The Groupement de commandos mixtes aéroportés ( en, Mixed Airborne Commando Group) commonly referred as just GCMA, was the "Action Service" of the SDECE French counter-intelligence service active during the Cold War. The GCMA's origins lay in the British - U.S - French joint

Operation Jedburgh Operation Jedburgh was a clandestine operation during World War II in which three-man teams of operatives of the British Special Operations Executive (SOE), the U.S. Office of Strategic Services (OSS), the Free French Bureau central de renseigne ...

in France in 1944.

History

Commando Nord Viet-Nam (1951-1954)

The North Vietnam Commandos (''Commando Nord Viet-Nam'') were units similar to the GCMA. They were created in 1951 and remained in service until 1954. Each commando was made of local volunteers called " partisans" (from the

anticommunist Anti-communism is political and ideological opposition to communism. Organized anti-communism developed after the 1917 October Revolution in the Russian Empire, and it reached global dimensions during the Cold War, when the United States and the ...

and pro-French Tho, Nung and Hmong people (also known as the Mèo), minorities) as well as "returned"

Viet Minh The Việt Minh (; abbreviated from , chữ Nôm and Hán tự: ; french: Ligue pour l'indépendance du Viêt Nam, ) was a national independence coalition formed at Pác Bó by Hồ Chí Minh on 19 May 1941. Also known as the Việt Minh Fro ...

POW and was commanded by a young French Non-commissioned officer (units were named after them) with an assistant (''adjoint''), most of them were detached from GCMA units. Since former ''Viet Minh'' regulars were part of the troops, occasional betrayal happened. A famous case is Commando Nord Viet-Nam N°24 "Vandenberghe" ( ''des Tigres Noirs'', lit. "the Black Tigers") whose leader, Adjudant-Chef Roger Vandenberghe (24, former '' 6e Régiment d'Infanterie Coloniale'' a.k.a. ''6e RIC''), was murdered in his sleep by Sous-Lieutenant Nguien Tinh Khoi - the former Commander of the ''Viet-Minh'' 308th Brigade 36th Regiment's Assault Unit, who had been captured by the French during the 1951

Battle of the Day River The Battle of the Day River (French: ''bataille du Day'') took place between late May and early June 1951, around the Day River Delta in the Gulf of Tonkin. Part of the First Indochina War, the battle was the first conventional campaign of Võ N ...

.Report on Commando Nord Vietnam N°24 "Vandenberghe" in July 1951
French Defense Ministry

Groupement de Commandos Mixtes Aéroportés

The GCMA was active in

Vietnam Vietnam or Viet Nam ( vi, Việt Nam, ), officially the Socialist Republic of Vietnam,., group="n" is a country in Southeast Asia, at the eastern edge of mainland Southeast Asia, with an area of and population of 96 million, making i ...

(

Tonkin Tonkin, also spelled ''Tongkin'', ''Tonquin'' or ''Tongking'', is an exonym referring to the northern region of Vietnam. During the 17th and 18th centuries, this term referred to the domain '' Đàng Ngoài'' under Trịnh lords' control, includ ...

) and Laos during the

First Indochina War The First Indochina War (generally known as the Indochina War in France, and as the Anti-French Resistance War in Vietnam) began in French Indochina from 19 December 1946 to 20 July 1954 between France and Việt Minh (Democratic Republic of Vi ...

Groupement Mixte d'Intervention

The GCMA name changed in the mid-1950s to be replaced with ''Groupement Mixte d'Intervention'' or GMI ("Mixed Intervention Group") as it was no more an airborne unit.

Groupement Léger d'Intervention

During the Algerian War that broke out shortly after the end of the Indochina War, the SDECE created in 1955 a new unit inspired by the Vietnamese experience. The GMI became the ''Groupement Léger d'Intervention'' or GLI ("Light Intervention Group") involving loyalist Muslims fighting with the French against the FLN rebels.

Operations

Special operations include: * Operation Toulouse (1953) *

Operation Condor (1954) Operation Condor (also known as Operation D) was a secret operation of the French Groupement de Commandos Mixtes Aéroportés against the Viet Minh supply column. It happened during the First Indochina War's climactic Battle of Dien Bien Phu from A ...

(a.k.a. Operation D, "D" is for ''desperado'')

Notable commanders

Roger Trinquier Roger Trinquier (20 March 1908 – 11 January 1986) was a French Army officer during World War II, the First Indochina War and the Algerian War, serving mainly in airborne and special forces units. He was also a counter-insurgency theorist, mainl ...

- director * Paul Aussaresses *

Jean Sassi Jean Sassi (11 June 1917 – 9 January 2009) was a French Army colonel and intelligence service officer, former " ''Jedburgh''" ( BCRA) of France and Far East. Commando chief of the SDECE's 11th Shock Parachutist Regiment (''11e régiment par ...

(1953–1955) * General Vang Pao GCMA- Laos, ("Meo Maquis")

Indochina Wars The Indochina Wars ( vi, Chiến tranh Đông Dương) was a series of wars which were waged in Southeast Asia from 1946 to 1991, by communist Indochinese forces (mainly the Democratic Republic of Vietnam) against anti-communist forces (mainly Fr ...

leader of Hmong people, and later

Royal Lao Army The Royal Lao Army (french: Armée royale du Laos – ARL), also designated by its anglicized title RLA, was the Land Component of the Royal Lao Armed Forces (FAR), the official military of the Kingdom of Laos during the North Vietnamese invasi ...

Major General Major general (abbreviated MG, maj. gen. and similar) is a military rank used in many countries. It is derived from the older rank of sergeant major general. The disappearance of the "sergeant" in the title explains the apparent confusion of ...

References

Video archives

Official video by the French Ministry of Defense (Operation D, 1954)

External links

Archive photographs of Commando Nord Vietnam n°24 "Vandenberghe" aka "Black Tigers" (July 1951)
French Ministry of Defense *GCMA/GMI: A French Experience in Counterinsurgency during the French Indochina War, Philippe Pottier {{DEFAULTSORT:Groupement De Commandos Mixtes Aeroportes Special forces of France