On March 9, 1945, as part of their coup d'état in French Indochina, Imperial Japanese Army forces in Tonkin attacked two battalions of the 19ème RMIC at Hà Cối. Two days later, the regiment commanding officer, Lieutenant Colonel Charles LeCocq, was killed in action while leading a counter-attack. His body would have been left behind were it not for the sharp-shooter Hoang Duc Phung who recovered it with Đổng's mortar support.