in possible preparation for an attack. Avril could see two corporals pushing his own men into position in the centre of the Foreign Legion column. Hoffman grabbed him. “Come, Lieutenant. Our place is at the front, that’s the way we do it in the Legion. In the Waffen-SS, too,” he laughed.
The two commanders, Sergeant and Lieutenant, ran to the front of the column and began trekking down the hill, their men following. As soon as they reached the bottom, the machine gunners joined the main group, then the sharpshooters. The rearguard joined them just as they were moving into the dark green foliage, and out of sight of the hilltop which soon would be swarming with Viet Minh. They entered the jungle and followed a track the legionnaires seemed to be familiar with, marching on for two kilometres. Seeing Avril glancing around him, Hoffman explained.
“This path leads to Mao Khe, Lieutenant. General de Lattre invited us to join him there. I’ve ordered our quartermaster to supply your men with fresh ammunition. I trust you were headed to Mao Khe too?”
Avril was still stunned by the suddenness of the Viet Minh attack which could have been the end of his entire command, and the ferocious assault and rescue by these German-led legionnaires.
“I will need to contact my HQ for further orders, Sergeant.”
“Orders?” Hoffman looked puzzled. “Were you not ordered to join the action at Mao Khe?”
“Yes, of course, but…” Avril was interrupted.
“Then that’s where we’re going. Keep moving. The Viets will already be looking for us.”
The Sergeant pressed forward, leading a blistering pace. Avril could feel himself beginning to tire, but it would be embarrassing to admit it to this ex-Nazi. Then he heard a shout from his men.
“Sir, we’ve got two men down, both wounded. We need to stop for a rest.”
Avril shouted over to Hoffman.
“Sergeant, you heard, we need to take a break.”
The German smiled at him.
“You take a break and you die, Lieutenant. The Viets will be up behind us. Do you want your men killed?”
Avril boiled over. He was greatly indebted to the Sergeant for their rescue, but he had wounded who needed tending to.
“No, but neither do I want my wounded to die from lack of basic medical care. We take a break, and that’s an order, Sergeant.”
Hoffman shrugged, turned and made a hand signal. Instantly, his men deployed sharpshooters and machine gunners, rushing out to make guard points to the front and rear of the column.
“The Lieutenant ordered a rest, men. Keep sharp, the Viet Minh are all around us.” He turned to look at Avril.
“What now, Sir?” he put an emphasis on the ‘Sir’. Avril knew he was being mocked, but the German’s arrogance was irritating, and besides his wounded did need attention.
Sergeant Hoffman wore a black ‘Schiff’, a German side cap popular in the Waffen-SS, instead of the regulation Foreign Legion beret. He was a complicated man and possibly an unrepentant Nazi, but a fine soldier. The Lieutenant knew he was totally and utterly outclassed in military matters by what this SS veteran had demonstrated on the hilltop, but he was determined to show him that a Frenchman could be his equal. He went to his men and double-checked their supplies. The legionnaires had replenished their ammunition during the march, so they had enough bullets to fight with.
“Make sure the wounded can walk, Corporal. Give th
em as much help as they need. We’ll be leaving shortly. You should…”
An outbreak of firing cut off his words. The Viet Minh had caught up and were attacking in strength.
Hoffman’s machine guns had opened up, and the rearguard caught the pursuing Viet Minh unawares. The heavy MG34’s fired in quick short bursts, and the answering screams an eloquent testimony to their deadly accuracy and rate of fire. Four sharpshooters went hurtling back to join them. Within seconds, the crack of their measured, aimed shots added to the crescendo and chaos of the MG34’s firing over the sound of the Viet Minh Soviet made SKS rifles, the chatter of the MAT 49’s and home-made Sten guns directly copied from the British design that the Viets were using in increasing numbers.
At the start of the war, the Viet Minh didn’t have the means to acquire weaponry in large quantities. Initially, these hurdles were overcome by the use of looted weapons, stolen from the Japanese and later the French. Nationalist China provided some training facilities and weaponry during WW2 as part of the American-led scheme of anti-Japanese partisans. Much Japanese weaponry fell into Viet Minh hands during the confusion of the Japanese surrender in 1945.
Later, with the Communist victory in China of 1949, secure bases for training and weapon production could be placed beyond or close to the Chinese border with Tonkin. The quantity and diversity of Viet Minh weaponry increased steadily throughout the war, as did the skill with which this material was distributed, and the training standards of the regular troops.
The VM readily produced numerous clandestine arms workshops throughout Vietnam. They also established a hidden factory in Thailand and others just across the Chinese border in Yunnan. These eventually produced rifles, SMGs, grenades, ammunition, mortars, RCLs, bazookas, mines, Bangalore Torpedoes and other explosive devices. The first factories were set up to produce the relatively simple British Sten gun, using machinery and material either bought or stolen. During 1946-47, these workshops produced around 30,000 Sten guns. Less than accurate at anything other than short range fighting, they were devastating in the sudden surprise attacks frequently encountered by French forces in Indochina.
“We need to move, Lieutenant. It seems your rest has been terminated by our monkey friends.”
Avril shrugged off Hoffman’s arrogant, goading remark. It was true they needed to move fast to get away from these marauding guerrillas snapping at their heels, and rejoin the main French forces that were facing Giap at Mao Khe. He shouted to his men.
“Move out.”
Hoffman’s legionnaires needed no orders. They were up, and ready to move, in a strong mobile defensive formation.
“Let’s go,” Hoffman shouted.
For the next thirty minutes, they fought a running battle. Avril was astounded at the speed and professionalism of these Foreign Legion fighters. Their style of fighting looked somehow familiar, when he realised where he’d seen it before. In old German wartime newsreels, when he was a young man in occupied France. The Germans were always keen to show off the prowess of their conquering armies.
What he was seeing was the very embodiment of a Waffen-SS fighting unit engaged in a running battle, fast, hard hitting, and with the unit commander leading from the front. Hoffman had trained his men to fight as an SS unit, attacking where the enemy was strongest. Avril noted that Hoffman himself seemed to be everywhere at once, joining the machine gunners and sharpshooters to check their progress and constantly monitoring their positions, the men and the equipment.
It was not the French way, where a degree of separation was usually considered correct between the officers, NCO’s and men. The officer gave orders to a subordinate structure of sergeants and corporals, who passed his wishes on to the men. Now, the SS style of fighting had arrived in Vietnam. Perhaps they were needed, reflected Avril. Without them, his command would have been overrun.
The previous year, Giap’s forces had torn apart the French defenders along Route Coloniale 4, following the retreat from Cao Bang, giving them virtually the keys to the whole of Northern Tonkin, the far north of the country.
The Battle of Cao Bang was an ongoing campaign in northern Indochina during the Indochina War, between the French Far East Expeditionary Corps and the Viet Minh, which began in October 1947 and ended in September 1949.
Since the start of the conflict, Viet Minh troops had ambushed French convoys along the Vietnam-China border from the Gulf of Tonkin on a hundred and forty seven mile route to a French garrison at Cao Bang, known as Route Colonial 4, or RC4. Repeated ambushes led to French operations of increasing strength to reopen the road, including a costly mission by the Foreign Legion in February 1948.
On July 25th, 1948, the Cao Bang encampment was itself attacked and held out for three days, with two companies defending against two battalions of Viet Minh; a further twenty-eight ambushes took place in 1948.
In February 1949, five Viet Minh battalions and mortar units took a French post at Lao Cai and resumed ambushes through the monsoon season.
On September 3rd, 1949, one hundred vehicles left That Khe in a reinforced convoy on a sixteen-mile drive through infantry screens. The French, reduced to one soldier per vehicle due to troop numbers, were ambushed by automatic fire. The first twenty trucks were halted, as were the final ten, and the middle of the convoy was cut down by shellfire. The following day, French troops reoccupied the surrounded hilltops. However, only four French wounded were found alive.
The campaign at Cao Bang resulted in a change in convoy practices for the remainder of the war. Vehicles now travelled from post to post, in ten to twelve vehicle convoys, through security screens of French troops and with aircraft observation. In 1950, supply convoys to Cao Bang were discontinued in favour of air supply.
Giap had tried to repeat his recent stunning victory at Vinh Yen, but this time the French routed his troops. Now he was trying again to defeat the French in a major action at Mao Khe. The Vietnamese guerrillas seemed to be everywhere at once, sniping and ambushing the colonial forces almost at will.
Avril shuddered for even thinking it, as he was the victim of the brutal Nazi conquerors in his own native land of France. Yet here he was on the opposite side, and it was the French who were the colonial conquerors, fighting a desperate action to try and contain the communists. With men like Hoffman, and his SS-trained legionnaires, it would certainly make a difference.
He laughed to himself, imagining telling the French High Command to adopt SS fighting tactics. That would be the end of his career. He might just find himself in charge of a barracks storeroom outside of Marseille. He heard a shout ahead. They were nearing the edge of the jungle, and in the distance he could see the buildings of Mao Khe. There was a tricolour flag on a pole. Thank God, the French were still in command of the town.
As abruptly as they had appeared, the Viet Minh who’d dogged their heels during the withdrawal from the hilltop retreated back into the jungle, their noses bloodied by Hoffman’s incisive and determined rear guard defence.
No more French troops had been hit, and the legionnaires estimated the enemy casualties at around eighty or ninety. Avril had no reason to doubt it; a stunning result, and now they had rejoined the main army.
They marched into the town, saluting the flag as they went past.
“I must leave you now, Lieutenant,” Hoffman said.
“My unit is camped the other side of the town. I wish you good luck.”
He held out his hand, and Avril took it.
“Thank you, Sergeant Hoffman.”
“You are very welcome, my friend,” he smiled, sardonically.
“A little compensation from the Reich, Ja?”
“Fuck you,” Avril replied, but he smiled to take the sting out of the words as he walked away.
He found the headquarters of the 6th Colonial Parachute Battalion and went to report on his unit action and casualties, including the death of their commander, Captain Balmain. A full colonel sat at a folding table, pouring over maps of the area. Avril mad
e his report, including the part played by Hoffman’s legionnaires.
“He seemed to know what his was doing, this Sergeant Hoffman,” Avril told the Colonel.
The Colonel goggled at him.
“Seemed to know? Hoffman? You don’t know him? He’s a superb soldier, Lieutenant. He’s still only a sergeant because of the rules in the Legion that uniquely allow only Frenchmen to be officers.”
“Yes, he told me he was German, and a member of the Waffen-SS during the war.”
The Colonel smiled at him.
“That’s true. Hoffman’s not his real name, so I understand. Like most former SS men, he took an assumed name when he joined the Legion. You know that after 1947, our government prohibited any former SS being recruited into the Legion, but by that time, of course, many had already joined.”
“How did they know who was SS and who was not?” Avril asked.
“By the tattoo, Lieutenant, the blood type tattoo under the armpit, that almost all SS recruits were required to have. The idea was that if they were wounded in battle, they would get matching blood in the event a transfusion was needed. When the war turned against Germany, many SS recruits declined the tattoo, especially when it became known that SS soldiers taken prisoner were subjected to terrible torture. So many recruits in the Legion were unknown to us as former SS.”
“I see. Well, Hoffman is certainly a good man in a fight.”
“Good?” The Colonel’s smile broadened. “Yes, he is good. He apparently joined the Waffen-SS in the ranks as a private soldier. He was commissioned quite early on, after destroying two Soviet tanks singlehanded on the Eastern Front, using hand held Panzerfausts. He once showed me the tank destroyer badges, and Hoffman earned a total of five before the war ended. He holds the Iron Cross First Class with Oak Leaves for bravery, heaven knows how many lesser medals, wound badges, campaign medals, cuff titles, you name it and he was there! He reached the rank of Sturmbannführer, that’s equivalent to Major, before his wounds took him out of the battlefield just before the war ended. He ended up in a French POW camp, from where he was recruited to the Legion. He was one of the most highly decorated soldiers in his regiment, SS Das Reich. Our commanders here turned a blind eye when the government banned ex-SS volunteers, and they flatly refused to throw him out. You were lucky he came to your aid. The Viets know of him, and they have a price on his head. I believe it currently stands at ten thousand United States dollars.”