Groupement de Commandos Mixtes Aeroportes

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During the First Indochina War, the Groupement de Commandos Mixtes Aeroportes (GCMA) were a French special operations unit, sponsored by both the SDECE intelligence agency and the French Army, which led guerilla operations behind enemy lines. They were commanded by Roger Trinquier , a prominent French special operator and later counterinsurgent in the Algerian War.

While GCMA was created by the French military commander in 1950, it had close ties to the French Service de Documentation Exterieure et de Contra-Espionage (SDECE). Its mission, equivalents to which would largely become part of United States Army Special Forces when they were created in 1952, had three parts: The GCMA was created to execute a three-part mission:[1]

  1. Establish French-led indigenous counter-guerrilla groups to be called "Maquis."
  2. Set up escape and evasion routes where needed.
  3. Organize sabotage squads.

Their experience, to some extent, affected the doctrine for United States Army Special Forces, which were created in 1952. It has been suggested that American policymakers, however, forgot French lessons learned in both Vietnam and Algeria. [2]

The GCMA had some successes, but their role became moot with the cease-fire. [3] The 1954 Geneva accords left no mechanism to recover French-affiliated forces behind enemy lines. They were cut off without support, and are generally believed to have died in combat. A quote, estimated as from 1956, appears in a number of military sources; a French sergeant cursed an aircraft "for not dropping them ammunition so they could die like men." [4]

References

  1. War Story: Col. Roger Trinquier and French Special Ops in the First Indochina War, 17 July 2006
  2. Padre Steve (27 September 2009), "The Effects of Counter-Insurgency Operations on U.S. and French Forces in Vietnam and Algeria and Implications for Afghanistan", Padresteve's World…Musings of a Passionate Moderate
  3. Cassidy, Robert M. (Summer 2006), "The Long Small War: Indigenous Forces for Counterinsurgency", Parameters: 47-62
  4. Windrow, Martin. “The Last Valley: Dien Bien Phu and the French Defeat in Vietnam,” Da Capo Press, Novato, CA 2006, originally published by Weidenfeld and Nicholson, London 2004, quoted by Padre Steve, p. 652