Tag Archives: Pierre Schoendoerffer

War Movies The 317th Platoon.

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            Having been defeated in a crushing fashion by Germany in 1940 and having been rescued in a humiliating fashion by the Anglo-Americans in 1944, France didn’t want to turn loose of its empire after 1945.[1]  Hence, France fought bloody wars against nationalism in Indochina (1946-1954) and Algeria. 

            As part of the French war effort in Indochina, its intelligence service, SDECE (pr. “Ess-deck”) engaged in paramilitary operations.[2]  The SDECE created the “Groupement de commandos mixtes aeroportes” or “GCMA.”  These “airborne commando groups” took their inspiration from “Operation Jedburgh” during the Second World War.[3]  The “Jeds” were three-man teams parachuted into France primarily, before the invasion of Normandy.  They were sent to contact, train, and lead groups of anti-German “partisans.”[4]  As applied to French Indochina, this meant 2-3 French soldiers (a junior officer or senior non-com and a couple of other non-coms) dispatched to the back country to recruit, train, and lead groups of “partisans” in a guerrilla war against the Viet Minh.[5]  This went on for years without defeating the Viet Minh. 

In December 1953, the French abandoned the GCMA area of operations in northwestern Vietnam.  The commando groups were ordered to march toward the newly-established fortress at Dien Bien Phu.  The small groups found themselves on the run through jungle that the Viet Minh were flooding with troops marching toward the same destination.  Few of them survived.[6] 

Pierre Schoendoerffer (1928-2012)[7] wrote a novel about one of these groups in 1963, although he set it in Cambodia.  Then made a movie from his novel in 1965.[8]  In “The 317th Platoon” (1965), a GCMA group receives orders to withdraw to safety.  The group is led by young lieutenant Torrens, but—in a situation familiar to many old sweats—Sergeant Wilsdorff provides important ballast.  Willsdorff fascinates Torrens.  The sergeant is an Alsatian who was drafted into the Wehrmacht during the Second World; he has many stories about the Russian Front as a result.  Moreover, he is on his third tour of duty in Indochina.  The “partisans” trust Willsdorff, believing that his experience and caution will get them to safety.  It’s not to be.  Although avoiding contact with the enemy is the key to survival, Torrens seizes the opportunity to ambush a Viet Minh column while it is crossing a river.  Thereafter, the little group is hunted into extinction, although Willsdorff may survive. 

Anthony Beevor, a historian both “popular” and highly-regarded, calls “The 317 Platoon” the greatest war movie ever made.  You can watch it—without English subtitles—at Bing Videos

The second best?  Beevor says “The Battle of Algiers.”  I’m inclined to agree. 

[1] Proof that France remained a “great power”?  This is odd, because in other areas, France boldly pursued new paths.  See: Monnet Plan; Schumann Plan, and the ENA. 

[2] See: Service de documentation extérieure et de contre-espionnage – Wikipedia  It isn’t highly reliable, being derived from one secondary source. 

[3] See: Operation Jedburgh – Wikipedia  For more detail and a better interpretation, see: U.S. Army Special Operations in World War II 

[4] On Roger Trinquier, one of the most interesting of GMAC’s leaders, see: Roger Trinquier – Wikipedia 

[5] Vietnam has a lot more ethnic diversity than round-eyes might expect.  In the simplest, most universal case, hill people didn’t like low-landers, and vice versa.  Watch “Rob Roy” (dir. Michael Caton-Jones, 1995). 

[6] Bernard Fall, Hell in a Very Small Place (1967), pp. 64 ff., tells what is known of their fate. 

[7] On Schoendoerffer, see: The 317th Platoon and The Anderson Platoon. | waroftheworldblog 

[8] One of the production assistants was Brigitte Friang (1924-2011).  A remarkable person. 

The 317th Platoon and The Anderson Platoon.

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Not that you would know it from Anglophone publishers, but sometimes Frenchmen get bitten by the adventure bug. The results can be fascinating.

Henri de Monfried (1879-1974) was the son of a French painter. One of his father’s friends was Paul Gauguin, which explains a lot. When he hit thirty, de Monfried junked conventional life. He went to Djibouti, built a dhow, and went into the smuggling business around the Red Sea. He smuggled guns and opium, and fished for pearls, but insisted that he had never been a slaver. He became a well-known, respected, and prosperous figure. Which ought to tell you something about the neighborhood. In 1930, he encountered Joseph Kessel, who was passing through looking for adventure. Kessel (1898–1979) was a Lithuanian Jew born in Argentina, then raised in Russia and France. He served in the French air force in the First World War. Between the wars he wrote ten books. One of Kessel’s interwar books was Fortune carree (1932), based on some of Monfried’s experiences (or, at least, on his stories).[1]

Pierre Schoendoerffer (1928-2012) lost his grandfather (1917) and father (1940) fighting the Germans. When he was fifteen he read Kessel’s Fortune carree and decided that was the life for him. He spent the summer of 1946 on a fishing boat in the Bay of Biscay, then traded on that experience to get hired on a merchant ship in 1947. He did this for a couple of years, then spent a couple of years doing his military service in the “Chasseurs alpins” (mountain troops). Peacetime soldiering had been dull, but a rebellion had broken out in Indochina. In 1951 he re-enlisted and volunteered for a documentary film unit that was going east. He spent three years in Indochina, including serving with the “paras” and the Foreign Legionnaires at Dien Bien Phu (1954) and in the brutal Vietminh prison camp afterward. Back in civvy-street, he went into making documentaries and films based on his experience. Several are about the Vietnam wars.

“The 317th Platoon” (1965) takes place in French Indochina in 1954.[2] Dien Bien Phu has just fallen and the Vietminh are on the offensive. The garrison of a tiny post of Foreign Legionnaires out in the boonies is ordered to retreat to the main lines. The dominant figures are the commander—a high-minded, but wet-behind-the-ears lieutenant—and his top-kick—a German veteran of the Eastern Front. Most of the troops are Vietnamese now caught on the losing side of a civil war. The retreat begins in a light-hearted fashion (they lug their refrigerator along), but soon turns grim. A spectacularly filmed ambush of some Vietminh brings the hunters down on the little group. They are gnawed away to nothing. You can watch the trailer at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oiHhA8p8Ous

“The Anderson Platoon” (1967) takes place in South Vietnam in 1966. It is a documentary record of Schoendoerffer’s six weeks with a platoon of the 1st Cavalry Division commanded by Lieutenant Joseph Anderson. Hence, the film has less of an overt structure and message than does “The 317th Platoon.” The platoon marches through the countryside seeking the enemy, fording streams, pushing through tall grass and trees. Occasionally they make contact in little fire fights that seem to accomplish nothing. Occasionally they go on morose leave in Saigon. You can watch the movie at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iw_7AJjd6Yo

[1] Later on, Kessel answered Charles de Gaulle’s “appeal” for support in June 1940 and flew in the Free French Air Force. One of his fellow flyers was Romain Gary, another Lithuanian Jew turned French author. Later on, Gary wrote the adventure novel The Roots of Heaven (1956), then co-wrote the screen-play with Patrick Leigh Fermor. Later on, de Monfried retired to a little French village. He raised opium poppies in his garden.

[2] One of the production assistants was Brigitte Friang (1924-2011). A remarkable person.