people." The party was to "win over the elements that can be won over and neutralize those which can be neutralized." Ho Chi Minh stressed that the Indochinese Democratic Front should work closely with the French Popular Front and the French Communist Party. He also urged that the party show itself to the people to be the most active and loyal organ, and thus win the leading position in the Indochinese Democratic Front.15

Leaders of the Indochinese Democratic Front in Tonkin were Pham Van Dong, future premier of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam, and Vo Nguyen Giap who, as commander of the North Vietnamese Army in 1954, defeated the French at Dien Bien Phu. According to Giap:

Our Party [during the 1936-1939 period] cleverly combined the overt, legal, semi-overt, and semi-legal struggles with secret and illegal activities and started a vigorous movement of political struggle in the cities and rural areas, to oppose colonialist reactionaries and the feudalistic king-official clique, to demand freedom, democracy, and a better life, to oppose aggressive fascism, and to protect world peace.16

Ho had remained in Moscow since 1933. In the fall of 1938 he returned to China where he wrote articles, using the pen name P. C. Lin, for publication in Vietnam, and was otherwise active in behalf of the Communist revolutionary cause in Indochina.

Japanese Seapower and Indochina

In the decade of the 1930s Japan applied increasing pressure in Southeast Asia. In 1931–1932, the Japanese Navy supported military operations against China in response to that country's boycott of Japanese goods. Aerial bombing of the civilian population, shore bombardment, and infantry actions resulted in thousands of Chinese deaths before the Japanese withdrew their forces. In November 1936, Japan signed an agreement with Germany to cooperate in combating activities of the Communist Inter

national.

The following July a skirmish between Chinese troops and a Japanese military detachment stationed near Peking provided Japan with an excuse

15

16

'Ho, On Revolution, pp. 130–31.

Giap, Banner of People's War, p. 8; Joseph Buttinger, Vietnam: A Political History (New York: Frederick A. Praeger, 1968), p. 182.

for outright war. The Japanese immediately blockaded the Chinese coast. However, a land route into China used for supplying badly needed munitions, which began at the French Indochina port of Haiphong and crossed the border into Yunnan Province, remained open. In August 1937, Japan protested the French shipment of munitions through Indochina. A concerned French government sought to placate Tokyo by restricting supplies destined for China to gasoline, trucks, and textiles.1

Increasingly it became evident to American policy-makers that the future of Southeast Asia hinged on the ability of Britain and the United States to counterbalance the naval might of Japan. Informal Anglo-American staff conversations, held in London during December 1937 and January 1938, explored the possibility of American and British naval cooperation in containing Japanese expansion. Although no agreement was reached, the discussions dealt with the concept that the Royal Navy would base major forces at Singapore, while the United States Navy would establish a concentration at Pearl Harbor.18

The European colonies in Southeast Asia were of particular importance to Japan, both as a source of raw materials, particularly oil, and as a lucrative market for manufactured goods. Late in 1938, in announcing the basis on which Japan expected to make peace, Prince Fuminaro Konoye, the Japanese Prime Minister, spoke not only of military occupation and the development of an economic protectorate in China, but also of the establishment of a "New Order in East Asia." Later the Japanese referred to the "Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere."

19

That same year, as part of her continuing attempts to dominate China, Japan advanced south by sea, launching amphibious operations to capture Hankow and Canton. French apprehension for the safety of Indochina mounted in February 1939, when a Japanese naval task force landed troops on the island of Hainan at the entrance to the Gulf of Tonkin. A month later, when the Japanese occupied the nominally French-controlled

17 For a more detailed description of the Japanese-French negotiation, see Buttinger, From Colonialism to the Vietminh, p. 228.

18

Samuel E. Morison, The Rising Sun in the Pacific, 1931-April 1942, Vol. III of History of United States Naval Operations in World War II (Boston: Little, Brown and Co., 1948), p. 49; John McVickar Haight, Jr., "Franklin D. Roosevelt and a Naval Quarantine of Japan," Pacific Historical Review, XL (May 1971), pp. 203-06.

19 Richard W. Leopold, The Growth of American Foreign Policy: A History (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1962), p. 538; Togo Shigenori, The Cause of Japan (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1956), pp. 37-42.

Spratly Islands, 300 miles southeast of Indochina, it became clear to France that its Indochinese colonies and protectorates were indeed in jeopardy. Evidence that Japan was furnishing military aid to Thailand, so that the latter could regain territory that then was part of the French protectorate in Cambodia, confirmed these fears.20

At this juncture, Britain, facing the increasing probability of war, asked the United States to reopen staff conversations. In May 1939, a British officer informed the Navy's War Plans Division in Washington that the need for naval ships in the Mediterranean would prevent the deployment of a battle force to Singapore. The British suggested that the United States undertake the defense of the Malaya barrier. No longer could American planners count on substantial British naval assistance in the Far East."

21

On the international scene, the Communists temporarily abandoned the anti-fascist theme when the Soviet Union signed a treaty of non-aggression with Germany on 23 August 1939. Following the German invasion of Poland eight days later and the start of World War II, France outlawed the Communist Party at home and in its colonies. The French Security Service then carried out mass arrests in Cochin China. An uprising initiated by the Communists on 22 November 1940, was crushed by the French who employed troops, police, and aircraft against the insurgents.22

At the outbreak of war, France had in Far Eastern waters a small force consisting of 2 cruisers, 6 sloops, 1 surveying ship, and 2 additional auxiliaries, as well as a number of river gunboats.23 Although the United States Navy was not present in strength in the Far East, it had the only major force in the Pacific capable of challenging Japanese control of the sea.

When Hitler overran Holland and France in 1940, he created almost perfect circumstances for the Japanese to seize then largely defenseless French Indochina. Just prior to the fall of France, Japan demanded that the government newly installed at Vichy terminate all military shipments to China via Haiphong and that a Japanese military control commission be stationed at the Vietnamese-Chinese border to enforce the ban. An impotent French government conceded these demands on 20 June. On 30 August, Vichy recognized Japan's "pre-eminent position" in the Far

20

"Morison, Rising Sun in the Pacific, p. 49.

22

23

Buttinger, Vietnam: A Political History, p. 185.

Lancaster, Emancipation of French Indochina, p. 85.

'Jacques Mordal, The Navy in Indochina, trans., N.L. Williams and A.W. Atkinson, 1967, Naval History Division copy (Paris: Amiot-Dumont, 1953), pp. 3-4.

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.

24

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.

25 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.

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