Landing craft loaded with French troops make their way through the Bamboo Canal in Vietnam. Troops disembark from the landing craft on river bank near port of Coi-Co at the junction of Song-Thai-Binh. They cross open fields and canal ( some with supplies on their backs). Local children seen with water buffaloes. A truck is ferried across the canal. Advance is held up as they encounter Viet-Minh resistance at a village. French soldiers dig in. They fire machine guns and mortars. Thatched-roofed house burns as they occupy the village.
French troops cross canal in Indochina. French fliers in Grumman F8 F Bearcat and B-26 bombers strafe and bomb enemy positions. Explosions on ground. French soldiers fire from trenches. Wounded soldiers are treated. A French soldier searches and removes weapons from a dead comrade. Dead Vietnamese.
French soldiers combat Viet-Minh in Indochina. French artillerymen load and fire 105 mm Howitzers. Armed French infantry advance through jungles and pass burning huts.
French troops load and fire 105 mm Howitzers in Indochina. A large number of Viet-Minh prisoners walk with hands on their heads, escorted by armed French soldiers. The prisoners are all stripped to the waist. They carry wounded comrade on litter. Some carrying food supplies, including life pigs, on poles over their shoulders. French soldiers treat wounded comrades. A French B-26 flies overhead.
French North African Colonial troops board a C-47 aircraft. Equipment loaded onto plane at Gia Lam Airfield in Hanoi. The troops seated inside the C-47 aircraft. The aircraft taxis and takes off. Numerous C-47 transport aircraft on the ground. General Salan converses with Deo-Van-Long, Chief of the Thai country. French Moroccan Colonial troops move off airfield, through village and towards an improvised camp. A C-47 takes off. Several oxen are seen on Laichau airfield. A radio operator seated alongside his equipment.
Scene of a Viet Minh attack on the Bai-Thao outpost in Indochina. View of Improvised French military camp site located 15 km from Sept-Pagodes and 8 km from Bentam. A French radio operator seated at a table alongside his equipment. French troops stand nearby and use binoculars to survey the camp area. A crowd gathered around corpses. Feet of one are tied together. Bullets lie near a corpse on the ground. Fly infested corpses after the attack. A sign post reads 'Bai-Thao'. An ambulance truck makes its way past the sign on a dirt road. French Officers talk with a Vietnamese boy. A French soldier stands near an artillery piece and looks out at a winding river. Vietnamese woman rides in a bicycle rickshaw and a man pulls a hand cart in front of French soldiers in parked Sherman tank. Three soldiers look out of the tank hatches. An officer stands atop the tank.