The Battle of Muong Khoua took place between April 13 and May 18, 1953, in northern Laos during the French Indochina War. A garrison of a dozen French and 300 Laotian troops occupied a fortified outpost in the hills above the village of Muong Khoua, across the border from Điện Biên Phủ. Muong Khoua was among the last French outposts in northern Laos following the decision of the French High Command to string several isolated garrisons through the region in order to buy time to fortify the major Laotian cities against Việt Minh attack.
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| - The Battle of Muong Khoua took place between April 13 and May 18, 1953, in northern Laos during the French Indochina War. A garrison of a dozen French and 300 Laotian troops occupied a fortified outpost in the hills above the village of Muong Khoua, across the border from Điện Biên Phủ. Muong Khoua was among the last French outposts in northern Laos following the decision of the French High Command to string several isolated garrisons through the region in order to buy time to fortify the major Laotian cities against Việt Minh attack.
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| - A Bearcat of the Aéronavale drops napalm on Việt Minh forces in the jungle. Air support formed a vital lifeline for the Muong Khoua garrison.
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| - One battalion and
- supporting mortar detachment.
- ~310, four known survivors.
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| - Sources give the strength of the French force as 300 Laotians, and a “dozen” French. Four are known to have made it to a second French outpost.
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| - Việt Minh
- French Union
* France
* Kingdom of Laos
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| - – Bernard Fall recounts the appearance of soldiers having endured a retreat through the jungle, such as those who survived Muong Khoua.
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| - "Like Christ off the Cross" was an expression which became current in Indochina to describe survivors from those harrowing retreats through the jungle. And usually that is exactly what they looked like: worn down to skeletons from hunger and dysentery, sunken eyes, the typical tropical pallor ... their emaciated faces curtained by shaggy beards, and their skins covered with festering sores, from heat rash to leech bites and jungle rot.
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| - The Battle of Muong Khoua took place between April 13 and May 18, 1953, in northern Laos during the French Indochina War. A garrison of a dozen French and 300 Laotian troops occupied a fortified outpost in the hills above the village of Muong Khoua, across the border from Điện Biên Phủ. Muong Khoua was among the last French outposts in northern Laos following the decision of the French High Command to string several isolated garrisons through the region in order to buy time to fortify the major Laotian cities against Việt Minh attack. Many of these garrisons were given orders by radio to dig in and fight the approaching Việt Minh forces. Following the fall of a satellite strong point at Sop-Nao, the troops at Muong Khoua under Captain Teullier resisted a Việt Minh siege force for thirty-six days while supported by air-dropped supplies and air strikes. The small French force repelled several direct attacks and endured a series of artillery bombardments. Two of the three strong points of the outpost eventually fell in the early morning of May 18, and by midday the French force lay defeated. Four soldiers—two French and two Laotian—reached another French position away after six days of travel through the jungle, however no one else escaped. The resistance of the French garrison became a popular rallying cry for French troops in Indochina as well serving as a precursor to French and Việt Minh strategies at the decisive Battle of Điện Biên Phủ the following year.
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