"The Last Valley"

The Last Valley: Dien Bien Phu and the French Defeat in Vietnam (Martin Windrow)

Here we go again: Another one of my patented huge (656 pages without bibliography), depressing (see subtitle), immensely gripping (see grade) history books. Windrow makes good use of the expansive page count, giving flavorful detail and context to the titular battle, and sticking around for 50 pages afterwards the close the case. The detail Windrow can go into at times will drill all the way down to the kind of rice holder a typical Veit Minh soldier would carry his rations in, so by the time the battle starts you're well acquainted with each force, which does make it a little more depressing when they're killing each other with mortar rounds, napalm, all kinds of guns, flamethrowers, and eventually spades and fists as the battle devolves into horrible trench fighting.
The only complaint I have - and I had to look far and wide for something to complain about - is that Windrow can occasionally get a little over-enthusiastic about listing all the units posted to a location; I understand why, but I eventually started skipping these parts, as I had enough trouble keeping the divisions straight, let alone the battalions and companies. With that aside, if you're interested in the subject at all, this is the book to get.

Grade: A-