French Text This book is the testimony, often funny, sometimes moving, of a young officer engaged in a conflict far from home. This is also a tremendous day by day account of the daily life of a French officer on post in the heart of Thailand. A life amongst the partisans, a life of random aerial resupply, thanks to the Vietminh that infiltrated the country, of contact with the local populations, of their customs. Lt Le Merre describes his role as commander of his post with a lot of humor and a keen sense of the observation. Until November 18 1952. This was when, under the pressure of the Vietminh, the post of Bay Lay succumbed to the assault of five enemy battalions. After vigrous defense and out of ammunition Le Merre was captured. After an exhausting march towards the Northeast of the Tonkin, he joined the sadly famous Camp n° 1 where French officers were held. There he spent 22 months of testing captivity where the indoctrination and deprivations of all sorts never defeated his natural optimism, before rediscovering liberty, in September 1954 at the armistice
