Operation Camargue was one of the largest operations by the French Far East Expeditionary

Corps and Vietnamese National Army in the First Indochina War. It took place from 28 July until
10 August 1953. French armored platoons, airborne units and troops delivered by landing craft to
the coast of central Annam, modern-day Vietnam, attempted to sweep forces of
the communist Viet Minh from the critical Route One.
The first landings took place in the early morning on 28 July, and reached the first objectives, an
inland canal, without major incident. A secondary phase of mopping-up operations began in a
"labyrinth of tiny villages" where French armored forces suffered a series of ambushes.
[6]

Reinforced by paratroopers, the French and their Vietnamese allies tightened a net around the

defending Viet Minh, but delays in the movement of French forces left gaps through which most
of the Viet Minh guerillas, and many of the arms caches the operation was expected to seize,
escaped. For the French, this validated the claim that it was impossible to operate tight ensnaring
operations in Vietnam's jungle, due to the slow movement of their troops, and a foreknowledge by
the enemy, which was difficult to prevent. From then on, the French focused on creating strong
fortified positions, against which Viet Minh General Gip could pit his forces, culminating
in Opration Castor and the Battle of Dien Bien Phu.[7]
With the French forces withdrawn from the operation by the late summer of 1953, Viet Minh
Regiment 95 re-infiltrated Route One and resumed ambushes of French convoys, retrieving
weapons caches missed by the French forces. Regiment 95 occupied the area for the remainder
of the First Indochina War and were still operating there as late as 1962 against the South
Vietnamese Army during the Second Indochina, or Vietnam War.[8]