The Last Valley
Subtitle: Dien Bien Phu And the French Defeat in Vietnam
Publisher: Da Capo Press
Published: January 30, 2006
Language: eng
Format: Paperback
Number of pages: 734
ISBN-13: 9780306814433
Subjects: Asian / Middle Eastern history: postwar, from c 1945 -; Battles & campaigns; c 1945 to c 1960; Military - Other; Military Tactics And Strategy; Southeast Asia - History; History; History - Military / War; Military; France; Vietnam; Military - Vietnam War; Asia - Southeast Asia; Europe - France; Dien Bien Phu, Battle of, £iãòen Biãen Phàu, Vietnam, 1954
First sentence: ON A CRISP, SUNNY WINTER'S day on a red earth hilltop in North Vietnam, a young Californian named Howard Simpson was reluctantly fishing around with borrowed chopsticks in a lunchtime bowl of pho soup, while trying to ignore the stench of torn-up corpses festooning the barbed wire a few yards away.