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East and agreed to its occupation of certain military transportation centers in Tonkin. Three days later Marshal Henri Philippe Pétain, French head of state, authorized negotiations to establish the terms for Japan's entry into Indochina. When the French colonial governor, Vice Admiral Jean Decoux, protested, Pétain wired him to comply and "give an example of discipline to all Frenchmen." 24

In the ensuing discussions held at Hanoi, between General Issaku Nishihara and General Maurice Martin, the French general initially followed a policy of delay hoping for a United States naval demonstration that might persuade Japan to ease its demands. The demonstration never occurred. So, an agreement was signed on 22 September 1940 allowing 6,000 Japanese troops to be stationed in Indochina, while another 25,000 were permitted to transit the country.25

The primary Japanese objectives were, quite logically, the two most strategic transportation points in northern Indochina-Haiphong and Dong Dang-Lang Son. Despite the agreement, or possibly in ignorance of it, Japanese armed forces struck against both. Haiphong, the major port of Tonkin and the sea terminal for river, road, and rail transportation to the Yunnan and Kwangsi Provinces of China, was bombed. Dong Dang and nearby Lang Son, which controlled the road and rail routes to Nanning and a junction of Indochina's Route 4 paralleling the border, were attacked from China by Japanese troops. All French resistance to the occupation had ceased by 25 September 1940.26

The Franco-Thai Naval "War"

A sequel to France's fall in 1940 was another capitulation after a border war with Thailand. In the summer and fall of 1940, taking advantage of the plight of the French and with the encouragement of the Japanese, the Thais demanded the cession of certain Laotian territories on the east side of the Mekong River, as well as three provinces in western Cambodia.

Quoted in Ellen J. Hammer, The Struggle for Indochina: 1940-1955 (Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 1954), pp. 16–21; Lancaster, Emancipation of French Indochina, pp. 91-92; Fall, Two Viet-Nams, pp. 42-43.

28

Ibid., pp. 43-44.

Hammer, Struggle for Indochina, p. 22; For events from June through October 1940, see U.S., State Department, The Far East, Vol. IV of Foreign Relations of the United States: Diplomatic Papers: 1940 (Washington: GPO, 1955), pp. 23–180.

All of these areas were claimed as rightfully belonging to Thailand. Japan supported the Thais. Thus emboldened, the Thai prime minister ordered his troops into battle along the Indochinese-Thai frontier in November 1940.27

Admiral Decoux decided to mount a naval attack against the Thais. The French force included 1 cruiser (La Motte Picquet), 2 large and 2 small sloops, and 8 seaplanes. After assessing the situation, the squadron commander, Rear Admiral Jules Terraux, ordered a surprise attack against the Thai naval force, which comprised 2 coast guard vessels, 2 gunboats, approximately 16 torpedo boats, and other miscellaneous ships and craft located off Ko Chang, an island in the Gulf of Siam.

At dawn on 17 January 1941, the five French ships struck the unsuspecting Thai ships with repeated salvos of gunfire. La Motte Picquet also launched three torpedoes, one of which hit a large torpedo boat. After an engagement lasting one hour and forty-five minutes, the French withdrew, leaving behind three torpedo boats and two coast guard vessels of the Thai squadron sunk or destroyed. The Thai air arm, which could have been a threat to the French, appeared only belatedly because of difficulties in establishing radio communications with the surface force. Later in the morning several Thai aircraft did manage to harass the retiring French ships but scored no hits in their attack.28

Five days later the Japanese commander in Hanoi advised the French governor general that Japanese warships would proceed along the coasts of Indochina and Thailand and advised him to prevent any incidents from occurring. Following negotiations in Tokyo, the French, on 9 May 1941, ceded to Thailand the territory demanded in Cambodia and Laos.

29

The small French naval force which returned in triumph to Vietnam slowly dwindled. It had ceased to be a fighting force of any consequence in the Far East.

* Hammer, Struggle for Indochina, p. 25; Mordal, Navy in Indochina, p. 21; James V. Martin, Jr., "Thai-American Relations in World War II," The Journal of Asian Studies, XXII (Aug. 1963), pp. 452-55.

28

'Mordal, Navy in Indochina, pp. 19–49; Hammer, Struggle for Indochina, pp. 25-26.

20 Ibid., p. 26; U.S., State Department, The Far East, Vol. V. of Foreign Relations of the United States: Diplomatic Papers: 1941 (Washington: GPO, 1956), pp. 38-41, 147.

The Viet Minh

Ho returned to Tonkin in February 1941 and exercised his leadership from clandestine locations in the north. He convened a meeting of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Vietnam on 10 May. The conference lasted until the 19th, by which time the committee decided on a new strategy highlighting the slogan "national liberation." Further, this body established the Viet Minh, changing the names of various mass organizations to "Associations for National Salvation," and decided to step up preparations for an insurrection to be undertaken at the most propitious moment. Decisions were later made to build guerrilla bases and to strengthen leadership of the military and para-military forces. In "a letter from abroad," written soon after the meeting, Ho Chi Minh called for united action to overthrow the Japanese and the French as a means toward achieving victory for "Vietnam's Revolution" and "the World's Revolution." 30 Responding to the call, the Vietnamese Communists staged another uprising against the French on 6 June 1941. Again the Communist effort was suppressed.

When Germany invaded Russia later that month, Soviet foreign policy shifted once more. It was established that the immediate task was to defeat the Axis powers through the combined action of the Soviet Union and its allies. To that end, the whole-hearted support of Communist parties was sought and the Comintern was dissolved.31

The 50,000 French and colonial military personnel in Indochina, and the region's 23 million civilian inhabitants, including 40,000 Europeans, faced the bleak future of living under a de facto Japanese occupation. On 6 May 1941, Japan and France signed a treaty revealing the commercial benefits that Japan expected to obtain from Indochina. Under its provisions all rice, corn, rubber, coal, and other commodities, which formerly had been exported, were reserved exclusively for Japan and the Japanese occupation forces.32

In addition to obtaining these concessions, there were other advantages gained by Japan. Not only were the routes from Haiphong to China blocked, but the Japanese had obtained a Southeast Asian port for their fleet, at

* Ibid., pp. 51–52; Pham Van Dong, 25 Years of National Struggle and Construction (Hanoi: Foreign Languages Publishing House, 1970).

Robert V. Daniels, ed., A Documentary History of Communism (New York: Random House, 1960), Vol. II, pp. 129–32.

"Hammer, Struggle for Indochina, pp. 11-14; Buttinger, Vietnam: A Political History, p. 189.

Cam Ranh Bay. Only 715 miles from Manila, the bay was centrally located for naval attacks against the Philippines, Borneo, the Netherlands East Indies, Malaya, and Thailand. Furthermore, Cam Ranh Bay provided a well-located base from which to exercise control of the South China Sea.

In persuading the Vichy government to cooperate with them, the Japanese shrewdly satisfied the French desire to maintain some semblance of authority. By retaining nominal power in Indochina, France preserved civic order, thus allowing the Japanese to reap the advantages of occupation with a minimum of effort. Later in World War II the Japanese Army began to "protect" Vietnamese nationalists from the French police. The occupation forces also imported Japanese teachers, cultural counselors, and propaganda officers to win over the Vietnamese people.33

Indochina and the Road to Pearl Harbor

As events in the Pacific moved swiftly toward general war, the Japanese occupation of strategically important Indochina became one of the major issues dividing the United States and Japan. In July 1941, the Japanese foreign minister announced that Japan and Vichy had reached an agreement on the joint protection of Indochina. Soon afterward the Japanese demanded the right to occupy airfields in southern Indochina and to use the port facilities at Tourane, Saigon, and Cam Ranh Bay for their fleet. Unlike the 1940 actions, these new demands could not be justified as necessary for cutting off the flow of materials to China. Instead, they portended a deeper drive into Southeast Asia. The American reaction in the summer of 1941 was to freeze Japanese assets in the United States and to enact other economic curbs.34

In Imperial Conferences on 2 July and 6 September 1941, the Japanese government made important decisions that would affect the course of negotiations with the United States. The leadership decided not to "decline war with Britain and America" if the United States failed to meet Japanese demands relating to the "Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere." To these ends the use of French Indochina was considered indispensable.35

Ibid., pp. 183, 191-93; Hammer, Struggle for Indochina, pp. 31-33.

U.S., State Department, Foreign Relations of the United States, Japan: 1931-1941 (Washington: GPO, 1943), Vol. II, pp. 266–67, 318-22; Togo Shigenori, Cause of Japan, p. 51; Lancaster, Emancipation of French Indochina, p. 95.

35

Togo Shigenori, Cause of Japan, pp. 351-55, contains the full text of the decision.

On 20 November Special Envoy Saburo Kurusu and Admiral Kichisaburo Nomura, Ambassador to the United States, presented Washington with what proved to be Japan's final offer. Japan proposed to withdraw its troops from southern Indochina and to reposition them in the north in return for the practice of a non-discriminatory trade policy by the United States and the cessation of American military aid to China. Moreover, Kurusu and Nomura claimed that, when Japan had achieved peace in China, all troops would be withdrawn from Indochina and no further advances by the Japanese armed forces would be made into Southeast Asia. This arrangement fell far short of satisfying American policy-makers.

A Japanese carrier force was already on its way toward Hawaii when the Japanese received Secretary of State Cordell Hull's reply of 26 November 1941. Hull demanded, among other things, that Japan withdraw ground, naval, air, and police forces from China and Indochina. The note also called for Japan to conclude with the American, British, Chinese, Dutch, and Thai governments a pledge to "respect the territorial integrity of French Indochina. . . ." Further, the communication proposed that Japan, along with the United States, "give up all extraterritorial rights in China" and endeavor to obtain the agreement of the British and other governments to do the same. In return, Washington promised to lift the embargo and to normalize trading relations with Japan.

36

In the hours following this diplomatic exchange, the news became even more ominous. Late on 25 November, Washington read intelligence reports indicating that a Japanese expeditionary force with five divisions embarked had steamed south from Shanghai for a possible attack on the Philippines, Indochina, Thailand, the Dutch East Indies, Singapore, or Burma. For the next few days the United States watched the progress of the Japanese task force. Secretary of War Henry L. Stimson wrote in his diary that "if this expedition was allowed to round the southern point of Indochina, this whole chain of disastrous events would be set on foot of going.'

37

In late 1941 no one appreciated the threat posed by Japan's moves to

Ibid., pp. 161-63, 171–72, contains an analysis of the Hull note as seen from the Japanese point of view; Cordell Hull, The Memoirs of Cordell Hull (New York: The Macmillan Co., 1948), Vol. II, p. 1083; Foreign Relations of the United States, Japan: 1931-1941, Vol. II, pp. 755-56.

37

U.S., Congress, Hearings Before the Joint Committee on the Investigation of the Pearl Harbor Attack (79th Cong., 2nd sess.) (Washington: GPO, 1946), pt. 11, pp. 5433-36 (hereafter cited as Pearl Harbor Hearings).

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