Jean-Étienne Valluy
| Jean Etienne Valluy | |
|---|---|
| Born | 15 May 1899 Rive-de-Gier, France |
| Died | 4 January 1970 (aged 70) Paris, France |
| Buried at | Rive-de-Gier, France |
| Allegiance | France |
| Service/branch | French Army |
| Years of service | 1918-1960 |
| Rank | Général d'Armée |
| Commands held | French Far East Expeditionary Corps |
| Battles/wars |
World War I World War II First Indochina War |
Jean Etienne Valluy (15 May 1899 – 4 January 1970) was a French general.
He was born in Rive-de-Gier, Loire, on 15 May 1899 to Claude (Claudius) Valluy and Jeanne, Adrienne Cossanges.
In 1917 he entered the military academy of Saint-Cyr. He left as “Aspirant” in July 1918 and joined the Régiment d'Infanterie Coloniale du Maroc (RICM) in August 1918. He took part in the last four months of the First World War, where he was wounded in the neck and received the first of his citations which included the Croix de Guerre.
At the outbreak of the war, Valluy was a Major and operations officer with the XX1 Corps, captured by the Germans he was released in 1941 and by 1944 had become a Brigadier General in the First Army. In 1945 he was given command of the 9th Colonial Infantry Division (9th DIC).
The French colonial government had co-existed uneasily with the Japanese occupying force during the Second World War but had been swept aside by Japanese military action in March 1945, leading to the Vietnamese declaration of independence in August 1945. By 1946, the French had re-occupied the south of Viêtnam and in July 1946 Valluy replaced Philippe Leclerc de Hauteclocque as the commander of French Forces in Indochina. Following the breakdown of negotiations between the French and Viet Minh in August 1946, and amid ongoing tensions between French and Viet Minh forces in Tonkin, on 20 November a French patrol boat seized a Chinese junk carrying gasoline and the Viet Minh then seized the French boat arresting its crew, rioting then broke out in Haiphong resulting in the deaths of 240 Vietnamese and 7 French. On 22 November Valluy ordered the local commander, Colonel Pierre-Louis Debès to take complete control of Haiphong "and force the Vietnamese Government and army into submission. French infantry with armored units went through Haiphong fighting house to house against the Vietminh. French aircraft bombed and strafed while the cruiser Suffren, in the harbor, shelled the city, demolishing whole neighborhoods of flimsy structures. Refugees streamed into nearby provinces with their belongings in baskets and on bicycles, and the naval guns shelled them as well. Days passed before the French finally overcame the last Vietminh snipers. The Vietnamese claimed that the French actions caused twenty thousand deaths. A French admiral later estimated that no more than six thousand Vietnamese had been killed. Vu Quoc Uy, then chairman of the Haiphong municipal committee, said in an interview in 1981 that the toll had been between five hundred and a thousand.
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