This started as mop-up operation carried out by the 22e BTA (
22e Bataillon de Tirailleurs Algériens / 22nd Algerian Shooting-Skirmisher Battalion), from 6 to 8 October 1950, launched following the footsteps of an enemy formation that massacred the garrison of a small post of observation in the region of Tra Vinh, in Cochinchina (Southern Vietnam).
The battalion excavated the ruins of the post towers that the Viet-Minh blew up, finding political leaflets from the Viet-Minh commissariat. The battalion advanced through rice fields and undergrowth to a suspicious point, where a violent and very up-close Viet-Minh ambush began, but was stopped abruptly by the
tirailleurs' response, ending in hand-to-hand combat.
The battalion regrouped, caring for the wounded, investigating Viet-Minh corpses, and interrogating Viet-Minh guerrillas taken prisoner. After a moment of rest, the battalion made its painful return through difficult terrain until it joined up with one of the RECs (
Régiment Étranger de Cavalerie / Foreign Cavalry Regiment) equipped with amphibious Weasel M29C vehicles
(called "Crabes" by the French), and finally their respective return to their base.
In the Tra Vinh region, the 22nd BTA tirailleurs search the ruins of a small observation post destroyed overnight by the Viet-Minh. In the foreground, a tirailleur armed with the
MAS 38 submachine gun .
Algerian Tirailleurs excavate the rubble from the small observation post. The soldiers, armed with MAS 36 rifles, prick the bayonet into the ground to probe the ground and stir the ashes carefully, as the presence of traps is likely.
Vietnamese propaganda leaflets abandoned by a "Can Bo" (political commissioner in charge of indoctrination of the population) are seized by the soldiers of the 22nd BTA in the ruins of a small observation post in the region of Tra Vinh, to be forwarded to the battalion's intelligence officer .
A company of Algerian tirailleurs from the 22e BTA is struggling through a rice paddy during the operation.
The fire base of the combat group, armed with an FM Châtellerault 24/29, unleashes suppressive fire to break the assault of the Viet-Minh.
The tirailleurs repel a frontal attack by Viet-Minh elements. A projectile (a rifle grenade) explodes in the rice field, raising a column of water.
Algerian Tirailleurs are frontally assaulted and open fire to stop the attack of the "Du Kich" (Viet-Minh guerrillas) during a clash in Tra Vinh, October 1950. A French rifle grenade explodes close-by before hand-to-hand combat ensues.
At the end of the brief but violent confrontation with Viêt-Minh, a 22nd BTA tirailleur quenches the thirst of one of his injured companions. The latter, lying on a stretcher and bandaged quickly, kept his MAS 38 submachine gun with him.
While his comrades contemplate the extent of the damage, a 22e BTA tirailleur, armed with a MAS 36 rifle, remains covered and housed in the ruins of the destroyed small observation post, whose weak garrison has been slaughtered and the infrastructure dynamited or set on fire.