laststandonzombieisland

October 1953, French Indochina. A locally recruited paratrooper of 2e Bataillon du 1e Régiment de Chasseurs Parachutistes (2/1er RCP) posted in observation and firing position, on the edge of Phu Nho Quan (Nho-Quan district) during Operation Mouette (Seagull). As a sign of being in an elite unit, he is armed with a new 10-shot 7.5mm MAS 49 rifle outfitted with an APX L806 scope– a decent setup for the time– and clad in a combination of TAP 47 uniform and American “Beo Gam” duck hunter camo. Also, note the American bino case and canteen. 

Mouette, which ran throughout October and into December, would see a 24,000-man French force attempt to encircle and defeat a Viet Minh divisional-sized element around the Phu Nho Quan area, south of the Red River Delta. In the end, the French withdrew, claiming a tactical victory, and the area “pacified,” citing that the Viet Minh had suffered “at least 10 times the casualties” they had inflicted in return (~750) on the men of the Republic.

As for the 1er RCP, it was formed 80 years ago this month in Oujda, Morocco on 7 October 1943, 11 months after the Torch Landings, made up of 10 companies and an HHC group, with a cadre from the old 1re Compagnie parachutiste, which had been formed in 1941 from remnants of two earlier French air force paratrooper companies (601e GIA, 602e GIA) that had shifted to Oued Smar aerodrome outside of Algiers post-Fall of France.

They had already been bloodied in service to the Allies, with volunteers accompanying the U.S. 2/509th Parachute Infantry Regiment during the raid to destroy a bridge in El Djem, Tunisia on Christmas Eve 1942.

The French paras trained side-by-side at Oujda with the U.S. 505th Parachute Infantry Regiment (82nd Airborne Div) and, by D-Day, sent several sticks over Normandy in 15 small jumps on June 6, 1944, to help establish bases in the German rear in association with SOE and BCRA.

Their first company-size operation was on 5 August, when 84 men of 2nd Coy and 83 of 3rd Coy, as part of the French 3rd battalion of Special Air Service, jumped in Operation Derry 1, 2, 3, to protect bridges around Ploudaniel, Saint-Jean du Doigt, and Finistère, France. Later jumps were made in the enemy’s rear to harass the German withdrawal from Southern France while more men were detached for service and embedded with Allied paratroopers for the Dragoon Landings.

Then came lots of use as traditional infantry in the Vosges and Colmar regions.

Later in the war, they would make small jumps into Holland as late as April 1945.

When it came to Indochina, the RCP would send two companies in late 1946, making their first (of 21) combat jumps in the region there at Sam Neva, Laos on 23 March 1947 before the whole unit was eventually deployed, even turning to local recruitment and an in-theatre parachute school to keep it flush.

Some of the biggest Indochina missions for the regiment included dropping 450 men in Operation Papillon 1, to capture Hoa Binh in April 1947, a 532-man airborne inserted search and destroy operation between Cu Van and La Hien dropped on 26 November 1947, Operation Pingouin, where 283 men were dropped to neutralize a Vietminh unit at Hoang Xa in September 1948; seizing Son Tay with a full 734-man airdropped battalion in November 1948, a 1,000-man raid on Day in December (revisited the next year in Operation Pegase with a similar force), 331 men recapturing Nam Dinh in 1949’s Operation Anthracite, and their Indochine swan song– setting down among 2,650 massed paratroopers to establish a base at a remote place known as Dien Bien Phu on 20 November 1954.

Then came Algeria, Lebanon, Chad, the Central African Republic, Bosnia, Afghanistan, the Ivory Coast, Haiti, Mali, etc.

Today, the regiment is part of the 11th Parachute Brigade (11e BP) and their motto is “Vaincre ou mouri“– Victory or Death.

And they very much remember their past.